With everything restored, I go back down the hallway and try to ignore how weird everything sounds and feels. It’s just my paranoia, I’m sure.
—
The beeping and whining from all the systems in the building subsides within the next few minutes…except for one. One buzzing alarm, just loud enough to hear, far down the hallway, next to the elevators.
I try to ignore it, thinking it will just shut off by itself, since I don’t want to have to deal with it, but it’sjustloud enough that I can’t really tune it out, no matter what I do.
Fuck.
I walk toward the elevators, toward the sound, in the hopes of shutting it off. Now that I’m close, I can tell it’s probably not something all that important, just a tripped sensor or something failing, not an emergency alert that could mean the whole building is about to implode. Still, I want it to shut up.
This room, for some reason, doesn’t have a number plate on it, and the door fixtures are in a different style than the ones on the rest of the floor. It also occurs to me that I’ve never seen someone come into or out of this room ever since I started here. I’m sure I could go back to my desk and look up the directory to see what’s in this room, but I’m mostly concerned with just shutting off that damn alarm.
I turn the knob and find that the door is unlocked. On one hand, I’m relieved that I won’t have to go looking for a key, but on the other, it makes me a little uneasy. It feels like a trap in some way. But the beeping won’t stop unless I just go for it. Hell, maybe worker’s comp will be a nice thing if I get immolated or something.
The moment I open the door fully and look into the room, I wish I could have kept it closed forever.
CHAPTER 4
I openthe door to chaos, more chaos than I could have imagined compared to how non-urgent the beeping sounds.
I won’t say I know exactly what every company in this building does, but as far as I know, it’s mostly boring corporate stuff. Bland conference rooms, cubicle farms, people in cheap suits and H&M’s finest. The kind of jobs that a character on a sitcom has, just a mélange of vague stereotypes and shared symbols of corporate beige.
So why…the fuck…is there a science lab in an unlabeled room in this building? And more importantly, why is there a mysterious tank filled with green fluid sitting in the middle of it?
My horror doesn’t stop as I take a couple steps into the room. As my eyes adjust to the green glow of everything, I see that the beeping I was hearing is coming from a display on the tank, accompanied by a glowing red LED. I would go over to try to shut if off, but I don’t know how much damage I could do to..whatever all of this is, if I touch any part of it.
But, I am fully owning the fact that I’m a nosy bitch, and when something like this presents itself to you, curiosity has a good chance at winning out.
I walk toward the tube, my heart beating in my throat. I have no idea what’s in there, but I have to assume it can’t be a good or even banal thing, and I can pretty much guarantee it’ll be a problem for me.
When I finally get to the tube and see what’s inside, I have an instant moment of regret. I know, right then, my life has changed forever and there won’t be any coming back from it.
Because in that tube, floating in a goopy green liquid, breathing silent, shallow breaths, is a goddamn alien.
I’m not being dramatic here. I don’t mean this is a weird animal that I’minterpretingas an alien. Whatever this is, it’s clearly not from this planet. It’s roughly human sized, with long arms that extend almost to its knees. Its skin is a milky green, like jade, and its legs, that's…where things start to get more strange. They start as thighs, but then split into a tangle of tentacles, extending down to the bottom of the tube and curling back up, creating a tangled mess.
Its face, though, in isolation, is pretty human-looking, and so it gives me pause. I see something in pain, something probably in need…
…and something that I don’t even know how to take care of even if I wanted to.
What am I even saying? It’s not like this is a wounded animal I found on the side of the road, this is something far more complex and a whole lot more than I’m able to deal with.
I think the best way for me to get out of this would be to just call the cops, I guess. Yeah, I know, ACAB and all of that, but, maybe I’ll just leave the building and let them sort it out. I already have way too many complications with my life, and I don’t need to add tentacled aliens to that list.
The display on the tank states, “Life Support Systems - Failure” along with a mess of other screens of text that look like dire warnings, full of facts and figures that I can’t make senseof, but there’s enough red and flashing on the screen that I think I get the point enough without having to have an engineering degree. I know that if I don’t attend to this thing, it will probably die. Probably. But I can’t save it myself, whatever it is, so, I do the utterly cowardly thing and turn to walk away.
I get about a step and a half before I hear a dull thudding coming from the inside of the tank. Then another. A cracking sound, like ice breaking apart in liquid, follows.
I take another step. It’s nothing, it’s absolutely nothing.
But when the third thud comes from behind me, and the next cracking sound is far louder, accompanied by a splash of liquid hitting the floor, I know I can’t be imagining it.
I turn around just in time to see the rest of the glass give way, shards flying to the ground as the pressure from the inside propels them out, along with flashes of grey tentacles.
The thing in the tube sits up, its face strangely human-like, delicate features making it look ethereal and soft. But I remind myself how much of a problem this could cause in my life. So once again, I turn away.
“Are you actually just going to leave me here to die, like this?” The voice echoes in my head. At first, I think I’m just saying it to myself, but, no, I soon realize that it’s coming from whatever’s in that tube.
