BLOODHOUND.

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GOD IS DEAD.

Well, that was reassuring.

The words were scratched into the walls of the barely-lit corridor. With what, I didn't know. Hopefully not human fingernails.

We were in the aforementioned 'bunker' - somewhere deep underground. The only place patients could retreat to if the main building was destroyed by those things.

The nurses were the ones escorting me down this windowless hallway, guns in hands, marching like toy soldiers. It felt strange, really. These normal-sized people were protecting a giant hulk of a man in his pyjamas.

I looked down at myself. At my hands. The same ones that turned a bed into a bullet and sent that monster flying.

If anything, it felt like I should have been protecting them.

The hallway, lit only by faint emergency lighting, had definitely seen better days. Giant boards of wood and steel covered the walls, concealing what I could only assume were gaping holes. Tiny bits of rubble were swept into the corners; too big to be dust, too small to be stones. Even in the darkened, windowless corridor, I could see that the signs above were tattered despite looking brand new. The only other sources of light were the emergency exit signs, and even then, they flickered what felt like their last dying light.

Just how many times had this place been attacked?

As if they weren't shambled enough, everywhere I looked there were stains. All in various stages of fade, and all various shades of red.

I shuddered, then shook my head. Don't think about it.

Eventually, we came to a set of double doors. Beyond was a set of stairs, basked in proper light, delving deeper into the bunker. We descended further, until we came across two iron doors, labelled with bright yellow, biohazard symbols.

Well, that was reassuring.

One nurse tapped a keycode into a side panel and the doors slid open. Inside was a clean, pristine room, covered in white tiles. Perhaps a little too clean, I thought. I could feel my nose twitch at the powerful stench of cleaning equipment and bleach.

One of the nurses hurried over to a water cooler. Well, it was less of a 'water' cooler and more of a 'weird blue liquid' cooler. From it, they poured some into a plastic cup. They hurried over to me, holding it up.

"Could you drink this for me, please?" they asked.

Staring at the substance, my eyes twitched as I glanced between the beverage and the nurse. Now that I had a better look at it, it looked like a partially-melted slushy. There were clumps of... something, in the liquid.

I took a sip, and my face instantly scrunched up.

Jesus Christ, what is this?!

I accidentally crushed the cup, the drink exploding into my face. It tasted awful, like someone had dumped the strongest kind of salt into already salty sea water.

The nurse was... taken aback, to say the least. I could feel my face burning at their gobsmacked expression.

"Oh god," I squeaked. "I'm really sorry."

They shook their head. "Oh, no, don't worry," they said, their colleague already handing them another cup. "It's happened with most of our patients. It's... not the nicest thing in the world, is it?"

I shook my head. When they gave me a new one, I chugged it down quickly, trying to ignore the ungodly salty taste that harassed my mouth. My tongue lolled out. I prayed that the flavourless air would whisk the nasty, medical taste away.