35. Flux : Desolation

Looking down at the lifeless corpse torn asunder by forces never meant to be controlled by man I stopped rustling my chest pouches for a bandage. The firefight went on as more entered the tunnel though the sight held me glued to the moment. It wasn’t loss freezing me in place, nothing went through my mind as the blood continued to pour from Hazards body.

Even though he was deceased it still felt as if he was here. Looking around the tunnel had a certain glow about it. A haze imperceptible to human senses but undoubtedly there. The fight raged on but it’s sounds refused to reverberate from the walls. Absolute silence accompanied the stage of death while I tried to find my bearings disorientated by the sudden lapse in stimuli.

Hunkering down in cover Bishop made his way over evaluating my condition. With no apparent wounds or damage he continued the fight while I looked back to the door. Everyone managed to make it through with the exception of Dragonfly and Skippy who died in the field. With the firefight coming to a close hearing returned as I helped myself to my feet.

Regardless of my state Sparrow ordered that Bishop, Strider and I take point down the tunnel. Not having the time to grieve over our loses we moved deeper into the depths with haste. Malnourished fallen proved to be little threat as they were cut down by Bishop and Strider seeing no degradation in our pace. Nothing had ventured into this tunnel for a long time it seemed.

Approaching a dead end revealed a large elevator made to lower trains and carriages into the facility. Taking positions on the platform and optimistically flipping a switch the massive gears grinded to life lowering us into the ground. Power still coursed through the facility regardless of the age in the concrete that slowly passed as we descended further into the depths.

Holding our guard Havoc took a moment to look over the ledge with an impressed whistle. Weapons ready in tense arms we scanned the walls and area above us for any intruders. After ten minutes of scanning we arrived at the bottom with a massive clank. Fanning out securing the massive underground atrium I led through the entrance with Strider and Bishop while the others followed from further behind.

Clearing room by room only the humming of the facility could be heard. Finding an office I began searching through documents for anything of value while Bishop held the door and Strider went back to report to the other groups following us. Flicking through the pages saw numerous atrocities and tears all documented with their methods and results of creation. Flipping through the pages skimming through the horrors created in this facility it wasn’t until I came across a project named Entity that I stopped turning the pages.

Eyes locked to the beginning of the scientific paper. This was it. This was what had transformed the area into the zone. The answer to all of this madness and my cure. It sat written in front of me. Following every word in the abstract saw my eyes jump back to the beginning of the paper to verify what I just read. Going over them again more slowly produced a rise in my pulse.

‘From the results of experiment Pi it was supported that sentience is a psionic energy packet trapped in a suitable vessel. This brought to question as to whether a creature could be created purely from this energy and offer a tap into this energy for potential resource, warfare or medical applications. After releasing appropriate psionic force in the focus chamber a concentration of energy was successfully created and contained.’

It all made sense now. It was alive. All the voices and the singing. It called to me from the beginning. Ever since the shooting it could feel the disturbance in my oversaturated vessel. I wasn’t insane I was truly two people trapped in one mind. Holding back overwhelming relief I flipped through the paper to find myself at the results page looking for more.

‘The creation of Entity supported our findings previously testing sentience as a packet of psionic energy. It was found that Entity was also self aware as it immediately attempted to escape the chamber. With barriers holding sufficiently further experimentation followed. Resource applications are thought to be possible as psionic energy concentrated itself in a suitable material to radiate psionic energy until exhausted. With further study it may be possible to harness this radiation.’

‘Warfare applications were found to be dismal as any applicant exposed to the focus chamber and Entity were killed or rendered comatose. With every applicant applied it was found that Entity grew in energy size suggesting it was purposely harvesting psionic energy from human applicants. Correlating energy rises with the worldwide death rate also found that Entity was absorbing psionic energy from around the world once life left a vessel.’

‘With these results we sought out to revive the dead in providing a healthy body with energy from the focus chamber. Experiments were ceased after five bodies were indeed revived but hostile leading to the loss of four members of the team. It’s suggested that the memories of death conflicting with a new life were too traumatic to allow for an intact mind to make a forced jump back into a vessel.’

‘The creation of Entity has also seen a spike in the aggressive nature of our other experiments and severity of lab created tears placing a higher risk on all other experiments. With no promising results in any field and the threat that Entity possess termination of the experiment has now become project priority. Once a suitable method of disrupting the psionic concentration of the experiment has been found teams will refocus on the atrocity projects.’

Going over the conclusion summing up the results all over again it all seemed to be so clear now. Looking around the office noticing stains decades old it was obvious they lost. They created a god containing the power to alter reality as it saw fit. If anything would put me together it could. A rush of hope flowed over me as a whispering could be heard from the door then a scream.

Bishop charged out towards the scream yelling something to me as he went to find Strider. Failing to decipher his cry over the whispers that filled my mind his footsteps echoed through the door as the voices began to sing again. Walking to the doorway looking the other way from which Bishop ran the voices drowned out everything else.

Walking down the hallway with my weapon still in the office I pressed on not bothering to reclaim it. I wouldn’t need it. It was going to guide me to salvation. It promised all the answers were just a few twists and turns away. Into the darkness where lights failed though my feet carried me forward. Physical senses couldn’t penetrate the shroud but my mind knew exactly where to go. The end was in sight after so many long years.