What May Seem

10/17/22

Something strange is going on here at The Company. Last night after I finished writing in my journal, I remembered that I forgot to wipe the hard drive of my palmi. Not only that but...I. LEFT. IT. IN. THE. LAB. I didn't even think about curfew  I just left my room and tried my best to avoid the cameras. Using my card key, I entered the lab. It wasn't hard finding the small computer among my things at my station. Once wiped clean of the offending files I placed it in my pocket and began to leave. Across the lab though, the creature stirred, reminding me of its prescence. Freezing, I stared, unable to do anything but that as he straightened to his full length. For an eternity we stood like that, just staring back at each other.

Then a vision appeared before me--a memory of when I was a little girl and i had gotten lost in the woods behid the cabin I grew up in. Evergreen and pine trees which had always been a been a beauty to behold before that moment assaulted my olfactory senses violently. Even though it couldn't have been past lunch time, the woods seemed to grow darker with each passing minute and they boxed me in.

It took me a moment to shake out of my reverie but when I did the stark fact that I wasn't supposed to be in there. i had to get out of there and FAST. Finally at my rooms door shutting it gently, I hear a voice. For the second time in the night I'm petrified. A billion excuses to use fly through my head before I realize there are two voices and they're not addressing me. I start to listen in.

"Have you told anyone else about what you know?" a voice I couldn't recognize asks.

"No. I just wanted to know the meaning of it. That's why I agreed to meet you here." That voice I knew. Charles, the best technologist on the team that was brought in to work for The Company. What does he know? What's going on? I start listening more intensly.

"Alright meet me at the same place tomorrow. I'll have a file for you. In it will be the answers to all your questions." the stranger responded. I closed my door and pressed my back to it sliding to the floor while also letting out the gust of air trapped inside of me from forgetting to breathe. What did all of this mean?

First there was the memory....Thinking about it, I remembered more clearly the way I felt that day. I felt so trapped. The same way the creature was.

Then there was the vague conversation I heard in the hallway. There was only one thing I could do to get the answers to that. I was going to have to wait for the meeting that is happening tonight. From my position on the floor I bemusedly looked at the room in front of me. Even though this room looked no different, everything had changed.