Standing she turned to a broken security door that hung on a single hinge in the far wall. She made her way over and heaved on it pulling it aside.
In the hallways beyond there was a barricade made of tables; medical equipment, some of which she did not recognize, and desks. She carefully climbed over it and made her way to the first door on the left. It was dark inside, but she recognized it as an armory. Racks that once held long guns were on the far wall. Large metal lockers that had once been locked had obviously been wrenched open at one time. The room was devoid of anything of use.
It was much like the others, with a floor covered with trash and debris. She noted with interest that the sockets in this room had also been removed. Kneeling next to one she ran her fingers around the edge. The drywall was still intact and unbroken.
Were looters usually this careful?
Other rooms appeared to be offices. They gave the impression of having been lived in.
Sleeping bags, old food containers with the names worn off by time, makeshift fire pits were just some of the things she found. Strange graffiti covered the walls in these rooms.
“PEACE is a lie.”
“They can’t take it away from us. We own them.”
“Letty, I love you. We will see each other soon.”
“Arizona Free State!”
Halfway down the hall she found a door with a line of name slates. She recognized it as the nurses’ offices. The door had long since been removed revealing a long hall with cubicles on either side. This is where they kept the safe that had all the patients’ cell phones. She made her way past the cubicles. Most were empty but there were a few out of place remnants of the former staff. A crayon drawing by a little girl named Naomi. A strange pair of goggles that reminded her of some of the VR tech she had seen in online videos. Oddly there were no desktop computers or monitors scattered around. The cubicles were devoid of tech. Every file cabinet was empty.
At the end of the line she found a cubicle with stacks of empty plastic containers that seemed untouched by what had happened. Beside them was a large black safe with a keypad and a heavy black handle on the front. It was closed, and locked.
“What were you going to do Mare, tear the door off with your bare hands?”
She returned to her search with a sigh.
The last room she reached, she recognized. She had met with Dr. Anton here a few times. The name on the door was not his.
“Dr. Eduardo R. Santos”
She eased the door open slowly and flinched away from the sight. Behind the desk there was another withered mummy. This one was wearing a fractious white coat filled with dark holes. It’s mouth was opened wide in a scream. The wall behind the corpse was painted in an upward spray with long dried black material which could only be blood and brain matter.
Stymying her rising gorge she put a hand to her nose despite the only smell being a heavy musk that reminded her of old libraries. She approached the body and grimaced when she saw the clear tag on the man’s chest, “Dr. E. Santos”.
“What the fuck happened to me?” she asked with growing panic.
She walked around the desk, eyeing the mummy and then trying to ignore it. All of the drawers in the desk had been opened. She searched the floor around the chair and found no sign of the gun. Someone must have taken it. Probably for the best. Sitting around in this place for fuck knew how long probably would have made the thing an accident waiting to happen.
She eyed the screaming mummy with concern and finally said, “Didn’t know you Doc. Rest in peace, I guess.”
Leaving the offices behind, she made her way back to the lobby past the barricade. The doors to the outside were pried open, revealing the short stone path to the gates, that were themselves hanging open to a street that seemed to be being reclaimed by sand and dust. She could see the three tiered parking garage opposite the facility. A harsh yellow dust filled the air, swirled about by the gale force wind. The sound of which had accompanied her throughout her search. Maybe a sandstorm?
She was shocked out of her thoughts by a sound. She snapped her head back toward the curving hall that led back to her room. It sounded like a child. A giggling child.
“Hello!?”
She hurried back down the hall hurrying back past rooms she had searched before and calling out, “You shouldn’t be in here kid! This place isn’t safe!”
The child giggled again calling out down the echoing hallway, “You can’t find me!”
Maria slowed her run, doubt creeping in. Someone was trying to lure her somewhere. As she started to be more cautious the giggling and calls abruptly stopped. She stalked from room to room looking out for attackers.
She paused at the once closed gate to the right of her room which now stood wide open and called put in as tough a voice as she could manage, “If you are thinking of trying to hurt me, you are messing with the wrong bitch!”
