Echoes of the Grand Hallway

General

The morning alarm clock shocked Joseph. He jumped out of bed, and the phone once again smacked onto the floor despite it is laying on the table beside the bed. 

Joseph picked up the phone, who is swearing and cursing to have two sky diving in a row. He put the phone at rest, and he sees the time. 9:00 AM.

He needs about an hour to go to the ARC headquarters, since it is quite far from here. He put his jacket on, and called a bus at the road. Also, he stuffed some clothes into the bag, too. Just in case he got wet.

The bus came, floating through the quiet alley. Not much people goes into this alley. It is quiet all day long. He step onto the bus and clicked the "ARC HQ" icon, and finds a seat to sit.

He is the only one passenger on the bus. He gazed out at the window as the city scenery flash before his eyes. This may be his last time to see the city of New York. He enjoyed every single pictures of it.

"ARC Headquarters, arrived." The speaker said.

Joseph stepped down the bus, and saw the great building in front of him.

It is a building mainly made of glass, but he cannot see through the glass. Three big words ARC on the top of the building, while the words Anomaly Research Center at the bottom of the big word. The whole building can be seen very far away, at the edge of the city, the edge of the land, it is even visible from space due to its large size.

Joseph step through the entrance, and a cold breeze swept through him, as if he had entered into the poles in an instant. 

Luckily I brought my jacket, he thought. A man and a woman walk towards him.

"Hello, you must be Joseph," the man said, the same sound in the phone.

"Yes, nice to meet you." Joseph responded politely.

"Hello, and my name is Jane." The woman said, holding out her hand.

Joseph shakes it. "Nice to meet you, too."

"Jane is going to be part of the expedition team," the man explained. "Oh, you can call me the General, by the way."

"Okay, is there any other members?"

"Yes, he is already in the waiting room. Jane had just arrived here. So let's go to the waiting room."

Joseph followed the group, and they reached a discussion room.

A tall person sits at one of the chairs, and he beamed when he saw Joseph and Jane coming.

"Hello, name's Charles," the man said.

"Nice to meet you, my name is Joseph, her name is Jane."

Jane responded with a shy smile.

"Okay, let's get started." the General said. The clock struck. 10 AM. They are on time.

Several people with white lab suits came in, and displayed a hologram projector, which came up an image.

The three explorers gasped.

It is a picture of a hallway, which, obviously, is the Grand Hallway. The normal Grand Hallway should be clear, with a light, blue theme. This one is different. The wall is covered with moss and rust, and the lights are out. The picture is taken in night-vision goggles.

But what scares Joseph is the floor.

The floor is covered in trails of blood, glittering under the pictures. Moss is growing on an object, presumably a leg. There are several dents throughout the floor, looks like a dog with superhuman strength walked by.

"Oops, sorry, didn't meant to display that." one of the person in the lab suit says.

"Well, as you can see, this is in the Grand Hallway," the General says grimly.

"One expedition teams presumably came here, and some anomalies took them and disappeared in the distance. We cannot track the team as the signal is lost. Another team saw this under night-version goggles and report them back. They lost the signal later on."

"So there are creatures?" Jane asked.

"Yes, and we didn't know even one of them," the General says.

"And what do the news means in "change in forces"?" Charles asked.

"We will talk about that later. First, we are going to give you some equipment."

The General place a high-tech bag on the table and brings out some items.

"First, this scanner," The General says as he handed the explorers three glasses. "It can provide night-vision, scan objects down there, and fix your myopia." He laughed nervously at the myopia thing.

"Press this to activate the scanner," the General says as he point at Joseph's glasses, a small "touchpad" is on the side. "And press this to activate night-vision." He point at another touchpad at the other side. "You can scan the objects now."

Joseph touched the button at the left side of the glasses. The stuff on the table starts to glow and display several UIs.

One of them is a jacket, which can provide warmth or cool the body down. Joseph saw it before.

Another is a metal ball, which would shape into whatever weapon he wants. "ARC's best-selling product," the description said.

Last, the bag. The bag the General carries is way more advanced than the one Joseph carries: It can contain 1024 times it's own space.

"These items will help you throughout the journey," the General said. "I think you all brought essential stuff?"

The three explorers nodded.

"Great, let's rest for 5 minutes, have a lunch, and we are going to the Grand Hallway!"

The General says quite cheerfully, but it is obvious that he is not cheerful at all.

The men with the lab suits starts to project some basic information about the Grand Hallway.