Chapter Twenty - What Planet Is This?!
Project 86Chapter Twenty – What Planet Is This?!
Her head was pounding thousands of beats a minute feeling as if a drummer was double pedalling directly into her head. Her muscles ached everywhere; even in places she didn’t know that she had muscles. With great effort and aggravatingly slowly she was gaining consciousness, her mind beginning to register everything. She could feel the metal straps around her wrists, her spine wince with pain as she attempted to move herself and her eyelids felt like a ton of bricks. Opening them up was excruciating.
A minute passed, then a couple more. She still had her eyes closed but the pounding was beginning to subside, which allowed her to finally use her ears to hear, or more so hear the absence of sound. No sound of people, no sound of computers, just the faint hum of the air ventilation. There was still power in the facility and the ventilation worked. No risk of suffocation at least.
Finally, after the pounding had mostly disappeared and the worst of her muscle pain was gone she managed to open her eyes, causing a sting of pain to immediately run to her forehead. She was still in the lab and strapped to her chair. They were unable to send her to the dream world after all. The bright laboratory lights had turned off and instead a few low energy lights were on strewn about here and there, most likely emergency lights using a backup generator.
Everything was as she had last seen when she entered the machine except now the hall was filled with bodies everywhere. Lab technicians and assistants were all strewn across the floor and on their chairs, leaning on tables. It was a scene of horror.
“Hello?” Seohyun carefully called out immediately coughing as a result. was dry and her voice raspy and the cough made her lungs burn with each convulsion. She decided to avoid talking if she could.
Slouched over behind the command desk was Luna’s body. From this distance Seohyun couldn’t tell if she was merely unconscious or dead. She couldn’t tell if anyone was alive. A lump was forming in as she did her best to stabilise her breathing to prevent herself from panicking. With long deep breathes her heart rate slowed down, managing to calm her nerves from the worst shock.
The constant hum of the dream machine was nowhere to be heard and Seohyun craned her neck with great effort to look at the screen that had been next to her seat. It was black, nothing showing on it. It was safe to assume that the dream machine was off. With this information she lifted her right arm against the metal wrist straps that kept her arms in place, the latches were unlocked and flipped open with ease. Freeing her other hand from the binding she removed the node cap that was on her head and pushed the whole helmet contraption as much as she could out of the way. Now she was free to get off.
With the nimbleness of a toddler she picked herself up from the seat almost losing balance and falling off onto the floor as her legs felt like giving in, like they hadn’t been used in forever and she was attempting to learn how to walk again. Managing to grab onto the sides of her massive seat she turned herself to face the seat and climbed down like one would on a ladder.
With her feet finally on solid ground, she hobbled for a second before finding her balance. It truly felt like she was relearning the basics of moving. Looking around from here she could see that there really was nobody else awake. With tentative steps she walked over to Luna to see what condition she was in, if she was even alive. Carefully turning her slightly so that she was lying on her back, she checked Luna’s pulse. She was still alive. With a better view she could see her chest rise and fall slowly. Breathing was okay as well. She could assume that everyone was just passed out and not dead. Seohyun heard the jingle of keys and looked behind Luna to see her car keys were on the ground and picked them up. Maybe she could use Luna’s car to drive out of here.
Laying next to Luna about half a metre away was her phone. The live video feed that she had seen earlier was still showing and Seohyun went to pick the phone up. The video was facing sideways against the ground; the strike team member attached to this camera must be lying on his side. Further out she could faintly see a few more bodies strewn across the parking lot. There was no movement and everything was quiet. Whatever had knocked out everyone in this lab had also done so all the way at the shrine. Seohyun felt worry build at the pit of her stomach, not knowing if her friends at the shrine were okay, if Yoona was still fine. Seohyun ended the video call on Luna’s phone and pocketed it.
Over by the set of twelve computer screens that she had seen earlier the lab technicians were keeled over their desks. A few other technicians were clumped by their feet, obviously having been observing the data standing next to them before passing out. Halfway between the command desk and the computers Seohyun saw Thomas Hwang lying on the floor. Making sure that Luna could breathe unobstructed she got up and walked over to Thomas Hwang. Seeing him breathing and merely unconscious, Seohyun secured him in the recovery position she had learned at the company first-aid course. Finally she could put it to some good use. Even though they had forced her into the machine and threatened her friends, she wasn’t going to allow someone to die due to her neglect. She would make sure that every unconscious person she came across was breathing without obstruction.
