The Fallen World

Chapter 9: Darkness

The next day, I woke up in the middle of the night because it got unexpectedly cold, I realized that the heater's getting weaker, the two boys are asleep on the carpet flooring with blankets and pillows I got from the other rooms, Chase still sleeps on her bed—I guess I'm the only one awake.

The heater and the lamps suddenly turned off... Oh god please no, do you know how dark that place is? I don't have much of a choice, I have to fix the goddamn generator. I sigh and stand up, then shook Derek's shoulder.

He jolted and squinted his eyes, "Hey, what do you need?" he asked. "I need your help in the generator room."

I wore my jacket and pants and decided to stay barefoot, grabbed my backpack from the side of the bed and got out of the room then entered the lobby. The lobby has narrow sofas and Native American carpets all over the floor with tapestries hanging above the cobblestone fireplace. It's dark, but there's moonlight coming from the massive tilted windows that views the forest and the mountains.

I entered the elevator lobby and there's a fire exit close to them, I opened the metal door and walk down the stairs. It gets darker as I descended down, I brought out my flashlight and turned it on.

We arrived at the basement—it's humid, and it smells. "What is this place?" he asked, "It's the storage room and the generator room, I also have this feeling that there's a Reef in here." "Hold on, there's a Reef down here?" he asked, "I think so, based on the weird noises I heard and this place is an ideal habitat for those Reefed."

"Wait, you call them Reefed?" "Why? You have better names to call 'em?" "Well... none." "Just as I thought." I see large shelves of boxes, furnitures stacked on the ground wrapped in plastic, and some parts of the concrete floor have puddles.

Pipes are connected all over the ceiling and leaks—I really hate coming here, it's like a labyrinth. I got lost on my first visit, trying to get the generator working, but now this is my second time coming back down here. I should've planned this all out after my first visit...

We wander around the dark and humid area, I can hear an unsettling and eerie crawling noise. My ears and fur raised as I heard it, I don't know where it came from. I stopped minding it and search for the generator instead so I can leave this place soon.

The crawling noises gets closer, "Darwin, did you hear that?" he asked nervously. "Yeah, I don't like the sound of that." My flashlight started to blink, "I've got a bad feeling about this." I said. My flashlight reveals the humid room has floating coral spawn—dammit, there's a Reef nearby. I started to cover my mouth. "Derek, cover your mouth." I said.

I lost track on where we are and the falcon and I started to cough from the spawn, we enter random rooms trying to find the generator or the way out, the flashlight's starting to die out so I have to act fast. I enter a narrow room with bedsheets and pillows all over the floor. Is this some kind of quarters?

"Stay here." I wander around the room by myself—I saw numerous bones piled up. The pile of bones are close to a wall of glowing corals, I saw something crawling around the bones, it's big—but I don't have time to know what it is. I need to get out of here!

"Derek, let's get out of here!" I whispered. We ran as fast as we can trying to search for the exit, I stepped on puddles, Derek continued to cough from the spawn then my flashlight died, I panicked and my heart pounded. I heard strange roaring clicks and creaking noises. I grabbed a flare from my backpack and panted doing so.

I open the flare which gives the basement a sinister red glow, then everything got quiet...