Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Gasps echo around the room as the others notice the shadowy figure among us.
“What the hell is that?”
“What the fu—”
“Somebody go get— Fuck, what’s-his-name—”
The shadow grows in front of my eyes, already-long limbs stretching, form contorting and spreading into a writhing mass of darkness that nearly reaches the ceiling.
The others stumble back, crying out. I remain rigid against the wall, staring up at the monstrous entity now filling half the room, standing between us and the cracked door.
The reedy man runs for the exit. A shadowy tendril from the monster is faster, slamming the door shut before he can reach it. The man throws himself against it with a panicked cry, pounding a fist against the metal. “Let us out!”
Meanwhile, the grizzled older man grabs a chair and hurls it toward where the monster’s face should be. Another tentacle of shadow grabs it midair and holds it there.
After a glance in my direction, Ellis retreats to my side.
“What’s the plan?” he mutters, never taking his eyes off the shadowy figure.
I study it alongside him. The thing is huge, and I can’t deny that it’s terrifying. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s too big for us to fight, too quick for us to escape without being caught. But…
“If that thing wanted to kill us, we’d already be dead,” I say.
When the man tries to hurl another chair at it, the shadow monster swipes it aside and then wraps a tendril around the man’s waist and lifts him. It effortlessly dangles him upside-down midair while he screams until he’s purple in the face.
The reedy guy has retreated to a corner of the room and is cowering against the floor. I think he may have pissed himself.
Ellis side-eyes me.
“It hasn’t hurt anyone,” I say.
“So what do we do?”
The situation is beyond anything I’ve seen before, but the adrenaline pumping through my veins is familiar.
I had a fucked-up childhood, an adolescence spent bouncing between foster homes, and I’ve spent most of my adulthood working security gigs.
Chaos is more familiar to me than safety.
I don’t even feel surprised at this point.
Instead, a peculiar sense of calm settles over me, a feeling like: ah, I’ve been waiting for this.
I’m rattled—of course I am—but I know there’s no time to succumb to my fear.
“Follow me,” I say.
I’m not sure why Ellis trusts me enough to agree. Perhaps it’s just that I’m the only one in the room who isn’t panicking. When I slowly walk along the edge of the wall toward the door, he’s right behind me without a moment’s hesitation.
The shadow creature is focused on the man dangling from one of its tendrils. The other man is in fetal position in the corner. I walk toward the door.
Slow, I tell myself. Never run in front of a predator. Never turn your back to a threat.
I’m just a few feet away when the shadowy monstrosity turns to face me. At least, I think it does. Its face is still smooth and blank, but somehow I can feel its gaze upon me.
I halt abruptly. Ellis bumps into me from behind, and I gesture for him to stay put without taking my eyes off the monster.
“We mean you no harm.” I’m not sure what drives me to try to negotiate, other than the desperate hope that this creature can be reasoned with. If it can’t be, then we’re screwed. “Please let us leave.”
The shadow monster tilts its head. Its mouth spreads into a wide, toothy grin.
I’m struck by how huge and sharp its fangs are, and how easily a monster like that could swallow me whole.
Even more frightening, now that I’m close, I can see the dark intelligence in its eyes, the way it considers my words. It understands me.
After a tense moment, it moves aside, leaving a path to the door.
Ellis starts to move toward it immediately, but I thrust out an arm to stop him.
“Wait,” I say. It’s probably foolish of me to press my luck, but I can’t bring myself to walk out the door and leave others behind, even if it means risking my own safety.
Never again. I swallow hard, looking up at the monster.
“We’ll be taking the other two with us.” Thank God, my voice doesn’t tremble.
Ellis hesitates. I can see him warring with his own desire to run. But finally he heads for the other job applicant still cowering in the corner. He murmurs under his breath as he half drags the man to his feet.
I keep my eyes trained on the monster and the older man still dangling from its grip. The guy’s eyes have rolled back in his head, passed out from either fear or the rush of blood to his head.
“He’s no longer any threat to you,” I say. “Let us take him with us.”
A pause. The creature continues to regard me with that eerie grin.
I refuse to budge. “If you need a hostage…” Or a meal, I think, my stomach squirming, but I refuse to voice that fear. It hasn’t hurt anyone, I remind myself. “Let him go. Take me instead.”
Surprise flickers across the monster’s face. I’m surprised by how clearly the emotion is written across its features. It tilts its head, eyes narrowing, as if to question my statement.
Fuck. I don’t want to do this. That guy was an asshole. But I know what it’s like to walk away knowing that others didn’t get the same chance. I don’t want to live with that guilt on my shoulders ever again.
“I’ll stay.”
After a moment’s consideration, the monster sets the unconscious man down on the floor. Ellis is nearly at the door now with the other man. The moment the creature turns its black eyes on them, the reedy guy bolts out the door. Ellis pauses, looking from me to the monster.
I gesture toward the unconscious man without taking my eyes off the creature. “Take him,” I tell Ellis. “Go.”
“But you—”
“I’ll be fine.” My voice remains calm despite the frantic thud of my heartbeat. “Go.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Ellis grabs the unconscious man by the arms and drags him out the door. I don’t move, even when it clicks shut behind him. I remain still and composed in front of the gigantic shadow monster. Its tendrils slowly spread over the room, taking up nearly the entire space.
The monster stares at me, as if trying to read something in my face. I stare back, my chin held high.
I’d prefer not to die. But I refuse to live with the guilt of leaving others behind.
