Encounter

Chapter 2

 

The blowtorch slowly and steadily approached my wrist, I braced myself for the intense pain to course through my wrist, but a gust of wind drew Artyom’s and my attention instead, a doctors slowly approached with his hand in his lab coat “I have orders to bring a man by the name of Eli to my office, it is an important matter.” He said with a thick German accent, he whipped an extendable baton out of his coat, lashing out he hit Artyom in the head with the baton, making him crumple to the ground unconscious, the blowtorch dropped to the ground burning the doctors feet, “Für`n arsch russisch!” He yelled kicking the blowtorch, it skidded across the floor, stopped by my feet, he spotted me and a hint of recognition crossed his faced, “You must be Eli! Please come at once and please excuse my brash introduction,” He continued, “I’m afraid this ‘dog’ and I have a long history together,” He said with a foul grimace stuck on his face, “Please follow me to my office good sir.”

 

We walked together in silence until the doctor broke the silence, “I think I may have seen your face before,” He remarked with his hand still on the baton, strapped to his leg

“I would imagine that you have with so many people down here,”

He sighed, “Well, you’re probably right but a lot of these people are particularly reckless.”

We took a turn into a room that was overflowing with strange equipment, an ancient looking photo of a woman in a WW2 German uniform driving a transport, “Please take a seat, as we have lots to experiment with.”

“What kind of experiments?

“Well seeing as you have that Vita device stuck to your arm, we can have a look at that first I suppose,” He rested his head on his arm and looked curiously at the piece of equipment stuck to my arm, “So you happen to be an engineer too?”

“Comes in handy these days, especially when there isn’t any information to go by these guys,”

He started approached the Vita and took out a square of plastic and pressed it against the device, it gave a hissing sound and unattached itself, “Well, it seems to have recognized you as its user for some reason,” He remarked, “I shall run some tests to see if I can find something in our database, although it’ll take a while now it’s a good thing that Russian oaf didn’t do that much damage with the blowtorch, but in the meantime please do go to your room and sleep for an hour or so.” He pressed a button, “Please come to my office and present a man to the dormitories.”

 

A few minutes later I was walking down long winds of empty and quiet corridors being led by two people that were wearing strangely metallic armour, that were also carrying batons that hard some sort of energy flickering throughout. “So what is it with the different armour that you guys wear?”

“Our armour is specifically designed for certain divisions, so since we are guards we are more designed for non-lethal situations and occasionally a last line of defence if the time comes.”

“And will that time come anytime soon?” I replied scratching my head,

“It could happen, but not anytime soon according to our info,” He sighed, “Anyway here is your room you’ll be staying in until you choose your division, also try not to talk too much to the German as he has some trust issues,”

“Thanks for your help.”

“Goodbye and good luck on choosing your division, and welcome to Sanctuary” Replied the guard.

 

As I entered the room, switched on automatically letting of a brilliant light that blinded me for a few seconds before revealing a room that looked reminiscent of a movie I once watched, “Xe- xeno?” I muttered to myself while sitting down on the bed. I glanced over my room, a big chunky computer in the corner, a giant box TV in front of the bed that was playing re-running old news programs and a desk on the far right side, there also was a pistol attached the side of the bed, the entire room was in a sci-fi style white, “Sanctuary,” I mumbled to myself, I shivered even though it felt more stuffy than cold. A wave of exhaustion hit me out of nowhere; I released consciousness and let the dark overtake me, my eyelids were pulled shut.

 

I was awoken by the sounds of explosions and gun fire rumbling faintly, I quickly but groggily got up from the floor, hearing people yelling back and forth throughout the building, I ran for the door and grasped the doors handle pulling but it wouldn’t budge, instead a voice responded, “Door locked,”

“F**k!” I yelled kicking the door; I looked around in desperation, trying to find an exit.

I realised the sounds were slightly distorted, giving off the impression that there must be a way for the sound to be leaking through, I realised that above the bed there lied a grate painted inconspicuously white making it blend into the environment, I ran and grabbed the pistol, “User recognized,” I shot a few rounds into the screws that held the vent in place and it fell on the bed. I pulled myself up; my body was small enough to fit, I started to shimmy my way through the vent system.

