Changed: Janitor's Closet

Chapter 2

As much as you hated doing this, you started opening as many doors as you could, most of them either leading to another hallway or leading to a cul-de-sac. Some of them had goo creatures behind them. You shut those doors closed as soon as you saw them. After hours of searching through the place, you start to realize: you might just be alone here. Stuck with monsters that could very well take your humanity away. And you were quite keen on keeping it, thank you. How long were you out? Days? Weeks? Months? What if it were years? Maybe not years, you'd be dead because of hunger and thirst this very moment if it was the case, but still. Talking about hunger and thirst, you were extremely hungry, as if you hadn't eaten anything in months. You don't know how you never noticed this before, but now, you do. So now, not only do you have to find survivors, you also had to find some sort of sustenance so that you don't die. Would it be a better fate than to get caught by one of the blobs? You shake your head to try and get your mind off things. You continue opening and closing doors, hoping to find someone. But you never did. You opened these doors to find more doors and the occasional slime.

You open a door, but this one was different. It lead to an empty pod thing, along with a drainage pipe in the middle of the room and a huge mess on the floor. There were boxes lying around, papers all over the place, and a post-it note, which was probably written by a person trying to remind themselves to do something. You pick up a random piece of paper off the ground. It reads:

"Test Subject: #0767. Description: Male adult. 5"10'. Status: Infected. Procedure: Direct skin contact with sample #05 in testing room 5. Conclusion: Sample #05 took over the subject's body along with his conscience (See jointed pictures). The subject seemed to have cured from the virus. Experiment is a failure. Subject was shortly disposed of afterwards."

Well, there's another reason to not touch those globs of paint. But what caught the most interest in you in this article was the mention of being "infected" and of a certain "virus". Curious, you rummage through multiple papers - most of them describing other experiments. You pick a sheet of paper up, which the top part was ripped off. It reads:

"This virus can not only spread through animals, but also through plants as well. The virus is practically invisible when they infect either of those, since it doesn't affect them in any way. Only when the virus infects a human does it show its harmful effects. And so this is why I'm suggesting that we try and change the human DNA into one of an animal's. While it may not stop the spread, it will stop people from dying to the disease."

You were completely unaware of this virus. There was nothing about a virus on the news before you woke up here - at least, you don't think so. The question returned back into your head: how long were you out? You rush out of the room and into a doorway that lead to a balcony. You took a look into the distance.

Ruins.

Nothing but ruins.

Only a memory of what once was.

...

...

...

You collapse on the floor.

You breathe harder and faster by the second, holding onto the bars that stop you from falling off. If there were survivors, now, there aren't. You're alone. All alone, with nothing but a broom to defend yourself. You just want to jump off and end all of this immediately. But something tells you not to. Something tells you to carry on no matter what. But you don't want to. Is it even gonna be worth it? But that something tells you...

That there's someone behind you.

You turn around to see an anthropomorphic dog/wolf/canine on all fours, staring at you with hungry eyes. Its orange-to-yellow fur was shining in the sunlight, as it was probably made of the same material as those puddles of Liquid Paper™. You put two and two together: this man wanted to turn you into one of them. Why? You didn't know. Sexual gratification? Reproduction reasons? Instinct? Generally just hungry? All were equally good reasons. You got up and held your broom up, ready to whack him away the second the was-human even moves. The monster readied itself, aimed, and jumped into the air at you. As a reflex, you hit the wolf midair with the broom, knocking it to the side and sadly not pushing it off the balcony. You run back into the building, entering random doors, hoping that you would lose whatever the thing was. You ran and ran until you were sure you lost the creature. You huffed and puffed to regain your breath after the chase, the rush of adrenaline slowly dissipating. You hear a weird, metallic-ish sound, but think nothing of it. Then you hear it again. And again. The sound gradually came closer, and it sounded like it came from the vent in the narrow hallway. Then, out of the grid, you see a familiar face pop out. The animal from earlier had followed you here from the vents. You quickly squish its head with the broom. The dog then formed back into its normal shape, slithered out of the vent grid and stood before you.

"What do you want from me?" you ask, holding your broom up to its face.

Expectedly, they did not answer, and instead slowly walked towards you. Again, you swing at the sunset slime wolf, which did hit, but barely did anything to it, since it's a liquid. All it did was taint the broom with whatever material was made up of the animal. And then, as if a lightbulb appeared over your head and automatically illuminated, you had an idea. You opened the airtight door behind you and closed it once you had passed through it. But before it completely closed, you put the broom in between the two parts that made the door, creating a small crack. The canine, oblivious to your plans, slipped into the crack to try and reach you. You then pull the broom as hard as you can, pulling it out of the crack and closing the door on the mixture of water and cornstarch, which managed to chop its lower half off, the top half falling on the ground. You felt bad about it, but you didn't want to become a mindless monster, wandering the place for something to do. The now chopped in half glue individual flipped around, showing its eyes which filled with weird, gooey tears.

Okay, now you really felt bad.

You walked towards its body and dragged it away from the door, which surprisingly enough, didn't end up with the man of resin turning you into a dog or whatever. You opened up the door and saw its lower half also on the floor. You picked it up and placed it under the other half as it jointed itself back together. The non-Newtonian fluid quickly got up and ran for its life, since you did put it in great pain and, in doing so, almost killed it. You laid down on the floor, taking a great, big pause. You really needed it.