The 0714 Files: File #1 Inferno (Remake 2)

Chapter 53

The air is just as stale in here as it was in the greenhouse control room. It became pitch black past a certain point while climbing down the ladder.

The room has to be a maintenance tunnel, or something integral to the lab as giant plastic pipes run through here. Some that I'm guessing provide support to the greenhouse flooring. The biggest of the pipes is taller than me, running in from the wall on one end next to a door and curving to the right, out of sight.

My SLS is out, ready to shoot anything in sight when I gradually push the door open, a breath held in my lungs from anticipation. I can hear those plant thing's groans echoing into here from up above. A cold sweat had spread over my body in dread they were going to drop onto me on the ladder and that'd be the end of my escape.

Surprisingly they didn't, but as I enter what turns out to be a hallway and the door closes their groans out. I'm far from the possibility of calming down, not at the lack of light in the entire area. What could have happened for parts of the lab to hold no power, but others are still running? Scarcely too, as some rooms have almost no light in them.

Letting loose a slow, calculated breath from between my teeth as I creep further into the hallway. A light glows from around a corner to my left, but all it does is illuminate the wall it's directed at. An emergency light I wonder as I glimpse its way for a split second, blinded by the light instantly so I look ahead. Blinking a few times to see properly again, the intensity behind the light is something I didn't entirely expect.

I thought I saw a door though, and an abandoned janitor's mop bucket beside it with no body. So I suck it up and shield my eyes against the light as I turn into the short hall. Confirming that there's another hydraulic door, but in the middle is a black bar. A flashing sign of an electricity symbol with a line crossed through can be seen. Letters on the door read: "Server Room". Nothing that would help me could be found in there, even if I could get in.

"No power," I whisper, already knowing that though.

Pivoting, I turn around and head the original direction, the hallway opening into a small rundown lounge with bodies everywhere. Much like the corridor to the cafeteria, these walls too are sprayed in dried blood that I know indicate bodies rotting not far ahead before the buzzing of flies are heard and the sight of them is made visible with the flashlight. Torn apart, some eviscerated and others missing chunks of flesh, their heads, other body parts. A total bloodbath.

This place was no safer from the wrath of the T-Virus. How many of these bodies are truly dead? How many have taken that false dead state like in the station can't be determined from just looking. If I was stupid enough to fire a bullet at one, I could answer that question really quick.

I'm not stupid though. I'm certainly not suicidal.

I wish there was a damn map of this laboratory, something like that would've made our lives a hell of a lot easier in this blind searching.

Two vending machines are shoved against the back wall, one has the glass busted out and had been raided at some point. There's nothing left inside it. I thought I'd seen that another one in the lobby was in the same condition. The situation in this place must've become extremely dire, it wouldn't take much to figure out that these scientists had found themselves trapped down here as everyone turned and that huge plant along with those plant things broke out in the greenhouse. To the side of the one with the broken glass I notice is a hole in the wall, red and white warning labels are plastered to the side with an electric symbol on it.