CHAPTER 21: THE MONSTER INSIDE THE WALLS
1415 Words
The entire facility shook again.
This time harder.
A deep metallic roar echoed somewhere beneath us, followed by the sound of massive doors unlocking one after another underground.
Red emergency lights flashed violently across the bedroom walls.
Ethan’s smiling photo trembled in my hand.
And somewhere below us…
something was moving.
Not human footsteps.
Too heavy.
Too slow.
Too deliberate.
Eva backed toward the door immediately, weapon raised.
“I officially hate this place.”
Adrian didn’t answer.
His attention stayed fixed on the dark hallway outside the recreated bedroom.
Listening.
Waiting.
The strange thing was…
he looked afraid.
Not nervous.
Not cautious.
Afraid.
And after everything I had already learned tonight, seeing fear on Adrian’s face felt worse than hearing alarms.
I slowly lowered Ethan’s photograph.
“What’s down there?”
Nobody answered immediately.
The silence wrapped tightly around my chest.
Then Adrian finally spoke.
“The original prototype.”
A cold feeling spread through my stomach.
Prototype.
God, I hated the language of Lazarus.
Everything human became an object in that place.
Eva looked toward him sharply.
“I thought it was destroyed.”
“So did I.”
The floor trembled again.
Closer now.
Dust drifted from the ceiling in soft gray clouds.
My pulse quickened instantly.
“Adrian.”
He turned toward me.
And for one second I saw something in his eyes I hadn’t seen before.
Regret.
Not the ordinary kind.
The kind people carry when they realize the past is about to come back alive.
“We need to leave,” Eva said firmly.
Adrian nodded once.
But before we could move—
The lights suddenly died completely.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Total darkness.
My breathing stopped instantly.
Then a soft mechanical hum echoed through the hallway outside.
A second later—
backup lights flickered on dimly.
But now the yellow bedroom lighting was gone.
Everything had become cold white again.
Laboratory light.
Artificial.
Dead.
And suddenly the room no longer looked comforting.
It looked staged.
Like a cage pretending to be a memory.
A deep metallic sound echoed nearby.
Not machinery.
Breathing.
My entire body froze.
Eva raised the g*n immediately.
“Did you hear that?”
Another breath followed.
Closer.
Somewhere just outside the room.
Adrian slowly stepped in front of me.
“Stay behind me.”
The familiar words should have comforted me by now.
Instead they terrified me.
Because every time Adrian sounded protective…
someone died afterward.
The hallway outside stayed silent for three long seconds.
Then—
Something moved past the doorway.
Fast.
Too fast to see clearly.
Eva fired instantly.
The gunshot exploded through the room.
The thing vanished immediately into darkness again.
“What the hell was that?!” she shouted.
Nobody answered.
Because nobody knew.
Then a low distorted voice echoed softly from the hallway.
Not fully human.
Not fully mechanical either.
> “A…li…na…”
Every hair on my arms stood up instantly.
No.
No no no.
That voice—
I knew it.
Or at least…
part of me did.
Another memory slammed violently into my head.
A laboratory room.
A woman screaming while security alarms flashed red.
Doctors shouting:
> “The consciousness split failed!”
Another voice:
> “Terminate the prototype!”
Then—
something smashing through glass.
The memory disappeared instantly.
I gasped sharply and grabbed the edge of the desk.
Adrian noticed immediately.
“What did you remember?”
I looked toward the dark hallway with horror slowly rising inside me.
“There was another subject.”
Silence.
Adrian’s face darkened.
Eva looked between us carefully.
“What subject?”
Adrian didn’t answer quickly enough.
Which meant yes.
Always yes.
Another distorted whisper echoed through the corridor.
Closer this time.
> “A…lina…”
The sound felt wrong.
Like someone trying to remember how to speak.
My chest tightened painfully.
Then suddenly—
a figure stepped partially into the doorway.
Tall.
Thin.
Human-shaped.
But wrong.
Its movements looked unnatural somehow.
Like the body had forgotten how bodies were supposed to move.
Half its face remained hidden in darkness.
The visible side looked pale beneath damaged skin and old surgical scars.