Having secured Thomas she walked over to the table where she had left her own jacket and bag before entering the machine. She placed Luna’s phone in her bag and then fished out her own phone. Since Luna had made a phone call earlier it meant that the laboratory should have cell reception. As she powered her phone she saw it had perfect cell reception, so she dialled in Sunny’s number. It rang and rang with no answer. She then called Hyoyeon. Same result. Finally she called the shrine’s phone but no answer from any of them. Was everyone at the shrine also passed out? She had to get herself back to the shrine, to escape the lab.
Seohyun looked over at Saebyuk who also was passed out, sleeping and breathing calmly. That was Yoona’s body. Even if Saebyuk most likely still inhabited Yoona’s body, she couldn’t just leave her friends body here to these vultures, she had to get it out with her.
Her muscles were feeling less painful by now and her walking finally resembled actual walking instead of hobbling. She would need something to help her move Yoona out of this lab. Seohyun looked around her. There had to be a cart of some kind somewhere in these labs, maybe even a wheelchair. There would be one right? Considering they dealt with coma patients, or dream patients, or… whatever it was she could use that to take Yoona with her from this place.
Scouting around the central lab room where the machine was located she couldn’t spot anything with a set of wheels, so she began walking up the steps leading away from the machine while eyeing all around her. If there was an infirmary of some kind down here it might have a wheelchair. Reaching the top of the stairs and the outer most loop of the laboratory with offices lining the edge of the loop, she began walking around looking for anything she could use. There was no infirmary of any kind nor any carts that could support the weight of a human; only tiny carts that could at most hold a vial or two. Defeated she returned back to the centre of the lab where the dream machine lay and sat down on Thomas Hwang’s office chair behind the command desk.
The massive chair felt slightly too big for Seohyun, and as she kicked herself back and forth, rolling in the chair trying to figure out what to do when she figured it out. She could just use this chair. How had she completely failed to see it earlier that office chairs had wheels and she could use one to roll Yoona’s body out? She would use Thomas’ as it was rather large and could easily fit Yoona safely on it.
Dragging the chair to the edge of the platform she carefully dropped it over the edge to the same level as the machine and then rolled it up next to where Yoona’s body lay in the seat. As Saebyuk worked for Thomas she had voluntarily gotten into the machine and wasn’t strapped in anyway. Seohyun lifted herself up a step to remove the head contraption from the way and then aligned the backrest of the office chair so she could slide Yoona into it.
Before long, after lots of grunting, sweating and almost falling off a few times, Seohyun managed to get Yoona’s legs over the backrest of the office chair and slide her down carefully into the seat. Now with Yoona secured she needed to get her outside of this building. Rolling the chair up the ramp that ran parallel to the main steps of the laboratory was hard work, and she struggled to keep her pace and not let the chair roll back down again. Eventually she managed to push it to the top and pushed the chair to the entrance elevator to the laboratories that she had arrived in.
The elevators power was still on; however it required a key-card to work. She tried using the guest pass she had been provided, but the panel only showed red accompanied by a dull low beep to denote failure. Of course it wouldn’t work, why would they give her a working one. If her card didn’t work then Thomas’ pass would definitely work.
Leaving Yoona to rest by the elevator she hurried back to the dream machine. On the way she noticed a few lab coats hanging freely. Although she suspected that everyone above might have also passed out, especially since nobody had attempted to come down to see what was going on, she should still prepare for the unlikely scenario and so disguise herself.
Seohyun picked up a lab coat putting it on in one smooth motion and continued down to the centre of the lab. And that’s when she first started seeing things. Very faintly attached to the side of the dream machine vines were growing, wrapping themselves up the machine. They seemed to be flickering in and out of existence though, like an old television with a bad connection.
She had stopped to watch this happen halfway down to the machine. Was she losing her mind? Was she actually in a dream in the end? With trepidation she continued down the steps keeping her eyes glued to this flickering vine that kept growing and wrapping itself around the machine. She was certain she had to be in a dream. How could something like this exist in real life?
Finally reaching the machine she stopped right in front of the vine, just staring at it as it vanished and reappeared every few seconds. The intervals were getting longer and the vines looked more real with every passing second. Without much thought she reached out to try and touch the vine. Her hand went through it. She couldn’t touch or grab it. It was like a hologram from the movies.