The only response was her echo.
She paused at another doorway, one that still had a door hanging open. Someone had decorated it with a flowery but faded name, “Mia Chance,” along with a number of cut out paper flowers. This was Mia’s room. She hoped she was ok. What the hell was going on here?
The inside of the room appeared to have caught on fire at one time. Almost everything was a twisted wreck and the walls were soot stained.
Continuing onward Maria reached a pair of double doors that mirrored each other on either side of the hall. One led to the courtyard and the other to the cafeteria.
The courtyard was windswept and empty. The planters and trees that had filled the area were now gone and the area was now just a rectangular depression of churned and dried dirt. The courtyard was sheltered somewhat from the elements but obviously not enough for the sandstorm outside. The sound was deafening here.
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Maria blinked and briefly saw the courtyard as she remembered it with the lines of plants and dark trees. Her father was kneeling under the central mesquite tree. He turned to look at her and cracked a smile, “Are you trying to sneak up on your old man, Peanut?”
She shook her head and released a breath she had not realized she was holding. She admonished herself, “Pull it together.”
She covered her mouth and nose and squinted her eyes to avoid the swirling sand and dust as she made her way through the doors. She made her way out to the depression and noted shapes amidst the churned earth. Kneeling she dug her fingers in and gripped something, yanking it free. She started in surprise and dropped the long bone back into the swirling dirt. It was a human femur.
Looking left and right across the depression she saw more outlines of bones amidst the soil. Long bones, ribs, skulls. All human. She stood and backed up from the mass grave and scanned the colonnade around the open area. There were shapes gathered in the shadows. They appeared to be bundles or… She stopped in her tracks. There were more bodies. A lot of them. The huddled remains were covered in piles of accumulated sand.
She kept her weapon at hand and advanced into the colonnade. That same library-like musk hit her, but much stronger here, as she approached. There they were. They lined the walls, some gathered together and some curled up alone. Some were wearing the blue and black uniforms of security, others nurse’s scrubs. Amidst them there were even a few wearing long white lab coats. Kneeling and trying to avoid touching them she noted that they seemed desiccated and long dead. There was minimal dried and taut skin on the bones. There was no evidence of what had killed them.
She slid a hand in to pull a nametag free from one of the corpses, “T. Lopez, L.P.N.”
Did she fall asleep for a hundred years? Not likely. It was far more likely that Banner Medical had given her some strong and side effect heavy medication and now she was now deep in a nightmare delusion. She ran a thumb over the nametag and said, “Or I had a stroke or something else fatal and this is the last seconds of life stretched out…”
“Jesus Maria, what the fuck kind of dark fucking thoughts…”
Her thought was cut off as a distant sound reached her ears over the thundering storm above. It was coming from the door to the building. It sounded faintly like a woman’s voice but she could not make out the distinct words. She hefted her metal club and slowly made her way toward the door, taking care not to step on the prostrated forms of the long dead staff.
She reached the door again and peered through it, her eyes adjusting the dim light. She could see that the far door was cracked open. Glancing back out into the courtyard of death she stepped back into the hall. A voice, much more clear, echoed from the cafeteria door, “Welcome player, please choose your loadout!”
She recognized that voice. Connie?
-
The opposite doors were cracked open. On the other side she could make out what appeared to be the arrayed gurneys of a large medical theater. The only equipment visible were several scattered IV poles and medical piping. The detritus crunched under her feet as she pushed through the cracked open door and into the dark chamber. At the far end of the chamber she saw a stage.
On the stage there was a table and above it a surprisingly undamaged television screen was displaying the words…
“Welcome to the Tutorial Maria Rossi!”
“Please choose your Loadout!”
“Limit 5!”
in giant red letters. She thought she could see something protruding from the table but it was hard to tell from so far away.
She blinked and glanced back at the open courtyard and turned to make her way into the dark medical ward. Threading her way through the debris and past scattered gurneys she made her way to the stage and climbed up onto it.
