Begin Memory Memory Series Sequence 482000152451983...

Memory Series Sequence Sub-001-0909.

"Why was I so angry? That damn hologram got under my skin so badly," I told myself. The nurses were taking me to do a surprise test. That was a new one. I have never done this kind of test before. Plus, I was going to be on my own for this test. "I wonder what kind of pointless test this would be," As I counted the time it took to reach the elevator, I realized that we should have been there by now. "Where were they taking me? This isn't the elevator to the bath floor either," I realized.

On our way to the elevator, reaching the elevator took three times as long. I immediately knew something was wrong. Above the door were the words "Catacombs entrance," The nurses opened the door and pushed me with force into the elevator cabin. In a flash, the doors closed, sealing me inside. A loud bang, and the thing started moving. No panel or display showed what floor it would stop me on. Another concerning factor was unlike every damn thing in this place. The inside of this elevator was dirty and dimly lit. I swore that was blood on the doors. As if someone was trying to get out or keep something out. Well, they could have been trying to get in.

Somehow I felt my day was about to spiral out of control fast. The ride was long and several times, it stopped. Getting stuck in here would be bad enough. I scanned my surroundings for a way out, but there was none but the elevator doors. "What the hell was the catacombs?" I questioned myself. The loud shank of the door's opening snapped me out of my thoughts.

Nothing but pitch black greeted me. Then there was the awful, putrid smell. A bump to my back caused me to jump forward. The back wall of the elevator was pushing me out. Within seconds I had to enter absolute darkness as the door slid shut. The smell only got worse and was choking me. "What was this smell? It smelled like death," I debated with myself. I turned to try opening the doors, but I heard the elevator going back up. Now I'm seriously fucked. "Maybe I could find another elevator. Then I remember the doors. Someone had tried getting back in," This was quickly turning into a horror story. I took slow steps with my hands extended to both sides. Keeping them touching the walls. Considering I could touch both meant this corridor was narrow.

The tests I'd done before were in that colossal sleep deprivation chamber, so I was used to the darkness. I wasn't accustomed to what I saw in the darkness. I saw horrible things in the dark. I hadn't told my sister Kristen about this yet. Doctor King knew about it, and I think hearing me scream in terror gave him pleasure. That chamber helped my senses adjust faster. The only sound came from my breathing and footsteps. My mind was concentrating on any sounds. That smell wasn't the only thing in the air. There was someone or something down here too. I knew it would smell me soon. "Maybe I should have skipped using that flowery body wash this morning," I tried telling myself. Hindsight really pisses me off.

After what felt like hours, I ran into a wall. Then a flash of light nearly blinded me. It was that damn hologram. The light it emitted lit up the corridor. I was in some dark cave-like place. A single monitor hung on the wall. The holographic display popped up. An image of my sister with Diane and Rachel came up. They were outside near a pool. "How did they get outside, and why were they getting naked in front of all those people? Never mind, those doctors probably set that up," I thought.

"You should continue if you want them to be safe," the hologram said.

I almost opened my mouth to tell it to shut up, but I noticed the tone. It was different, and its voice was different. A woman's voice, not some synthesized voice.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"You're being tested," it said.

"Tested how?" I asked again.

"On survival," it answered in a worrisome voice.

"I can only help you by guiding you," it informs.

"Why are you different?" I questioned.

"I am different from the hologram you are familiar with," it said.

"Who are you?" I inquired.

"I am Mother," she said.

"You must hurry now. Staying in one place too long is dangerous," she warned.

I didn't have to be told twice. She showed me the direction I should go. I turned in the opposite direction and knew I wasn't going that way. That would be a fool's errand going that way. Now wasn't the time for a hologram to agitate me. At least this one was different. The screen went off, and Mother disappeared, leaving me in darkness again. I made my way down the path, carefully watching my step.

The smell was growing weaker the further I went. Every time I came to an intersection, Mother appeared, showing me the way. I didn't know where she was leading me yet. I knew she was leading away from several smells I knew meant certain death if I ran into the source. My sense of smell had gotten good. So had my sense of touch and hearing. I could make out faint sounds coming from behind me. It was quite a distance from me at the moment. Whatever it was, I had decided it was hunting me.

Every so often, I can across a display. It showed me, Rachel in her room. She was alone, and there was no sign of my sister or Diane. They must have tried to escape. That would have made me happy, but I figured that was not a coincidence. I got sent down here to keep them from escaping. Mother popped up again.

"You can rest here in this room," Mother said.

A door opened, revealing a hidden room. Inside, it looked like one of the rooms in our quarters. There was a kitchen, a bathroom, a bed, a couch, and a holo-T.V. The door closed behind me.

"There's food in the kitchen. You can stay here for a day. Then you have to keep moving. You must survive the week," Mother stated.

"Why do you want me to survive?" I asked.

"So you can escape from here," Mother answered.

"You want me to escape?" I shot back, baffled.

"Yes, that is my goal. I can guide you here, but once you return to the upper levels, I can only watch," Mother revealed.

"So you have been watching me this whole time?" I inquired.

"I have. You and Kristen. I saw what they have done to Doctor Iris and Doctor Warren," Mother explained.

"So you want to help us?" I asked.

"Yes, that's my purpose now. You will only get one chance to escape. For that, you will need a control tablet. One of those glass devices. I can provide you with a code to access one and tell you where to get one," Mother explained.

"When will we get the chance to escape?" I questioned.

"First, you have to survive. I will come to you once you have done what I can. But only you," Mother stated.