As soon as she had touched it she pulled back. This was too unreal. But if it was real and she wasn’t dreaming she had to get out of this place. If anything, this could be a result of the machine alone and the further away she got the better. She didn’t have time for this nonsense.
Visibly a little shaken by this apparition she turned around and headed for Thomas’ unconscious body. He was still lying quietly breathing regularly. Seohyun rummaged through his pockets happening upon his phone first. She might as well take it since she already had Luna’s. Maybe they could extract some information out of it or if nothing else, annoy them with the loss of their phones. The next pocket yielded his ID and as soon as she had taken it out, something slithered out through his chest and into the corner of the room.
Seohyun fell back with screams of terror. What had that been? Shaking uncontrollably she stared in the direction of the corner it had disappeared into, clutching tightly on her recently acquired loot. She had to get out of here now.
With much effort she managed to get her muscles under control and lift herself up, backing away all the while looking at the corner to make sure it couldn’t sneak up on her. She couldn’t see any hole or crack in the wall where it had gone but that didn’t matter.
Soon enough her foot bumped the edge of the steps out of the laboratory. That’s when she heard a low mumble. She looked up at the highest level of the lab where, what looked like a person, drifted into view slowly shuffling forward. Somebody else was awake? Maybe they could help make sense of what was going on and what she was seeing.
“Hey, hello!” Seohyun shouted out, trying to get the attention of the person. No response. She placed the items she was clutching into the pockets of her new found lab coat and began to wave her hands. “Hey! Can you hear me? Can you help me? Help!”
The person stopped walking the moment she cried for help. They turned around to face Seohyun who couldn’t really see what they looked like.
“Help?”
Seohyun didn’t see movement of the mouth nor did she hear anything with her ears. But like a piercing scream her mind was filled with a call for help. Covering her ears did nothing as the call for help continued to echo in her head.
Then the person took a step forward, shuffling towards her. And as they reached the glass wall that surrounded each individual ring level of the laboratory it walked right through, floating towards Seohyun who now saw that not only did it not have feet as it shuffled forwards, its face was distorted like a whirlpool of skin mangling the face.
With a shriek louder than an air-raid siren Seohyun turned around and bolted up the steps and towards the elevator. She wasn’t going to spend a minute longer in this place if she could help it. Reaching the elevator, with her hands shaking uncontrollably as she fought the tears and fear, she swiped the key-card on the door receiving a cheerful ding and a green light. As soon as the door opened she pulled Yoona’s body in to the elevator with her and pressed to go up. With the elevator doors closing her view to the lab, she attempted to see if the creature was following her, but there was nothing there. No green vines on the machine, no scurrying little rats or flying ghosts.
With a whimper Seohyun slouched on the floor of the elevator as its journey topside started. It turned into sobbing and soon full blown rivers of tears as she attempted to breathe calmly to soothe the nerves. She looked at her hands that were shaking harder than a jackhammer, letting out a laugh at the incredulity of the whole situation. She had to be going mad. The same bellowing of air flow she had heard when the elevator was descending once again reverberated through the metal cage she sat in drowning out any noise that she made. Wiping her eyes on the sleeves of her lab coat, she stood up and cleaned her act as she arrived to the laboratory corridor with the checkpoint she had crossed before.
The elevator doors slid open. Silence. Not a single sound was heard and at the far end of the corridor by the checkpoint the security guards were slouched on their desk or on the floor. Seohyun pulled the chair with her as she exited into the corridor and then slowly began pushing it forward. The only sound was from the wheels of the office chair and walking further down she saw that everybody who had been in the labs on either side was passed out. Nobody was awake or moving.
She reached the security check and slowed down coming to a stop a few metres away from it. All three of the guards were unconscious in where they had been standing or sitting. The metal detector’s power was still on, the lights at the top waiting to signal if any metal was detected. It looked like it would be a tight squeeze with the office chair, so Seohyun turned it sideways. As she walked through first the alarm went off, startling her as she let out an audible gasp. She clasped her hands to and looked around. Nobody had reacted to any sound. With a struggle and effort she pulled the chair through too accompanied by the same alarm as the detectors registered the metal in the chair passing through. No reaction from anybody.
