The Truth

Prologue

Prologue

     The man walked briskly down the hall of the hospital-like building, into the last room on the right. The walls were lined with silver steel, with thick white doors evenly spaced along the hall, blocking anything that may be occurring behind them from view. The obscure walls would always hold mystery for all of those in ranks too low to behold the happening behind them, and this man was no different. The man approached the door towards which he had been making his way, but it was closed. He knocked urgently, and a man in a gray suit jacket opened the door.

     “What, Walker? Can't you see that I'm in a meeting?”

     “I know sir, I'm sorry,” Walker said immediately after the other man's irritated retort. He was out of breath, both from walking so quickly, and from the urgency of his message. “But you need to see this.”

     As Walker spoke, the emergency lights began flashing and sirens wailed as if police cars were fast approaching, but everyone knew that could never happen. Police didn't come here. They never had and never would, and somehow it was that simple. No one new ever came. The men began to run as the silver steel walls became more menacing, now painted with the beams of red lights that swooped across the endlessly long hallway.

     “What is it, Walker? Spit it out!” urged the man in the gray suit jacket, worried and frantic as he sprinted along the titanium floors of the building. A safety precaution, to make sure that if anyone ever found the place, they could spend a lifetime trying, but would never get in. Of course, everyone there knew that no one would ever find the place. It was impossible. Or at least, that's what they thought.

     A few men and women emerged from behind the steel doors, terrified looks on their faces. After all, the emergency alarm only sounded when something had truly gone wrong. A tall, African American man stepped from the final door at the end of the hallway farthest from the room the men had come from. This room was strange, for down the hallway, all of the rooms were spaced exactly 6 feet and 4 inches away from eachother. All, that is, except for this one. It was further away; no other doors or people were anywhere near it.

     “Smith. Finally. Someone who can tell me whats going on.”

     “Nothing I can't handle, sir.” Smith responded.

     “Nothing you can't handle? Nothing you can't handle, Smith? And when did you start running things around here? When did you prove that you deserve that job?” Walker retorted scornfully, with what was clearly an age old contempt and jealousy; yet he said this without taking his eyes off of the door at the end of the hall.

     “Somebody better tell me whats going on, now!” the man in the gray suit jacket yelled.

     “Allow me, sir.” Walker interrupted as Smith opened his mouth.

     “It's the mental penetration unit. They've designed a new nightmare. And they're testing it out on Subject 11.”

     With this news being told, the man's face paled. A sudden high pitched noise began, like the squeak of a microphone whose speaker had stood too close in the middle of a loud exclamation. Then all of the lights in the building went off, one by one, and the noise stopped, leaving the building completely dark and silent.