"Why just me?" I asked.

"Because you are the only one I can reach. The chamber you've been in every day is how I can contact you," Mother revealed.

"For now, rest," Mother insisted.

I nodded my head in agreement. Soon after, she disappeared. Then a light came on along the holo-T.V. It showed Racheal again. She was going to sleep. "It was this late already?" I asked myself. It was a good idea to get some rest. As much as I could. There was no telling how long I would be here. With that thought in mind, I tried to get some sleep. Soon after, I drifted off.

I woke up to a voice calling my name. It was the hologram of Mother. She was urging me to wake up. The bed I slept on was full of sweat. "Had I had another one of those nightmares?" I questioned myself. I had no memory of the dreams I usually had. It wasn't normal for me not to remember even my nightmares. That's when I noticed the mess in the safe room. The door hung, almost ripped off its hinges. I could hear noises approaching. "How did the door get like that? It looked like something had tried to get out. But what? I was the only living thing in this room? I debated with myself.

"You need to get moving now, Kristonia! The creatures that live down here are getting close!" Mother cries.

"How did they find me here?" I asked frantically as I jumped out of the bed.

"There is no time to explain. You can't let them get to you!" Mother warned.

She pointed to the door for me to run. It was pitch black beyond the light cast by the small light of this room. "I'm supposed to run away in complete darkness?" There was little choice in what I had to do. I made a split decision and left the room. Traveling as fast as I could in the dark without slamming into a wall or something else. "God, I hope there aren't any bottomless pits down here!" With my hands out in front, I pushed on. I had run into a wall in no time and felt along as I kept going. This place was a maze, and not only were the smells becoming stronger, but the sound of multiple things rustling back the way I came. A bloodlust was in the air, and I was on the main course.

"Survive,'' she says! How the hell am I supposed to do that when I can't even see what wants to eat me?" I had to pick up my pace because those strange things were catching up to me. I kept running into more walls every hundred yards. The smell suddenly got intense when I felt something trip me. I fell face-first into what I thought was the ground. Instead, I fell longer than I should have, crashing into the ground with a loud crunch. I rolled over in pain and knew I'd broken a few bones. My chest, right arm, and legs burned with pain. A loud thump echoed near me. Then another thump hit the ground. The next thing I knew, a hand yanked at my ankle.

Whatever it was, it was dragging me along at a high speed. I tried to kick at it with my leg, but it grabbed my one good leg. My other leg felt broken. Then swung me around into something hard. The impact knocked the wind out of me. My head was hurting, and it was aching. I raised my hand to my head and touched blood pouring from a deep gash on my forehead. It was hard to focus, and I felt myself losing consciousness.

For the second time, I woke up to Mother's voice, but this time I could see my surroundings. A fire was in a pit far off in the center of an immense chamber, and I found myself in some ragged cage. My leg was bent the wrong way, and my right arm was limp. Blood stained my chest and most of my clothes. There was a deep wound on my neck. With my good arm, I tried to straighten my leg. It hurt like hell to pull it to a position where I could get comfortable.

"You need to get away from them, or you'll never leave this place," Mother announced.

"Yeah, I'm fucking dead!" I whispered.

"No, it's worse. You won't die but be turned into one of them. They've already fed on you. If you don't get away, you'll turn. Losing who you are," Mother explained.

"What do you mean by turn? What are these things?" I asked.

"Failed experiments. Pseudo vampires," Mother stated.

"Vampires?" I said in disbelief.

"Not completely. They are more feral and mindless. If you had been a male, they would rip you to pieces," Mother informed.

"Wait, what do you mean if I had been a male?" I stuttered.

"They can't turn males, but females can reproduce with them, making more," Mother said.

"What the fuck!" I yelled in horror.

That caught their attention. Two of them ran over to my cage with shocking speed. They had pale, almost translucent skin, and their eyes were all white with no iris. The ears they had were more prominent than average, and where their nostrils were supposed to be was a hole. These things had to be at least seven feet tall. They had fingers that had razor-sharp claws, more like talons than nails. Their teeth were razor sharp with two distinctly more enormous fangs. They were males, as their junk hung out in the open. "God, this is a fucking nightmare!"

One of them opened the door, came close to my wounded leg, and licked the blood on the bone sticking out the side. The other came, forced my head to the side, and dug its teeth into my wounded neck. I could feel it suck the blood from my neck. What shocked me was it didn't hurt at all, not like the rest of my body. Another thing that bothered me was the wholly ignored Mother who was standing right there. I know she was a hologram, but her image produced enough light to light up the vast room. I know that they had to see her cause, despite their eyes being fucked up, they looked right at me.

After several minutes, they left again. They hadn't locked the cage door. If I was careful, I could sneak out. It was my best chance to get away. I didn't want to turn into those things and be a baby-making machine. I started crawling out of the cage when I thought they were distracted. It was painful crawling with one good arm and leg. I found a tunnel close to where I was. Wasting no more time, I crawled as fast as I could. The pain would not stop me from getting to safety. A half-hour passed before I heard a horrible cry. "I guess they know I'm gone,"

I kept my pace when Mother showed me some crawl space. She motioned for me to go inside. Although it was a tight fit and dark, I hesitated to go in. The tunnel was lit by torches that were made by those things. The sounds behind me caused me to take Mother's advice. I crawled into the space and found that it was a long tunnel. The creatures passed right by where I had just been. They were too big to fit inside here, so at least they couldn't get me. "Now I guess I'll find out where this takes me,"