 

I was finally reaching the end of the vent, the sound stopped and I could smell the war, the smoke took my breath away but I pushed forward, wanting answers. I dropped out from the vent shafts, only to be greeted by the sight of a massacre, dozens of men and woman lay motionless, some were left gasping their last breaths, staring at me with blind terror and hatred, but there remained no sign of what killed them. I walked amongst the dead hoping I would at least an answer, or a survivor, but nothing but crickets sounded throughout the night. A shadow started running towards me from a distance, it got closer and closer, I realised it was Jack I braced myself right before I felt the force of him tackle me, pinning me to the floor and gripping at my hair, he stared at through me with crazed eyes, “Get back inside and get to the bunker!,” He yelled, his eyes rolled back into his head, he loosened his grip and rolled to the side groaning. In the distance there was a cloud of green approaching at a rapid pace, the sound of thunder echoed throughout the landscape, I grabbed Jack and pulled him towards the bunker, with every step I took the thunder sounded closer. Other medics came out and helped carry him, as we ran towards the door I could feel drowsiness slowly creep uo me, the doctors reached the door and turned around they suddenly turned pale and both of the doctors reached and desperately tried to drag the bunker door shut, I sprinted towards the door, only to collapse onto the ground, I could felt the drowsiness overtake me.

 

I woke with an intense heat bearing down on me and a thick haze of green surrounded me, whispers could be heard repeating a single word over and over again, “Traitor, traitor, traitor... Traitor,”

Shadows of strange humanoids started to appear surrounding me jumping back and forth with animal-like strength. One of the bigger ones crept up towards me, I couldn’t make out its’ features throughout the mist, it thrust its’ hand out and grabbed my neck and lifted me up effortlessly, it then threw me to the ground, the force distorted my vision into a blurry mess, I could make out the creature lifting his weirdly disproportionate arms up, letting out a blood curdling screech, I woke to an atmosphere that all traces of summer had disappeared, a thick fog and frost surrounded me, my breath pumped out mini clouds of steam, I couldn’t move or yell for help like what happened the other time.   A flame blasted out clearing some of the mist and scaring away some of the strange creatures, I saw a huge figure of the man launch out of the mist covered head to toe in what looked like eskimo gear, the man boomed out with a russian accent, it was Artyom “Who wants some barbecued alien arms for dinner?” He laughed hysterically while he streaked flame in all directions melting the frost and burning all the grass around him in the process, the aliens screeched in protest, but eventually retreated into the fog he walked over to me, “Sorry for you to have to black out again, but you’ll need this kid.” He leaned over and took out a needle and injected me with the serum, slowly making the world dimmer and quieter until I was no longer conscious.

 

I woke up feeling sharp pain on my spine from the incident, “Would you fancy some tea.” Doc’s voice offered, “You must be fairly thirsty after facing off an entire anomaly wearing nothing but your bare skin and some clothes.” An expression of melancholy and curiosity spread across his face, he continued, “How did you do it?”

“I only just got here, yesterday and I’m being faced by questions like these? I really don’t know about any of your anomalies doc.”

“Well take a look at this.” He handed me the Vita from yesterday to me, it started beeping in response from when I placed my hand on it, “User recognized, welcome.”

“It appears your father use to work here,” He laced his hands together; “We’re exact getting DNA matches from you and your relative.”

“How could that be possible?” Lots of different icons started appearing on the screen, “Last time I remember, the city was still full of life and there didn’t seem to be any monsters trying to get into our heads.”

He laughed, “You’ve only been here a day, ja?” He cleared his throat, “There is still plenty for me to show you, if you come to my office tomorrow at seven o’clock I shall show you quite a bit more than Jacky was meant to show, that is if you sleep uninterrupted tonight.”

I stood up, “Right,” I continued to walk out of the room,

“Your two days overdue on your first assignment though so we need to be fairly quick about it.” He said after me,

“Don’t worry about it doc.”

Author's Note

This isn't the final version of the chapter, I will make a few edits here and there.