[Cafe] 130 – The New Game Part 3

[1648 Words]

May looked at the strange label with curiosity, only to get a gun shoved into her back and one of the guards telling her to keep moving forward, where a man in a lab coat awaited them.

"Splendid! You are all here! Today, you will have been enlisted for a little bit of Janitorial Work, nothing too complicated, mind you, but this little cleanup requires a special bit of...Caution," The Scientist spoke loud enough for everyone to hear as he gestured to the giant metal door behind him that resembled more like a door to a vault than anything else May could recognize.

"Just beyond this door is a small room that boasts a unique statue. Now, please enter this room and clean up any fecal matter or other waste that may be on the floor and walls. However, each one of you must maintain eye contact with the statue without blinking. Now, you can do this one of two ways: you can either take turns watching the statue while the others work, or you can all work together. Ultimately, so long as one of you maintains eye contact, we do not care. We will supply you with the necessary cleaning supplies to fulfill the job. Upon completion, you will each receive an extra ration ticket to be redeemed at the cafeteria. Now, who's ready to get to work?" The Scientist spoke like a sketchy salesman trying to sell a used car that wouldn't make it a mile away from the car lot as he gestured to mop buckets, bleach, and other cleaning supplies on a cart.

"Now, as much as I'd enjoy what comes next, I'm afraid I and my associates are needed elsewhere, so good old Jerry and Tom here here will be going to make sure you all get the job done before returning you to your cells, if any complications arise, make sure to follow their orders if anything goes wrong, understood?" The Scientist asked, looking at everyone before leaving the area with most of the other guards.

As May and the others stepped forward under the watchful eyes of the two guards, May took note of her surroundings, observing everything she saw. There was a catwalk above, where one of the guards stood, watching everything with an observant eye as they stood before the console, while the other guard stood behind them, blocking the only exit out of the room.

"Alright, I'm about to open the door. Once it's open, keep your eyes on the statue, regardless of its position in the room, while you clean. Is that understood?" The guard stated from the catwalk, loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Good," He spoke regardless of whether anyone listened or not, "Failure to follow our orders or to clean the cell will result in your termination. I suggest you comply and get it over with."

"Now, get ready, I'm opening the gate," The guard warned, hoisting his rifle with one arm onto his shoulder while he began to prod at the console before him.

Moments later, the large gate before them slid open at a slow pace, making a whirring sound as the sheer bulk of servos and gears slid the door open. As the double door slid open, both panels sliding into the walls, a room slowly revealed itself to the group—a room filled with blinding lights, making it appear blinding at first.

That's when May saw it—a strange, statue-like structure made of what appeared to be dirty concrete and rebar, standing upright in the corner, with two nubs for arms touching the walls, marked with what appeared to be spray paint over its elongated 'head.'

She also noticed that where its 'bottom' lay, it looked as if the concrete was stained by a brown material, almost giving it the appearance that the statue crapped itself.

Then there was the smell. It was enough to make even May flinch in disgust when she caught a whiff of it, and she had had the unfortunate experience of smelling quite a few bad things. Things that would give many nightmares or PTSD, and have, in her line of work as a Field Operative for SHIELD.

"Get to work!" The guard standing beside the door shouted in annoyance at our still statures.

Taking the initiative and keeping her eyes wide open on the statue, she grabbed one of the few mops and a bucket and stepped forward into the cell, with the others not far behind, but they were clearly hesitant.

Yet, when they all stepped inside, the guard on the catwalk shouted, "For our saftey, we are now closing the door, do not move, and clean the cell, you will be released once your duties are finished," at the same time, he pressed the button and the door slowly began to close, one of her fellow prisoners panicked and quickly tried to leave the room, only for the guard blocking the exit to raise his rifle and shout, "Stop! Failure to comply will result in termination!"

All May knew, was in the next moment, the lights cut off, a flash from a muzle came from the guard, the door stopped moving, and the guard on the catwalk let out a string of curses as the sound of two necks being snapped rang out around the room, the lights flickering on just in time for May to jump back as the statue now stood menacingly before her, its nubs reaching out for her skull.

"Shit, containment breach, I repeat containment breach!" Shouted the guard on the catwalk into his radio as May leaped out of the cell over a body bleeding out over the floor and to the guard who was prepared to gun her down.

That's when the lights cut off for but a moment, and with the sound of moving concrete and a neck snap, May realized that this was far more than what she bargained for as she prepared herself for her imminent death. Then the lights came to life, and she saw the route to her escape, the wide-open door leading out of the cell.

She ran forward with all her might, dropping the mop in her hands and weaving past the statue that now stood before her and over the guard's body, and that's when the lights cut off once again, just as she made it out of the room.

She heard gunfire from behind and the lights rapidly shifted from on and off before staying on, but May did not stop moving forward, intending on putting some distance between herself and the statue. She didn't stop, rushing through each corridor and closing every door behind her, ignoring the lobbies, she found herself in a place where her stamina eventually stopped her from continuing.

She found herself in a four-way corridor with no signs or marks indicating which way to go. Part of her was tempted to retrace her steps and get herself a gun, but she shook that thought away; whatever that statue was, it was perilous if no eyes were on it. Deciding to keep going straight, she continued forward, taking steady breaths to calm her heart and focusing on listening.

Around her, she could hear distant screams, yelling, gunfire, roars, and...something else, a song? Part of her found herself drawn to the music, and so she changed direction, heading back and heading down the left corridor. 

As she ventured closer and closer, she could swear that it almost sounded like a symphony of voices, but...something was wrong. They sounded off...nor were they singing in any language she was familiar with, which covered quite a few, as she had been around the entire world in her work.

That's when she noticed the next thing that seemed very...wrong. As she passed through another door into another corridor, she found her feet stopping as she looked upon the strange...grass that seemed to have grown through the concrete, covering the entire corridor's floor in grass while what looked to be vines burrowed through the walls.

As she hesitantly stepped forward, the music became more transparent, and just as she opened the door, she suddenly stopped as her foot met an obstruction hidden by the grass.

Looking down, she froze when she saw what looked like a rapidly rotting corpse of a man in a lab coat, what appeared to be a root growing out of the corpse's brain and out of the eye.

It was horrific.

Abruptly, the door slid open, and what appeared to be a towering creature of bark and fungi stood before her. The music blasting down the halls from behind the beast, and May found her heart dropping, but before she could even move, she felt something slide up her thigh, and losing her balance, she fell to the ground, on top of the corpse, and looked down to see the roots wrapping around her leg. 

Her leg. May, who had finally seen her leg, noticed that the jumpsuit had seemed to rot away, as strange growths rapidly grew on the surface of her skin.

This growth, which rapidly grew up her leg, caused May unending panic as she attempted to free herself, only to start seeing the growths appear in patches across her skin, rapidly growing and covering every inch of her skin until it reached her face. Her adrenaline went through the roof in her panic as this growth first started by covering her left eye, then her hands, and with each growing moment, she felt an increasingly heavier weight cover her as her body changed before her last eye, until even that was covered.

Pain wracked through her being as the growth spread downwards into her flesh, slowly transforming her body into fungi.

Her last moments were of confused panic as she found herself suffocating and unable to breathe.

[YOU HAVE DIED]

[Cause: SCP-407]