The Fall of the Society

Chapter 27: Hallucinations

     A crack appeared at the bottom of the door, slowly growing upward. The inside of the truck was dark, but the light from the warehouse gradually poured into it, illuminating what was inside. There was another gate of something like a chain link fence, which prompted the guards in the middle to all step forward simultaneously and place a keycard onto a flat spot in the middle of the door. Swinging open, a light came on inside and displayed something truly horrible. Along each side of the truck was a bench filled with people that where dressed all in white and chained together, with a black sack covering their heads.

     The guards then reached down and unhooked a chain that connected the two sides together. Slowly the guards on the far south end of the warehouse began to lead the prisoners from the back of their trucks, with the guards falling in beside them. Truck after truck joined the precession, exposing at least a hundred and sixty people in chains. They were soon out of view, having marched into a hallway at the north end of the room. She turned and ran carelessly down the hall. How could the Society be doing this? What was the end game?

     She did not know what they were up to, but she knew one thing and that was that she would stop them, she would make them pay. The corridor seemed to go on forever, the only door she had seen thus far was the one she used to get into the building. After about ten minutes of full out running, she reached the end, which led to nowhere. She turned around and ran back the opposite way. Quickly and without thinking she turned through the door and started down, taking two steps at a time as her hands began to blaze again, this time red.

     Breathing hard, she made her way down the staircase. She did not see another door until eight flights of stairs later. Stopping, she breathed deeply, trying to regain her composure. Standing in front of the heavy steel door she listened, seeing if she could hear anything. The slight sound of chains clinking together reached her ears. She would have to wait, if she popped out now and engaged the Society soldiers, it would cause mass casualties and she was not sure she would be able to keep them from being injured by her attacks either. The sound faded, and after a few more moments, she creeped out into the hall, now deserted.

     The corridor was laid out in a T shape in front of her. Looking left and right before focusing forward. She knew what was to the left, that would lead her to the warehouse garage. The front path and the right path would lead her to unknown locations. Choosing quickly, she headed straight down the corridor in front of her. This hallway was much different than the ones above, there were doorways every ten feet, and she had no idea which one to take. Moving back down the corridor, she picked the first door on what would have originally been her right and pressed her ear firmly against the door. There was a slight hissing sound inside the room, and she gently turned the knob and pressed the door inward.

     She was not expecting to see what the room was holding, which was nothing except a large tank. The hissing sound she had heard was from the tank, which had a large tube protruding from the top of it and going out the wall behind it. The walls were blank and there was no lighting in the room, only what was spilling in from the hallway. Backing out of the room, she closed the door behind her and moved to open the door on the opposite side of the hallway. Pressing her ear against this door, she heard the same hissing sound and opened the door. If she had not known she had picked a new door, she would have thought that she had opened the same door again.

     Door after door produced the same result, and it began to make her feel like she was going crazy. What in the world was the purpose of this facility? Hundreds of prisoners that had been led to an unknown location, and countless rooms that housed strange hissing tanks. She had not even seen any of the Society soldiers standing guard anywhere, but at the same time why would she. Not like they need anyone to guard hissing tanks. As far as she could see ahead of her, the doors lined both sides of the walls. After a few more doors, she stopped taking precautions and started opening the doors haphazardly. The hissing was now sounding inside her ears when the doors were closed, and the lighting was giving a strange hue to everything around her. Her head was spinning, and she leaned against the wall, trying to center herself.

     Suddenly a thought burst into her head. What was pouring from the tanks? Maybe that was why she was having such a hard time focusing. She started to try run back the way she had come, but she was becoming increasingly disoriented and soon had no idea which way she had come from after she fell hard onto the floor. Laughter burst from her mouth, almost as if coming from someone else, and she had no idea why. The lights were dancing around the ceiling, the hissing sounded almost musical now and she began to hum along.

     What had she been doing here, she thought to herself as she hummed. With another laugh she decided she did not care what she had been doing and started singing to herself. "Flashing lights, what delights! Spinning round, got me down!" She sang over and over to herself, her voice echoing loudly all around her. Fits of laughter were the only thing that broke up her singing. She rolled back and forth on the floor, unable to stand. Still singing she started to crawl slowly, not knowing where she was going. "I am really hungry! Need to eat! Where are the snakes? I will eat their meat!" her song had changed. The ringing continued in her ears, everything spinning. Her thoughts were gone, replaced with bliss and mania. Her laughter kept breaking out at strange times, sounding almost hauntingly to herself.

     As she crawled, something moved up ahead. Something in the form of a tall man, but he was moving away from her. "Come back," she said in a sing song voice, the sound reverberating on to her. "I need to eat you!" she laughed heartily. The form was growing smaller, "Stop! Come back!" Forcing herself along, she started to crawl a bit faster. "Where are you going?" her sing song voice returned, drool dripped down her chin slightly. "Come and dance with me! I was only kidding about eating you!" Looking down the corridor, the person had gone, and her happiness was fading with them. She screamed in anguish. "Come back!" she cried, tears rolling down her face. "No!"

     The hallway was spinning even faster than before, her stomach was beginning to churn again. Rolling over to lay on her back she could hold it down no longer, vomit sprayed from her mouth. Wiping her mouth with her arm, she pulled it away and it was covered in blood. Panic poured over her, blood was spreading from her, climbing the walls. The walls were now moving, dancing along beside her. A strange humming sound creeped up in the distance, as the dancing walls began to move more erratically, covered in blood. Rose rolled back onto her stomach and looked around in terror, the walls all had evil smiles on their faces and small black forms where dashing all over the floor, moving toward her. "Leave me alone!" she screamed, covering her face with her hands.

     Something began moving across her suit, feeling as though it was inside her clothing. Her anxiety was spiking as she rapidly tried to brush the small black forms off. "Get off me!" she screamed, tears still rolling down her face. The walls leaned over to watch her, almost seeming like they would fall on her at any moment, blood dripping from them. Abandoning trying to remove what she could feel moving across her, she began to crawl, blood covering the floor. "No, no, no," she repeated in a whisper. Willing herself, she crawled faster, her legs and arms were resisting her commands and her eyes felt heavy. "Somebody help me!" she called, still trying with all her might to move away from the intrusive walls.  Her body was giving up, her arms would no longer pull her forward, her legs laying limp on the floor. The walls were still leaning over her with maniacal grins on their weird faces. With all the effort she could muster, she tucked in her legs and put her arms over her head. Curled up in a ball, she cried softly into her knees as the world around her went dark.