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Sane's ears twitched as he heard each creaking wane of metal and the crack and crumbling of concrete.
'No.. no... no....'
he passed by more intersections, rapidly looking left to right; scanning them for the sign he desperately searched.
Crack-Crash... The sound became more frequent with every step he took.
'n-'
He paused. a silver placard glinted in his eyes, and there it was, the green phosphorescent painted words he had been looking for: 'Subject Testing Sector. ' It was Ironic that his shelter would be found in the place of his worst memories.
Crash!
The sound snapped him out of his daze. Now wasn't the time for hesitating. Sane looked down the debris-narrowed corridor and exhaled, then started running again.
A bad dream, A nightmare that's what this was, but everything was too real. Sane felt every painful step he took. He felt debris prick his feet, broken rebar and pipes making small cuts on his arms and sides, making small tears and staining his clothes with his blood. But the pain felt distant compared to the nightmare that played in his head, the whirling buzz of saws, the piercing of needles, and the hot feeling of his skin as it was cut open by a cold blade of a scalpel.
Boom!
The sound roared behind him, snapping him out of his thoughts. Sane shook his head and focused on the path ahead. Right now, he needs to survive this mess and, maybe then, escape this hellish facility once and for all. But all he needed to do first was to get to that room.
A large square meter windowless room with metal solid floors and walls with an unknown thickness, sealed by a three-meter-thick, five-meter-tall steel door, reinforced with an additional three inches of solid steel. With a heavily armored room like this one, one might think such an impressive room as this was meant to guard and protect whoever was inside, but it never was. It was only used when those deranged doctors wanted to test their experiments against one another in their mad-driven way of scientific pursuit of knowledge, or blatant sadistic entertainment.
Sane saw the dim green light hanging above the door. He took a glance behind him and saw the hall completely covered in rubble; creaking and cracking was all around him now playing its nightmarish tune. He could feel the floor shake beneath his feet as the crashing sound of halls and rooms turned into a continuous rumble.
'Just a bit more.'
Sane's body was aching; every fiber of his being was strained. He felt like his whole body was burning; his eyes were hot, his throat parched, and his chest felt like a furnace. His modified body was reaching its limits.
'Just a little more.'
He pushed through the pain, the caged beacon light looming above, its green glow barely lighting his path ahead.
'Just-huh...'
The door was rising, and the dim green glow of the caged beacon light rose with it, higher it ascended, then it disappeared. Before he even realized it, he was falling.
|||II|||||||\\\\Snap... II|||//|||||||||\\\||||
||||IIIII|||||III||||II|||||III|||||Crack.////||||III|||||II||
|||IIII|||III||\Thud.../|||||IIII|||IIII||||||
Blurry red and foggy black was all Sane saw. He had honestly no idea where he was or how far he had fallen. But not that it mattered, he was probably dying; his ribs were crushed, his right arm broken, and his right lower leg snapped in half. But even in this broken and wrecked state. He could still feel his body shift and change, living tissue and muscle squirming and writhing, slowly reconnecting veins and nerves in a desperate fight for survival.
______________ __ ______ ________ _ _
Regeneration: a wondrous ability that makes anyone seemingly immortal, allowing them to fully recover from any serious wound or sickness, regrowing severed limbs from where they were cut. But everything must come from something. It is impossible for something to be created from nothing, and his regeneration was no different; there was always a price to be paid.
____ __ _ _ ____ ___ ______ _________
Drip... drip... Sane awoke to the uncomfortable feeling of cold water dripping on his face.
"Aghh."
He groaned and weakly sat upright; a pain shot through his spine and abdomen, dragging a hiss from his lips. He breathed slowly and looked around, trying and failing to regain his Bearings. Obviously, He had fallen deeper into the Facility, but just how deep was something he did not know.
Crack-crumble..
Sane turned his focus to the crumbling wall a few feet ahead of him, the ray of light coming through the opening, drawing his focus. Sane slowly stood up from the rubble, his body screaming at him to stop. He took a step forward; a jolt of pain made him wince. Slowly, he made his way to the opening, limping and his hand tracing the wall for support.
Sane soon found himself at the edge of the crack; the beam of light coming through it gave him slight hope and a wave of anxiety. He took a deep breath; the pungent smell of stagnant water, wet stone, and rusted metal assaulted his nose, making him feel more sick than he already was. He forced himself not to vomit as he stepped into the light.
"Agh-" Sane squinted as the light hit his eyes, its unwelcome brightness stinging his retinas
He groaned as he raised his hand to cover his eyes. Slowly, his eyes grew accustomed to the brightness through the gaps in his fingers. A portable floodlight was what greeted him, as he soon found himself in a large domed room, with wires of varying sizes snaking throughout the floor connecting batteries to floodlights of varying shapes and sizes that messily lit up the room.
Sane's focus turned to the large marble cube in the middle of the room that was surrounded and illuminated by the majority of the floodlights. A six-meter-tall marble cube, each side of which was engraved with unfamiliar symbols and figures that were beautifully and meticulously embossed with obsidian and gold that seemingly glowed in the light.
Grand was the only word for it; never in his life did he think he could see such a creation before. It was the complete opposite of the sterile rooms and halls that he was so used to seeing in the Facility; it gave him a sense of awe to think that people were capable of making such wonder.
Though his sense of wonder quickly faded as the ground rumbled, and he felt the dust fall on his head, reminding him of his current predicament. He turned around, but he found his entrance covered with rubble.
'How did-'
Sane shook his head. Now isn't the time to ask questions; he still had no idea how long this room was going to hold out. He needed an exit.
Rough, cracked, and cold. They were all the same; every side and curvature of the room was the same, and there was no exit. He had already limped around the room twice out of desperation, tracing the rough wall, tapping it, hoping for a hollow opening. Sadly, there was none. Sane sighed as he looked up, seeing the shadowed figure of a metal hatch and the broken ladder leading up to it. Filled him with the familiar feeling of hopelessness.
Sane looked back at the grand cube in the center of the room, its awe-inspiring craftsmanship offering a slight distraction. Slowly, he made his way to it, admiring its detail as he got closer to it. Even if he didn't understand what these engraved symbols and figures represented, he could still admire how well it was made.
He reached out and touched it... Strangely, it felt warm and he didn't think much about it. He was trapped with no way out and is probably going to get crushed or be buried alive; the former seemed the kinder. The ground shook, and dust fell. Sane sat down and leaned his back against the cube, feeling the subtle warmth on his back gave him little comfort, closing his eyes; he tilted his head back and felt its warmth brush his hair.
Thump... thud...
Large stone chunks fell around the room, smashing floodlights and batteries like insects. Those that still survived flickered and went out as their wires were crushed and torn. The ground was vibrated as wide stone slabs of the ceiling fell and met the hard, unloving ground. The walls cracked, caved in, and the ceiling collapsed into large pieces.
Sane glanced up and saw a large chunk of stone barreling down at him. However, at that moment, it felt like time had slowed to a painfully slow pace. He could see each side and surface of the rock as it tumbled down, and the specks and pebbles around it descended like snow.
'close... so close-'
A few inches before it hit his face, he felt a sudden tug on the back of his shirt; a hand on his shoulders, a claw grasped his waist, and a tendril snaked around his neck, then he quickly found himself being dragged forcefully into the cube.