Before pulling her any further she used the key-card to open the next door and scouted her route ahead. She entered the staircase she had used to arrive to the laboratory. This would lead her to the main lobby of the offices. However in front of her was another unmarked door. With the swipe of the key-card she took a peek inside. It was the garage, just the thing she was looking for. Borrowing the shoes of one of the unconscious security guards, Seohyun used them to keep both of the doors open and pulled Yoona in with her into the garage.
The echo of the closing door rang throughout the garage. It was full of cars still, so Seohyun knew that whatever it was that happened and made everyone unconscious must have happened before the work day was over.
“Hello?”
Her shaky voice trembled throughout the empty halls. There was no reply. She took Luna’s car key out of her pocket and began pushing the office chair while clicking the open lock button on the key. She didn’t have a clue what her car looked like other than it was an Audi. The only sound heard was the hard rolling sound of the office chair and her high heels clicking against the concrete floor.
The parking lot was huge, but a few rows back and forth and soon she heard the high pitched beep of an unlocked car. Honing her focus to where she thought she heard the sound, she clicked on the key again and again eventually seeing the flashing lights off a black Audi with darkened side windows.
Pulling up beside it she opened the passenger side front seat door and lifted Yoona’s body’s legs up as she pushed the office chair closer to the car, lifting the legs into the car and then with more struggle than she imagined managed to slide her into the passenger side seat face first. That’s when she heard an elephant blasting with its trunk.
Almost tripping up she turned around immediately too look at the source of the sound, and walking on top of the car on the opposite side of the car park isle was a tiny elephant, not much larger than a regular laptop. Mouth agape she stared at it as it pranced around on the roof of the car, trotting along before letting out another loud shout through its trunk. The volume was the same as a life-sized elephant Seohyun immediately covering her ears.
“I need to get the hell out of here.”
She quickly straightened Yoona’s body into the seat and placed the seatbelt, closed the passenger door and rounded to the other side and got in. It had been a long time since she last drove a car, having not really driven since getting her license much, but she had the necessary skills if she drove slow enough.
The engine came to life with a growl and before heading off Seohyun added the address for the shrine into the GPS-navigator of the car. Apprehensive and with great care she left the parking spot and drove to the exit where the automatic garage doors opened up. Driving out of the garage into the city she was met with a harrowing sight.
The sky was dark with a mist of gray and black swirling above, a constant maelstrom of black tendrils swirling around. Further behind the buildings she could see black smoke swirling with the wind being played by the black tendrils. Everywhere people unconscious on the ground, benches, in their cars and the buses. Car crashes strewn about as people had fallen asleep on the wheel. Luckily in this area of the city the speed’s were low so none of the crashes were severe, however she knew that at higher speeds there must have been deadly encounters.
Along with this chaos and destruction, with bodies spread evenly out, she could see things fade in and out of existence. Regular animals, monsters, cartoon characters. Anything a person’s mind could think of was existing in this place. Trees and bushes, whole jungles had grown up through buildings, flashing in and out in some cases. A ghostly ship sailed in the sky through the skyscrapers, its wooden planks screeching as the smoky waves it rode on rocked it back and forth.
Seohyun reached with her shaking hand and instinctively grabbed hold of Yoona’s hand. She squeezed it tight trying to calm her breathing, trying to control her fear. Her eyes wide staring at the horror, unblinking, tears began rolling down her cheeks.
“I wish you were here Yoona. Where are you?”
A flock of gazelles ran in front of her car being chased by a cheetah the hooves drumming the ground kicking up savannah dust off the concrete pavement. As quickly as they appeared they vanished into the office block next to hers. After a moment of silence she finally blinked and squeezed Yoona’s limp hand one more time before letting go of it. These apparitions seemed to both interact with the physical world and sometimes not, making Seohyun supremely unsure whether she should actively avoid them or if it was fine to go through them, or let something go through her.
A pterodactyl screeched in the sky and flew not far above her and she shuddered at the thought; what if a Tyrannosaurus or an Ankylosaur barrelled down towards her? Should she try her best to avoid it? What she did know was she had to do her best to avoid all the unconscious people around her, not to mention all the cars that had crashed or stopped haphazardly on the road. Pulling out of the office front she began her extremely slow drive towards the shrine. The trip was going to take a while.
Comments