JELLYFISH

DOOR 014

Hope.

All [name] did was ever hope.

Hope that they will get farther into the site after a death. Hope that they will make it to a certain point with a certain number of people. Hope that this hell will end.

They had made it past all of the grass rooms, those rooms extending to door 026, and they had encountered one of those strange Anglers on their way through. It was that slow, green one. [name] only realized it was that variant because of how slow it approached from behind, so they instructed those who could hear them to wait until they could see the creature. It worked, but the smoke it left behind was suffocating, so they waited a while until it cleared.

Halfway through the grass rooms, the floor had changed into an octagon-shaped catwalk hung strangely around a large tree that grew below at the center of the room. It was a strange sight, but nothing kept them from moving forward. The same room repeated until they made it to door 026. Finally, the tedious scenery ended.

"Hey," Kei spoke to nobody in particular, "what is that?"

Kei pointed to a locker, and in that locker, were purple eyes that blinked slowly and at separate times. Nobody answered, because truthfully, nobody knew what it was. [name] knew what it looked like and what it did, but they had no name for it.

"Well, don't think we should be openin' any suspicious lockers!" Emil said, pulling Kei back a bit by the shoulder. Kei didn't brush him off like he usually did, but he turned away and speed walked away from that locker.

The group was quiet as they walked through the ominous halls. Door 027 opened up in a room on an upper floor, stairs off to the right that led down to a straight hall; but the sound of something shifting just beyond the large, glass window that looked out over the long hall caused a few of them to pause.

"Doesn't sound good." Ezekiel's voice next to their left caused them to jump. It was rare for him to speak up, and it looked like he didn't mean to anyway, his head turned away with a frown.

"Looks like a gun pelted those things!" Aisha's face was pressed to the glass, observing the lockers and desks scattered as cover below them, "the laser is a dead giveaway."

And without consulting the group further, Aisha dashed in front of [name] and down the stairs. Emil and Evelyn were first to raise their concerns audibly, the beep beep of the turret causing them to stop momentarily.

Everyone glanced out the window to watch Aisha dodge and weave between the covers. The red laser spotted her twice, but she was always fast enough to get behind the cover even before it would shoot. [name] knew Aisha could do this, but still, it screwed with their nerves watching her dance with death with familiarity.

Aisha pulled the lever in the box on the wall, which disabled the turret attached to a wall section underneath their feet. She then spun around and grinned, waving her hands. The remaining seven descended the stairs. Vanessa, Emil, and Ezekiel looked at the round, metal object connected to a part of the ceiling below the room they were just in as they walked. They would assume what it was for, and no doubt come to the same conclusion.

They all walked through door 028, this room long, with door 029 at the opposite side, requiring a keycard to continue. They began their methodical search, [name] gathering as many loose assets as they could see. They were pretty excited when they found an orange DNA capsule in a drawer; this was surely important, and expensive in Sebastian's many eyes..

Vanessa found the keycard and made it known after a few more moments of rummaging through different areas of the room. They continued onwards, lingering occasionally to search briefly through the desks on the side of the rooms. It was eerily peaceful, something they could never get used to. There just had to be something out to get them.