Joyride

Welcome to My Shop

     My head was beginning to hurt from the silence, which I didn't know exactly how that worked. My ears were ringing and I wanted to give up already and I was barely that far into my mission.

     As I entered another room, I could hear a hissing noise that made me perk up. It wasn't another monster, right? The door ahead was locked, making me take a detour into the room beside it, finding yet another key card to grant me access further into the facility.

     Upon opening the door, I could see steam shooting out from a pipe, causing the high-pitched hissing I was hearing. When it paused for a moment, I took the opportunity to pass it, barely stopping for the next pipe to spray steam out of it.

     The next pipe had a wheel next to it that I tightened as much as possible and the steam vanished into the pipes and cleared the room, not that there was anything to find in here anyway.

     Walking through another door, the sound of rushing water filled my ears as I walked up a set of stairs, the room after that being pitch black, but the water hadn't vanished.

     "Oh, how. . . safe," I commented as I flicked on my flashlight, looking at the thin wooden beam I needed to cross without falling into the violent waves below. Exiting the room, I turned the flashlight back off. I didn't know how old it was, or how fast it would die, or how much battery it even had left.

     A couple rooms and a large set of stairs later, I could hear that low screeching noise again, quickly finding a locker to hide in and hopping in. I wasn't gonna come into contact with that thing if I didn't have to, flash beacon or not.

     After finding another key card, the room I entered had a tall staircase that passed by a short waterfall, further in the room a large chunk of ground was missing, filled with water. I quickly swam across, not knowing if anything was lurking in the murky water.

     I glanced at the sign next to the door. Only on 026. Opening the door, I saw large claw marks across the ground and shivered. Did I wanna know what caused those? I shook my head, brushing away the thoughts. The power box next to door 027 sparked as the exposed wired dangled, clearly torn out by whatever inhabited this place.

     I passed through several unlit rooms after that before entering a room with a long window showing off some horrifying thing with a mouth along the entirety of its being. I searched the room for any file on what this thing was.

     "A. . . Flesh Panopticon or Flesh Prison?" I looked back, feeling its eyes on me. Could it really see me? Was it not one-sided glass? Whatever this thing was, it could swallow a house whole and then some. I was glad it was trapped behind the glass it was.

     At some point, I lost track of how many doors I had walked through. . . And swam through, as I had found an area of the facility that had been completely flooded. Door 047 was the next number my eyes registered.

     When I walked in, the vent door fell open and a voice called out from it. "Hey, over here!" it seemed welcoming enough, a soft glow emanating from inside.

     Crawling inside, I saw a single light in the corner of the room hovering way above me before the room flickered to life. "Welcome, welcome," I took an involuntary step back at the sudden voice, my eyes trailing over the entire being in front of me.

     "Don't be afraid, I'm not gonna hurt you," they leaned closer, their three eyes inspecting me, but mine continued to glance at the glowing orb attached to a fin on their head. "despite what you have seen, heard, and/or been told. My name is Sebastian, your only friend."

     My eyes glanced over them. He had the fin of an angler fish, but the body of some kind of sea snake. He wore a large smile that I probably should have found creepy, but it was rather warm and inviting compared to the rest of this facility. He had three arms, the shortest of them adorning a ring on his pinky.

     I had completely zoned out what he was saying, only taking in what he was motioning too, my hands gliding over his tail rather than the things clipped onto it.

     "What do you think you're doing?" I noticed the tip of his tail twitch, but not have much space to move in the cramped room.

     "Did you know that angler fish use their ray to lure in their prey?" I rocked on my feet, a small smile on my face. I had always loved marine life as a child. I was actually going to college to be a marine biologist before I got arrested for some crime I was innocent of.