The table was arrayed with at least a hundred random items. Most of them were weapons. Far more concerning was what was centered on the table. It couldn’t be real, but why would someone fake this?
Staked to the center of the table was a small woman. It almost looked like a doll. Maria recognized her. It was the nurse, Connie, from her time at the center but much smaller in proportion. She was maybe three feet tall with flat lifeless doll-like facial features. She was wearing a blood splattered gray robe with a strange stylized ‘U’ symbol on the breast. Someone had driven what looked like a spear through her chest and into the table splattering blood all over the unmarred white surface.
She cursed again, “What the fuck?”
Turning back to the room she called out, “Hello? Where are you?
After a long pause the voice returned as if from everywhere causing her to jump and curse again, “Welcome to the Tutorial Maria. Please choose five items to complete your loadout and proceed to avatar creation.”
Maria looked back toward the table and then toward the roof, “What is going on? I want to talk to someone in charge!”
The mechanical sounding voice of the nurse returned asking in a chipper tone, “Would you like guidance during selection and avatar creation?”
“Who the hell is this and why did you kill them?”
“Who?”
She looked back to the table and started away in surprise when she noticed that the strange doll’s body was gone.
The voice repeated its question, “Would you like guidance during selection and avatar creation?”
She looked at the screen, the ruined cafeteria tables, and the array of strange items and finally slumped her shoulders and rasped with exasperation, “Yes?”
There was a thrum of energy in the air and a flash of light caused her to shield her eyes.
When she finally opened her eyes again she stumbled backward from the figure before her. A tiny floating woman hovered there. It was glowing with a soft blue light and sported a pair of detailed glowing butterfly wings. The figure’s form was feminine with broad hips and surprisingly detailed naked breasts. A flickering flame rose from the figure’s head shifting and flickering above its cherubic smile and glittering silver eyes.
There was no mistaking who this was.
She glanced back at the table where she had seen the same woman only moments before and turned back rasping, “Connie?”
The figure giggled and put a tiny glowing finger to its chin, “Hello there player! Welcome to the tutorial! I’ll be your guide.”
Maria studied the strange sprite and found herself at a loss for words. She finally whispered, “Player? Like a game?”
The sprite spun around her head cheerfully, her voice echoing in the dark and detritus filled room, “Welcome to Eilyth, Player! You are just another in a long list of heroes specifically chosen to travel to the world of the Bound Gods and aid its people!”
The sprite drifted over to the table and bobbed over it waving its tiny hands in the air, “Over here you will find all kinds of exciting items! All heroes are allowed to choose five of these items to be their constant companions! No matter how much pain, death and dismemberment you suffer in Eilyth they will always be with you!”
Maria cocked her head to the side at that last comment and muttered, “Where am I? Who are you?”
The sprite flitted over to her blindingly fast and floated before her face, uncomfortably close. Despite the glow she could see that the tiny being was still beaming a smile, “You are in Character Creation, silly! I’m your personal helper! You seemed to be struggling with simple concepts that a child could understand so I am here to carefully guide the simple minded through a minefield of basic choices.”
She was taken aback by the tiny sprite’s saccharine cruelty. Maria shook her head and glanced away, “I… I’m not taking part in this. Send me back home, or wake me up.”
The sprite giggled again and her eyes opened wider. She raised her hands and clapped them together. A moment later there was a violent clang and the far doors slammed shut. Maria watched in terror as the walls around them began to melt and drip over the doors. The medical gurneys and IV poles sunk into the stone floor immediately, bobbing as if in water in some cases before vanishing into the depths.
Maria took off running toward the door bounding off the stage and sliding over a table barring her path. She ran up to the door and heaved the piece of metal off her shoulder bringing it to bear on the liquid like material. There was a violent clang and she tumbled back from the impact and to the floor.
When she looked up the door was completely covered in what she thought was plaster. Her makeshift metal club had left no mark on it whatsoever. What had been a door was now an undamaged wall just like the others.
