O U T | The Group Chat

CHAPTER 5

He sat in a small lab he was assigned. His body was awkwardly leaned forward, putting his spine in an uncomfortable position as he intently watched the desk in front of him.

On it stood a laboratory flask filled halfway with an orange substance. His ticket home. The savior of his dignity or a curse of his humanity.

He hung his head down and massaged his eyebrows. It had to work. It had to.

He pushed himself up off his knees and grabbed the flask. He moved it around watching as the liquid coated the glass for a while before crawling back to the main mass.

He tightened his grip on it and double checked the gun tucked behind his belt and a knife right beside it.

He then glared at the book with the "T" sewn onto it. The golden thread has faded significantly ever since he had gotten to this horrifying lab but the inside of the endless pages had bore themselves onto the insides of Larry's eyelids. He thought for a moment, staring at the black leather. And before he could decide against it, he picked up a case and placed the book inside it along with some medical equipment to cover it. If he ended up successful. If he really managed to get away he'd need all the evidence and information he could get. The book was heavy, yes, but its contents were too valuable to be just left behind.

Fixing his cloak and grabbing everything he needed, he went outside.

By the 'experiment chamber' people were already awaiting him. Erque stood beside two other doctors, all dressed similarly with only their eyes shown. Outside of the glass wall all the other workers that usually didn't bat an eye at Larry throughout his whole stay there, now stood in anticipation and scanned his every move. Who knows, maybe they as desperately as him wanted to leave this place and get this over with. Or maybe they wanted their hours worth of work on the experiment to finally pay off as they could close the case.

He didn't care. They could watch. He was there for his own reasons.

He acknowledged the three other scientists in the room with a glance and then sat down by the hospital bed. He tore the sheets off and fully revealed the unconscious man laying underneath them. His heart tightened and fell to the bottom of his chest at the sight again. But he swallowed the anger away and began preparing everything he'd need. His hands trembled slightly as he opened the case, eyes frantically scanning its insides to make sure the book wasn't peaking out anywhere inside it. He brought out a syringe and filled it fully with the substance. He pushed the top slightly and watched its droplets slowly crawl down the needle before cleaning the man's arm with some gauze soaked in alcohol. He heard the heart monitor steadily beeping above his head and felt Erque's burning stare eat his skull away. He brought the syringe to the man's arm. He massaged the area around and picked a vein, sucked in a heavy breath and pushed the needle into the pale skin, suddenly feeling the weight of everyone who'd done it before him hundreds of times.

He injected every last drop of the liquid into the man's system, wiped his hand and tossed the syringe away. He stood up and backed away from the bed.

'Come on'

The beeping of the heart monitor was stable at first but then it slowed down. It slowed and slowed, the sounds becoming dragged out and far apart, echoing in Larry's head as he watched the curves stretch on the daringly flat line. They became less and less frequent, appearing once every two seconds before the line stood up one last time before falling flat with a monotone, jarring sound signaling the heart had stopped working.

The silence that filled the room felt so thick and palpable that the ringing of the machine seemed to be cutting through it like a blade. It filled Larry's head like tar as his eyes saw nothing but the flat line.