TOXIC BLOODLINES: PARADISE - BOOK 2/4

A STRANGE MASS

SARA

Arriving on the scene, it was hard to ignore the eerie stillness that engulfed the place. The construction site, once filled with activity, now lay abandoned. I found myself walking the same path Phil had walked. The only sounds were the trees' rustling and the unmanned machines' creaking in the wind.

"Over there," Al pointed out. The supervisor had arrived.

Wearing a mask and disposable overalls, the supervisor approached us. "So sorry to keep you waiting."

I looked around, eager to get to the bottom of this. "Where is the tunnel?"

He pointed at a fenced-off area with a hazardous caution sign. "That was the entrance to the tunnel. Years of neglect. We had to dig the whole thing out. It's a 50ft drop. When you're down there, it's pitch black. I'd come with you but—"

"—There's no need," I cut him off. "The roster." I looked down at his left hand.

He gave it to me. "They-... are all gone," he uttered, his voice heavy with grief and disbelief as if this was the first time he had said it out loud. "After Phil, they got sick. One by one," he shared. "I should've shut it down," he confessed. But his admission of guilt wouldn't change what had happened, and I wouldn't console him either.

He'd live with this for the rest of his life, however long that may be.

I paged through the list of names. Most were amongst the first eighty bodies we had brought that day. Why did I never think to look into it? "We can take it from here," I returned the roster to the supervisor.

"You can use the harnesses to get down. Be careful," he told us before leaving.

~~~

Alexander walked to the edge of the hole and peered down. "So, we're really gonna go in there?"

I adjusted my harness. "You're the one who wanted to come." I dropped a glow stick to see the bottom. "Okay, lower me. Al, you're next, José, don't break your neck." I climbed into the hole and started to repel down.

"Is it too late to change my mind?" Al asked, watching me descend.

I laughed.

Reaching the bottom, I tugged on the rope. "Al, you're up!" I shouted, my voice bouncing off the walls. Looking up at the sky from below, I could finally see how far down we were.

"So, what are we looking for exactly?" Al asked when he reached the bottom.

"A fungus," José replied, repelling down with his clinking jars. "We are looking for a fungus. Phil wasn't bitten by anything, so he may have breathed it in or ingested it."

Alexander quickly adjusted his mask and his gloves. I laughed, walking ahead. "The sooner we're out of here, the better."

As we ventured deep into the tunnel, we faced our first challenge. One we had anticipated, but the assault on our senses was still a shock. The smell was beyond nauseating; it didn't have that human waste, dead rat stench. That's what freaked me out the most. The closest thing to it was vinegar, bleach, or rubbing alcohol.

"The smell alone should have killed him," Alexander remarked as cracked a glow stick to mark our trail.

Continuing down the tunnel, we noticed a strange slimy growth that blanketed the walls. Mucus, pus, blood? I took a photo of it for the records.

"We are close," José announced, collecting a sample from the wall before walking ahead. I signaled Alexander to ready his weapon... just in case.

The strange growth on the walls turned into thick pulsating veins. They coiled around the whistling rusty pipes like cursed vines. Bloated dead rats floated in the polluted water, the rot poisoning it even more. We continued on. "There's no way anyone saw this and thought it was normal?" Alexander remarked.