Fractured

Chapter 5

Theresa was spending time with her little niece when she received a distress call from her grandfather. He reported that the entire staff of the Babylon Lab had disappeared with no evidence of cause. As a result, he required Theresa and several other Valkyries to investigate the matter. Before venturing to the lab, Theresa conducted her own research. She scrolled through the records of each employee on her computer trying to find something that would cause 322 people to vanish. Eventually, Theresa paid a visit to the lab located in the freezing tundra where she was greeted by a fellow female Valkyrie who was taller than her with short silver hair and violet eyes wearing a cropped black jacket with a white fur collar that sat off her bare shoulders and a white halter top shirt with a high black pointed collar paired with black jeans and a brown belt that had the golden snow wolf badge attached to it. She was a member of Shicksal's Intel department and a good friend of Theresa's as her eyes lit up the moment, she spotted her.

"Pat!"

"Howdy" She greeted with a smirk on her face. Theresa felt a sense of relief in her presence.

"Any leads?" The two Valkyries made their way into the lab as Pat briefed Theresa on what she knew so far.

"It's kind of strange that over three hundred scientists go missing and no one knows how or why."

"What's stranger is that none of it was caught on camera"

"None of it?" Pat shook her head in response.

"I've got an entire crew checking the footage frame by frame so hopefully that will give us something."

"Did you find anything?"

"Actually..." Pat stared off in the direction of the main computer. "There was something unusual in the footage" Pat had one of the men at the computer pull up the footage she was referring to showing Theresa the strange anomaly. On the screen showed a transparent yet staticky figure that can only be seen for a spit second.

"What is that?" Theresa inquired.

"Don't know. It looks like a ghost created by a hardware malfunction"

"Wha?! Ghost?! Did I hear you correctly?"

"Not that kind of ghost Theresa. Those don't exist"

"Well, it's not uncommon for something supernatural to be traced back to the honkai. That might be what we're dealing with here" One of the men chimed as he sifted through all of the surveillance footage.

"Seems like it" Pat commented. She leaned over with her fingers tapping away at the keys bringing up the log containing the reactor energy levels. She lifted one of her hands point out a specific data set to Theresa "There's about five minutes' worth of data missing within the twilight hours. That's the same timestamp as the image ghost from the footage so the two have to be related somehow"

"What about the records for the reactor pile?"

"They're restricted by a security lock even I don't have access to. We'd have to go down the reactor pile ourselves to check on it"

"W-We?"

"Yes, since we're Valkyries, we're the only ones with a chance of surviving down there." To say Theresa was nervous would be an understatement. She knew it was risky going down to the reactor pile where the energy levels were incredibly high. Despite her reluctance, Theresa agreed to go down to the reactor pile with Pat. They could feel the energy levels radiating from the reactor which made Theresa feel more uneased. Both Valkyries looked around the area to see if either one of them found anything out of the ordinary. Theresa hadn't found anything yet but there was something on the floor the caught Pat's eye.

"I wonder what this is?" She mumbled to herself as she knelt down swiping her finger across the glowing purple substance then examining it on the tip of her finger. "Honkai residue?" She then said confused. She was perplexed at the fact there was a small amount of residue on the floor yet there were no signs of a leak from the reactor pile itself. She stood back up facing the direction of the short Valkyrie. "Theresa, we'll need to perform a full spectrum scan of this place." Pat noticed that Theresa was shivering in fear. "Seriously Theresa? I expected a seasoned Valkyrie like you who fought against emperor class honkai beasts would be a lot more than this" She then teased. Theresa didn't say anything. She focuses all of her attention on her surroundings making sure nothing would ambush her.

"HELP! SOMEONE HELP US!"

"IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE? WE NEED HELP!" They heard two female voices screaming. This sent Theresa into a frenzy.

"GAH! IT'S THE GHOST FROM THE VIDEO! IT'S COMING FOR US!" Pat let out a sigh.

"Relax Theresa. It's not a ghost. Those voices belong to human girls" Theresa was still panicked by the voices yet still chose to investigate. Pat walked in the direction she heard the voices coming from with Theresa following close behind afraid to leave Pat's side in case anything was to happen. It wasn't long until the stumbled across what looked like holding cells.

"Holding cells? Why would the lab have these?" Theresa inquired.

"HELP US!" A female voice shouted once again. Theresa immediate hid behind Pat clenching the back of her jacket tightly in her hands. Pat could feel Theresa shaking.

"Calm down, there's nothing to be scared of" Pat assured her as she reached out to the small frail arm that extended through the barred doors. "They're just ordinary human girls. No ghosts here." Theresa let out a sigh of relief as her mind was now at ease.

"Please help us. Please let us out of this terrible place" The girl that Pat held onto pleaded with tears welling in her eyes. Pat let go of the girl and tried opening up the cell door. When she didn't succeed, Theresa offered to help as she and pat tore down the door. Theresa encouraged the girls that it was safe for all of the girls to come out.

"Everything's okay girls. It's safe to come out now" She said with a smile on her face. Each girl wearing a hospital gown walked out of the holding cell. The one girl thanked Theresa profusely for helping them. Unfortunately, they weren't out of the woods yet.