The stairwell smelled like rust and air that hadn't moved in years.The survivor followed the rail down to the next level, the beam of his flashlight grazing
signs on the wall: SECURITY LEVEL 2, AUTHORIZED RESEARCH ONLY,
NO WIRELESS DEVICES BEYOND THIS POINT.The deeper he went, the
warmer the air became, as if something below still remembered power.A heavy door waited at the bottom. The window in its center was fogged withcondensation from the inside.He wiped it with his sleeve and saw rows ofempty desks, overturned stools, and a single monitor pulsing faint blue.He hesitated, then pushed through. The hinges sighed.On the desk nearest the wall lay the journal, open where he'd left off.He sat again and began to read.
[Excerpt — Doctor's Journal — 16 May 2032 — Site Orientation]
The facility reveals itself one locked door at a time.No signs, no nameplates,
just steel and silence.Every corridor looks identical until you notice the security badges on the walls; they tell you who used to work here. Most are scratched blank.We're thirty meters down. There's only one elevator
and two stairwells, both guarded by biometric locks that record every movement.The military liaison calls it containment assurance.The rest of us call it house arrest with lab privileges.Power is independent—three
generators, redundant cooling.If the world above vanished, this place would run for a decade.Sometimes I wonder if that's the point.
The survivor shifted his light across the page.Someone had drawn a diagram
in the margin—a circle inside a square, the square shaded until the paper had
nearly torn.He traced it with one finger, then kept reading.
[Excerpt — Doctor's Journal — 17 May 2032 — Operational Secrecy]
They won't let us communicate outside except through encrypted relay, reviewed before transmission.No phones, no internet, no letters.Even Carver's messages from the surface arrive printed on thermal paper,censored in black bars like classified orders.I imagine her voice
behind the redactions: remember why you write. The oversight committee
insists the work remains pre-public, their phrase for invisible.They say disclosure before stability could cause panic.I think panic is the correct response to what we're attempting.Still, we comply. We always comply when the funding is this generous.
A sound like distant rain tapped above him.The survivor looked up, but the
ceiling held only pipes and shadow.The tapping stopped as soon as he noticed it.
[Excerpt — Doctor's Journal — 18 May 2032 — Preparation for Animal Testing] Today we completed the new containment enclosures.Stainless frames, negative pressure, glass thick enough to stop a bullet.The technicians call them terrariums—a joke that isn't
funny.The first animal subjects will arrive tomorrow: lab-bred mice,disease-free,tagged and catalogued. We'll infect a control group with induced cancer lines, then introduce HRV-13.If the regeneration triggers without neurological side effects, we proceed to higher organisms. I find myself checking the sample freezer every hour.The vials sit there like sleeping seeds waiting for spring. I keep thinking about my son's last day in the hospital.The way his fingers twitched even after the monitors went flat. Sometimes I tell myself it was residual current.Sometimes I hope it
was something more.
The survivor turned another page.The handwriting here had grown tighter,
more angular, as if the writer were holding his breath while writing.
[Excerpt — Doctor's Journal — 19 May 2032 — Security Brief]
Two uniformed officers arrived today to inspect the labs.They smiled,asked nothing, and left us a new checklist of prohibitions: no unsupervised access, no personal experiments, no deviation from protocol.At the bottom,someone had added a single handwritten note: Remember what's in the dark.None of us knows who wrote it.Later, when the others left, I walked the corridors alone.The motion sensors clicked on one by one ahead of me,shutting off behind like a line of blinking eyes.For a moment I felt thebuilding breathing in sync with me.Tomorrow we begin with the mice.I told the team to get some sleep.I don't think any of us will.
The survivor shut the book slowly.His own breathing echoed off the concrete
walls.Something metallic shifted in the far corridor—the faint ring of a dropped tool rolling, then stillness.He turned off his light and waited until the dark felt solid again.When he finally opened his eyes, he realized he'd been holding the journal against his chest like something alive.