After a moment, the monster’s tendrils recede, huge body shifting and shrinking, until it stands in a humanoid body, too. Still towering over me, but far less monstrous. I’m braced for a lunge, for the snap of teeth and the bright, hot shock of pain. But it steps back and gestures to the door.
For a moment, I can only stare. I almost question it but swallow the words down. If it’s giving me a chance to leave, I’ll take it. “Thank you,” I say.
The creature shows its teeth in a wide, unsettling grin.
The lights flicker again, and when they come back, the monster is gone.
It’s just me in the empty room, surrounded by toppled chairs and scattered papers, the remnants of chaos.
I press a hand to my chest, taking in a shaky breath, and compose myself before I step through the door.
Ellis is waiting just outside, anxious face breaking into a smile as soon as he sees me exit the room. The unconscious man is crumpled on the floor next to him; there’s no sign of the one who fled.
And just next to Ellis stands Hunter Barnes, his scar stretching across his cheek as he smiles.
“Good work, Ms. Hawkins,” he says. “You passed the test.”
Ellis is practically bouncing on his feet, giddy with the knowledge that we’ve gained the approval of our potential employers.
I am less enthused.
“What kind of test involves putting your applicants in a room with a monster?” I grumble as we follow Barnes down the hallway. The adrenaline of the situation is gradually draining from my body, leaving me exhausted and annoyed.
“You were never in harm’s way,” Barnes calls over his shoulder. “Somnus was once a subject here, but now he works alongside us. He’s harmless.” He glances back, grinning. “But pretty fuckin’ scary when he wants to be.”
I meet his grin with a glower. “We didn’t know we weren’t in danger. We thought we were fighting for our lives.”
“That’s the point,” he says. “We need to see how you’ll react when faced with the impossible.
No amount of training can predict how you’re going to respond until it happens.
Anyone who instinctively responds with either too much aggression or too much fear can’t be an effective member of the team here at the MRF.
But you two…” He glances back again, giving us an approving nod.
“You did all right. You kept it together when faced with the unknown, and you helped get the other applicants out, too.”
“Are you saying we’ve got the job?” Ellis asks, as cheery as ever.
“You’ve got my stamp of approval and a conversation with the head of the Facility. So…” Barnes opens the door to an office and gestures to enter. “Don’t fuck it up.”
Ellis heads inside to speak with the director first. I wait in an uncomfortable chair in the hallway, arms folded over my chest and one leg bouncing, boot tapping against the tile.
Barnes left to attend to his work a few minutes ago, and without someone to pin my frustrations on, I’ve just been simmering in my thoughts.
I’m still not certain I want this job after what they put us through. No matter how harmless they insist that creature was, I saw the size of its teeth.
If I work here, I’ll be seeing things like that every day. Worse things, actually, since apparently, they let that one out of its cell. This place wasn’t built for harmless creatures. It was built to contain monsters.
The door to the office opens. I raise my head to see Ellis exiting the room, still grinning.
“Good luck,” he says as he passes by, shooting me a thumbs-up.
Does he ever stop smiling? How is he so unfazed by all of this? I study him through narrowed eyes.
“Ms. Hawkins?”
I look over to the doorway, where a middle-aged woman waits in a tailored suit.
“Please, let’s speak in my office.”
I follow her inside and study her as I sink into a chair. She takes a seat behind the desk and sits with the posture of a trained dancer, all poise and power.
“My name is Calliope Wright, and I’m the director of this Facility,” she says.
“While Mr. Barnes is in charge of security and I leave the bulk of the hiring process to him, I like to personally meet each new member of our team.” She twirls a pen between long, thin fingers, studying me the same way I studied her, her green eyes piercing and unreadable.
“The nature of our workforce has changed drastically over the last few years, and we’re very particular about who we hire moving forward.
I have a vision for the Facility, and how I want to change it, now that I’m in charge. ”
I can’t tell if she’s trying to intimidate me or if it is just her nature to be intimidating. Either way, I’m not so easily cowed. I sit straight-backed in my chair, meeting her gaze without flinching. “Do I fit your vision, Director Wright?”
Her lips curve into a small smile. She sets her pen down and leans back in her chair.
“You kept your cool remarkably well,” she says.
“You stayed calm enough to correctly assess the intelligence threat level of Somnus—that’s the shadow monster you saw—and ensure that everyone got out safely.
That was impressive, Ms. Hawkins. That’s what we need in our staff here.
Not those who will immediately try to harm our subjects, or those who tend to flee at the first sight of trouble, but people who will stand their ground and use reason, even in the face of the impossible.
” She slides a contract across the desk.
“So, yes. I think you’ll be an excellent fit here, Ms. Hawkins. ”
I take the contract and flip through the pages, scanning it. When I reach the section detailing my payment, I pause, one eyebrow arching. I glance from the number to Dr. Wright.
“The work here isn’t easy,” she says, “but we aim to compensate fairly for the risk you’re taking on.”
The offer is good. But I’ve turned down better ones before, because I knew that they were trying to buy my morals. It isn’t money that makes me pick up the pen. It’s the same quiet though that brought me here despite my reservations: What if…?
What if this is what I’ve been searching for? An opportunity that will help me make sense of the past? There has to be a reason for everything that happened to me. There has to be a reason that I survived.
All my life it’s seemed to hover just out of reach of my outstretched fingers, but I can’t bring myself to stop chasing it. So despite a nagging twist of uncertainty in my gut, I sign my name at the bottom of the page.