Larry didn't think of himself as an odd one out. He fit. He fit in the crowd. He fit in the system. So why did this random guy suddenly cause his whole reality to tremble.
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Cross-posted on Ao3
What was going on inside of the lab wasn't exactly a perfectly guarded secret even though its runners tried all they could to make it impossible to smuggle any valuable information in or out of it. But Larry was not the first person to get suspicious. Many before felt fooled and lied to, leading them to poke their nose where they weren't supposed to. Some got burned, some killed but some walked home the next opportunity they got and talked with their loved ones about their experiences. And thus bits and pieces of the horror began unraveling in various parts of the city, families or individuals scratching their heads thinking what on earth had they gotten themselves into? They had all the puzzles they needed, it was just almost impossible to gather them all in one place.
Larry was vaguely aware of that fact and he had it freshly in his mind when he dropped a worn out book on the kitchen island. He traced the cover, the leather so scratched and used its gritty texture held little to no reminiscence of its old, polished shine even though it lived vividly in the man's memories. He remember being shown the book when he was little, how much excitement it brought him to be told what lived between the pages even if he couldn't yet understand the words nor their importance. There, on the sandy, yellow paper lived the best tribute to his parents' lives - their experiments and thoughts.
The book, hand written by his father and sewn together by his mother, was their journal - all their work they'd put in the facility trapped within the dark ink and impossible to retrieve for the people there. A living proof to Larry that they were there, they predicted what would happen to them and were desperate to warn him. They were clever people. He always admired that.
As he skipped through the stiff pages, having them almost memorized by now, he stopped suddenly where he remembered was something that he used to not understand.
"We found a man living inside these walls. There were rumors of them making people - some of strong physiques but fragile minds. We haven't seen them but we have heard them. Their screams used to echo in hallway C12. They haven't for a while now"
And a couple paragraphs later.
"We've been predicting for quite a while that these experiments we are running, while strictly on plants or small rodents, are a part of a bigger picture. They are cogs in a structure that holds this place together - these people want to control the living but we do not know why. We do know that our research is supposed to provide them with knowledge stable enough so they could use them on living humans. We think it has to give some grime results..."
Right there in front of him was what was almost certainly a text about Tanner. It had to be or else it would mean there was another man in there that's been experimented on. Each case here is worse than the other.
He clenched his fist in a tight hold. How could've he been so blind? Why hadn't he ever noticed the writings on the walls? They were all right there for him to see and yet he walked past them every single day, refusing to acknowledge them. And now that he's finally opened his eyes he saw them all, they're not just signs but bloody screams written all over an endless corridor outstretched ahead and behind him.
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