There’s nothing at first, the light fading off into the darkness until finally it catches a railing across the floor ahead of me. Shifting the flashlight from side to side as I move toward it, the beam hits a glass panel and reflects back at me from even deeper into the space. Holding its aim on the glass, I see more glinting surfaces around it.
Thinking the cavernous feel of the room must be from a possible cave-in somewhere ahead of me, I drop my light from the glass to point it downward on the exact other side of the railing. Slowly, my eyes adjust, taking in the vague outlines of shapes spanning out below and before me, far past the edge of my meager illumination.
What the fuck is this place…?
I glance back at the double-wide doors behind me, assuring myself they’re still open. I get the feeling they’re supposed to be closed…
Since I’m pressed for time, I decide to look for a way down, and soon discover two sets of stairs, one on either side of me along the room’s outer walls. The landing spans between them. Heading left, I grab the railing with my free hand as I head down to see what I’ve found and if there’s a possible exit ahead.
Lurkers… at least the one Shelby found… had been underground.Suddenly, midstep, my stomach churns with my next inhale of air. Have I made a grave mistake? Maybe I shouldn’t have come here. I should go back now and head above. I should take my chances with the Boa outside.
The hand holding my flashlight drops and the light shifts over the glinting machinery below. My gaze remains on the shapes beneath me, the darkness keeping them obscured just enough to make them sway in illusion. Shadowy forms merge between them, seemingly moving. Despite knowing it’s just a trick being played by my eyes, I continue to stare at them, wrestling with what I should do and if I have the courage to do it.
I smell death. Whatever it is, it’s not right.
Whatever is down here, and I know somethinghasto be down here, it’s probably dead, and unless I turn back, my only other choice is to keep moving through.
Straightening, I shift my light to the floor, descending the rest of the stairs.How did it come to this? How could I let myself get caught off from the group?
A grated metal pathway meets me at the bottom, lifted several feet off of the real cement floors beneath it. I follow the pathway until I’m below where I stood at the railing. Along the wall beneath, numerous massive machines sit hunched under the weight of the piping exploding out from them. Leading away from the wall and out into the enormous room are multiple parallel catwalks between large rows of what looks like more machinery, this time cylindrical in shape.
A low humming comes from deeper in and I pause to listen. It sounds like the machines are on and running. At least some of them.Maybe I woke them up when I turned the power back on above…But I don’t think so… There must be another power source.
I aim my light at the first shape on the right side of the pathway. It hits a long glass cylinder that’s filled with murky water. Huge tubes, pipes, wires, and looping metal hang off and connect to it from above and below. Peering past it, I can see many more cylinders that are exactly the same leading into the velvety darkness.
My heart sinks. I know what I might be looking at, and my breath shortens with deeper unease. I may not be as trusted by the women who’d chosen to remain here with their naga mates, but Daisy, Shelby, and Laura have shared enough with me that I know where the nagas originate.
Others have discovered places like this…
The first dozen or so cylinders are empty except for a pale greenish liquid, and as I pass them on either side, I start to relax. I expected some sort of mass grave but when my beam hits the thirteenth cylinder, there’s something inside of it.
Several thinly-stretched, pale yellow strips float unmoving at the top, no wider than several inches. Seeing no defining features of anything I recognize, I keep going, past the next few—each with similarly shaped things inside.
The cylinders start to get bigger, the solution within turning clearer. I come upon several cracked ones where the liquid has drained away, the things inside it long deteriorated.
Then I come upon the first body.
I squint as I approach, directing my flashlight at the bulbous amalgamation. Floating inside the next cylinder is a chimeric creature: the upper torso of a human and the bottom half a coiled tail. Peering at the face within, I take in its softly shut eyes and bald head. There is no coloring or pattern to its flesh, all of it instead a sickly, pale yellow. My heart drops as I run my light over the body.
A quick scan ahead reveals that the following dozen or so tanks have similar forms floating within them. Returning my attention back to the one I’m next to, I approach the computer panel and wipe the dust off it with the sleeve of my jacket.
The nagalooksgrown.
Trying the buttons, testing the sturdiness of several tubes, nothing happens, and I step back onto the path.
I shift my light over the naga’s face one more time and its eyes snap open.
“Fuck!” I jerk back.
Steadying myself, holding my light firm. The naga otherwise doesn’t move, its eyes staring forward and down at me, unfocused. Glazed. Alive.
It’s still alive.
A rush of horror and dread fills me; my body freezes in disbelief. I take in the naga’s blanched features, appalled by the notion that it’s been here, alive, trapped, for all this time.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” I ask.
I get no response, just a blank stare at my light. I check the remaining tanks past it and see more dully flickering lights on the machines around the vats. Not every one, but many. Jogging now to see even further, I come across an entire row of lifeless machines.
