Experiment 82

Chapter One

I don't remember how I got here. I don't even know my name. When I woke up, there was a crumpled, bloodstained piece of paper in my hand. It had one word on it. "RUN". From what? I didn't know at the time. Now, I understood. You really REALLY didn't want this thing to catch you.

So that's what I've been doing.

Running.

Running as fast as I could, as far as I could.

But this thing, it was fast. It always caught up.

And now, it was right behind me.

I'm not entirely sure of long it has been since I woke up here. Could be a week or a couple of days. There was no real way to tell. Whoever brought me here took my watch and my phone. The building itself didn't have any clocks and any windows there were, had been boarded up with metal plates and welded into place. So I had no way knowing the time of day, and on top of that, I could not for the life of me figure out where I was. All I could do was give it my best guess. And my best guess; it used to be some kind of a research building. A very big one, abandoned now. Of course, I had no real way of knowing. My so called best guess was based on all the movies I had seen over the years. The buttons on the elevator control panels said it had 10 floors and 3 underground levels. And obviously the elevators didn't work. None of them did. You had to take the stairs, which was good in a way. Being stuck in a confined space if and when that thing found you wasn't really the best of ideas.

The first few hours (at least I guess it was a few hours) were spent trying to get out. That's when I figured out that none of the doors that I thought would lead out of this place would even budge an inch.

The Thing was a grotesque creature, made from the stuff nightmares are made of. Its form looked like it was human if you saw it in the dark from a distance. It seemed to walk like a human if you saw it in the dark from a distance. But that was about as human as it got. Its eyes were maybe the only thing on its body that a person could look at without closing their eyes in fear. It had huge, green, round eyes. Maybe that was by design. Maybe it was the sick, twisted, fucked up sense of humor whoever made this thing, had.

Its entire body was covered in miniscule spikes. So if you even brushed by this thing, you'd definitely leave a good part of your skin behind. Its mouth was even worse. Rows and rows of razor sharp teeth all slanted inwards made sure that if it got you in its jaws, there would be no escape. And the icing on the cake? This thing was over eight feet tall as far as I could tell.

And now, it had my scent.

It was chasing me.

Again.

I had managed to get away from it twice before. Run to a different floor, double back to where I was and move to a different floor again. But it was always just a matter of time. It always found you.

So here I was. Running again. Running for all I was worth.

I could hear it scream behind me. Its scream was perhaps its most terrifying attribute. It sounded like bending metal, nails on a chalkboard, a screaming woman all rolled into one. It made your blood curdle.

My earlier strategy didn't seem to work anymore. This thing was learning. It made sure to stay right on my trail and try to jam shut or destroy anything that could help me escape. My only hope now was to break its line of sight and hide in a room where it couldn't catch my scent. Then I would just have to wait it out.

I guess I was in a hallway of some sort. It had doors to rooms on either sides. Good hiding opportunity on all of them. Looking over my shoulder, I realized that I had managed to give it the slip. I guessed that I didn't really have much time to choose. I ducked into the nearest room on my right.

Mistake?

I don't know.

It was pitch black.

So of course, I had to run into something and fall on my face. Goddamn it.

Managed to somehow close the door. Now all I had to do was wait. Wait for that thing to go away. I could hear it crashing into walls and throwing things around, somewhere else on the floor, looking for me.

My eyes adjusting to the dark, I was able to look around the room a little bit. It didn't have any windows as far as I could see. That was perfect. It wouldn't be able to see me from outside the room. Keeping my ears pricked, I noticed that the crashing and screaming outside was gone. It was eerily quiet. For the first time in a long time, I felt safe.

Then out of nowhere, the sound of bending, straining metal came out of the ceiling. Looking up, I could not see anything. Maybe that was some old damage to the ceiling finally giving away? Would it cave in on me? Maybe I should get out of here.

Then, as if on cue, the ceiling started falling down all around me. I don't know what was louder; the crashing debris, or me screaming. Then just as soon as it had started, it stopped. It was unsettlingly quiet again. Only now, there was a guttural murmur going around the room. It was almost a purr. Not very unlike a cat, if the cat was the size of a mammoth. That's when I saw it.

I had thought that I felt safe.

That was my first mistake.

The second? Thinking there was only one of those things.

Probably the last mistake I'll ever make.

All of them were staring at me. They had found their prey. The prey that had caused them so much trouble. Six pairs of eyes bore into me. I was like the fly caught in the spider's web. Next thing I knew, I was two feet in the air, lifted by my throat. As my windpipe was punctured in a thousand places, I knew I was right.

That was abso-fuckin-lutely the last mistake I would ever make.