Survivors of Alterna: Awakening

Chapter 6: Family

     Akika found himself in the Happiness Research Lab district, which evidently had been subjected to heavy flooding. The ground floor was completely submerged in water. Something O.R.C.A warned him about. Akikta was glad to have found a secondary entrance to the district within the upper levels.

     Despite its name, the Happiness Research Lab wasn't actually a singular lab, but rather a collection of offices and rooms filled with cubicles, unlabeled equipment, and locked doors. He can't recall what the scientists did for research here, but whatever it was, it couldn't have been anything happy.

     Luckily, there wasn't any snow or ice, but Akikta still had to watch his step. The floors were moist and slippery. One wrong footing could send him tumbling down, and he didn't want to deal with another headache.

     Akikta followed a few pipelines that zigged and zagged on the walls. The barely working lights provided minimal light for Akikta, enough for him to guide himself through the halls, but little enough to make him wish he had a flashlight.

     Akikta wandered into a new space of the Happiness Research Lab. It was a large room with an assortment of office cubicles. Despite the area's disarray, a few cubicles were in surprisingly good condition. Most were damaged and crushed under debris, and the room's ceiling was all but intact.

     The teen hovered over one cubicle in particular. The chair had been flipped onto the wet ground, and the computer's screen was broken into a bazillion pieces. Not to mention the office supplies, which had been chaotically scattered all around the desk. But neither of those was what caught Akikta's attention. There was a square item neatly placed amongst the misplaced office supplies. A picture frame.

     Akikta took his mask off and got closer, seeing four figures in the photo. At the center of the frame was a smiling Akikta, holding up his ceremonial graduation hat. The picture was taken right after graduating from Alterna's one and only school. He remembered the day well.

     On his left side was a familiar and older man, hunched down and throwing up two fingers next to Akikta, Father Axe. Tears started to swell up in Akikta's eyes, but he kept them from bursting forth. His attention swiveled over to the other two figures on the opposite side of Father Axe. The paper had been torn haphazardly where the two figures stood. Much of their features couldn't be made out. But Akikta didn't need to see their features to know who it was. They were his father and older brother.

     This was one of the few photos the family ever took together, with all four of them in it. That meant this was his father's cubicle. He had never seen it before, but now he wished he hadn't. "Happiness Research Lab...heh." Was all Akikta could bring himself to say as he held the picture frame close. His breathing slowed, and wet droplets dripped onto the picture frame. Akikta choked out a small chuckle, which was nothing short of a pitiful whimper.

     "I wish you were here right now... Chaska." Akikta murmured.

     Akikta shook his head. Now wasn't the time to sob. He had things to do and a sky to see. He sniffled and wiped his face before placing the photo back on the desk.

     Suddenly, a slight creaking noise echoed throughout the room, as if a small chair on wheels had been gently pushed. Akikta turned around, only to be greeted by a familiar black mass of ink. It was Subject 7.

     Akikta felt his heart sink and his mind clouded with a primal instinct to do one thing. Run. Instinctively, Akikta jumped onto the desk while facing Subject 7 and performed a backflip to a different cubicle. He didn't stick the landing due to how hastily he moved. But he was glad he was quick on his feet, as the ink monster was now already gnawing at the desk Akikta previously stood in front of.

     Subject 7 quickly remedied their mistake and climbed over the cubicles, leaving behind a trail of ink as it did so. Akikta scrambled to his feet and ran, clumsily throwing his mask back on.How did Subject 7 escape the holdout zone? How did it find him? The answers to those would have to wait. Right now, Akikta just wanted to survive.

     Akikta slammed into each wall whenever there was a turn for him to make, and a heavy thud behind him a few seconds afterward told him the ink monster did the same. Akikta didn't even want to look over his shoulder. Then again, he didn't need to. The sounds of wet schlops were loud, rapid, and always a few feet behind him.

     After the fourth turn, Akikta tripped over a broken floor tile and fell hard. Instead of getting back up, he quickly rolled to the side. Soon after, Subject 7 pounced on the ground where Akikta had once been. It didn't realize Akikta wasn't in its grasp. By the time it did, Akikta was already on his feet.

     It got up much faster than Akikta expected. It then threw a quick but precise punch aimed at his skull. The boy threw his entire weight to one side to dodge the incoming attack, only to hear a loud spraying noise, followed by a shriek. A sound Akikta had yet to get used to hearing.

     Akikta covered his ears and turned to look at what caused Subject 7 pain. Unbeknownst to Akikta, he aligned himself with one of the many zig-zagged pipes on the wall when he got up from the roll. When Subject 7 missed its punch, it cracked open a pipe, which then spewed out heaps of water onto the ink monster.

     The water was like acid to the thing, melting away Subject 7's black inky skin. The monster had moved away from the trajectory of the water, but it had not yet recovered from the initial pain. Akikta would take this opportunity to run in the opposite direction, far from Subject 7.