One eye reflected the emergency lights strangely.
Artificial.
My stomach twisted violently.
Eva aimed the g*n directly at it.
“Don’t move!”
The figure ignored her completely.
Its eyes stayed fixed on me.
And when it spoke again…
my blood turned to ice.
> “You…came…back…”
A sharp pain exploded behind my eyes instantly.
Memories flooded violently.
A hidden laboratory.
A locked observation room.
Me staring through glass at the same figure while someone beside me whispered:
> “She survived longer than expected.”
She.
Oh God.
The creature wasn’t a machine.
It was a girl.
Or at least it had been once.
Eva’s voice trembled slightly now.
“What is that?”
Adrian answered quietly.
“The first successful transfer attempt.”
The room went silent.
I stared at him in horror.
“No…”
He looked sick saying it.
“She was the prototype before you.”
The figure twitched unnaturally in the doorway.
Its damaged eye blinked slowly.
Still staring directly at me.
Then another memory returned.
Me younger.
Terrified.
Asking Adrian softly:
> “Does she know who she is?”
And Adrian answering:
> “Not anymore.”
The memory shattered apart.
Tears burned instantly behind my eyes.
This place was worse than death.
Much worse.
The prototype stepped farther into the room now.
And I finally saw the full extent of the damage.
Scars covered her neck and arms.
Pieces of old surgical implants remained beneath pale skin.
One side of her body trembled constantly like unstable electricity moved beneath it.
But the worst part—
was her expression.
Lonely.
God.
She looked unbearably lonely.
Eva whispered carefully:
“She’s still conscious…”
Adrian’s silence answered enough.
The prototype kept staring at me.
Then suddenly said something clearer.
More human.
> “They said…you died…”
My chest hurt instantly.
Not from fear.
Recognition.
Some part of me remembered her.
Not fully.
Emotionally.
I stepped forward before Adrian could stop me.
“Alina, no.”
But the prototype’s damaged face changed the second I moved closer.
Not aggression.
Hope.
A terrible kind of hope.
“What’s your name?” I whispered.
The girl froze.
Like nobody had asked her that in years.
Her lips parted slowly.
But no sound came out at first.
Then finally—
> “…Mira.”
The name hit something inside me immediately.
Another memory flashed.
A girl laughing beside me in a hospital recreation room.
Dark curly hair.
Books stacked in her lap.
Her voice teasing me softly:
> “You always look sad when it rains.”
I staggered slightly.
“She was my friend.”
Eva looked shocked.
Adrian closed his eyes briefly like this revelation hurt him too.
Mira noticed my expression instantly.
And suddenly tears filled her damaged eyes.
> “You remember…”
The way she said those two words nearly broke me.
Not because they sounded frightening.
Because they sounded grateful.
Another violent tremor shook the facility.
Concrete cracked loudly somewhere nearby.
Eva snapped back into survival mode immediately.
“We can emotionally process the terrifying science experiment later. We need out now.”
But Mira suddenly looked toward the hallway behind her.
Fear crossed her damaged face instantly.
Then she whispered:
> “He’s coming.”
Adrian’s posture changed immediately.
“Who?”
Mira’s breathing became uneven.
And for the first time since entering the room…
she looked truly terrified.
> “The Director brought him back.”
A cold feeling spread through my chest.
No.
No no no.
Then from somewhere deep in the darkness outside—
heavy footsteps echoed slowly through the underground corridor.
Not rushed.
Calm.
Controlled.
Human footsteps.
The kind that belong to someone who knows nobody here can stop him.
Mira backed away trembling violently now.
> “Run…”
The footsteps grew louder.
Closer.
Then finally—
a man stepped into the dim emergency light outside the room.
Tall.
Black coat.
Blood running slowly from a wound near his temple.
And the second I saw his face—
my entire body stopped moving.
Because I knew him.
Not from Lazarus.
Not from reconstructed memories.
From before everything.
From the car crash.
From the night Ethan died.
And the worst part?
He looked directly at me…
and smiled like we had known each other forever.
chapter 22 coming soon..........
- Writer
