The race to the top ended with us reaching the top after four hours of a nonstop climbing marathon. My muscles hurt, and I was out of breath. A few still pursued us, but the good thing was now we knew what the light source was. It was a hologram that stood there patiently waiting for us.

"Good, you finally made it," it said.

"Who or what are you?" Rachel asked.

"This is Mother. I remember her now. She is the one who helped me," I explained.

"Mother?" Rachel asked.

"You must hurry. Follow me," Mother said.

Rachel took my lead while I followed her. It stunned me at how fast she walked. We had to walk at a quick pace, almost jogging. 'How was she doing that?' I thought. 'Where was she taking us?' Up ahead, the smells were sparse. Another light in the distance slowly came into view. As we arrived, it was an elevator. An old elevator that looked to be centuries old. The door was wooden and falling apart. Inside was a rusted, half-caged cart.

"What is this?" I questioned.

"An abandoned part of the Catacombs that goes back centuries," Mother explained.

"Where does it lead?" Rachel asked.

"To a cave system further up. It's close enough to the surface for you to escape," Mother stated.

"I thought we needed a glass tablet to escape?" I questioned.

"Not anymore. You made your own path," Mother said, smiling.

"So what's going to happen to you?" I asked.

"I'm always with you," Mother stated.

"How?" I asked.

"In time, you'll learn how. Right now this will take you to your sister and friend. They are still far from you, but if you keep making your own path, then I know you'll return to them," Mother explained.

"Thank you for helping us!" I said.

Mother smiled briefly and disappeared. Rachel opened the door while I looked behind us. The monsters were still a ways back. I got in behind her. She closed the cage door, looking for an "on" switch or bottom. I found what we were looking for. 'Would this thing still work? The lights didn't work, but Mother wouldn't have brought us here if it didn't,' I thought. Now was the time to test it out. I pushed the bottom, causing the cage to sputter and shake, coming to life. A loud sound echoed as we rose higher and higher. The cell was vibrating a lot. 'I wonder if this thing will make it far. I really don't want to fall down this shaft,' I thought as we ascended higher.

The elevator wasn't as fast as the ones in Resident One, as the ride took over an hour and a half to reach its stopping point. A loud bang rocked us back and forth as it stopped. I pushed the cage gate open, glad to be stepping on solid ground again. This was an abandoned underground mining site. It was huge, with three tunnels forking off in different directions. Fortunately, there were lights here, but enough that we weren't in total darkness. 'I wonder what is powering the lights,' I thought. That's when I caught a whiff of that wet dog smell. The place was full of this smell. It stunk so badly that I had to cover my nose.

"What the hell is that smell?" I asked.

"I don't know, but we smelled it down in the Catacombs too. I can smell the pseudo vampires up here too. It's faint but there," Rachel said.

"You don't want to met those things again. They did a number on you last time," I told her.

"I don't really remember that, but I remember those two vampires," Rachel said.

"How did they get in our room, anyway?" I asked.

"They just walked in. I don't know where they came from," Rachel explained.

"That is strange, but we should keep moving. We have to find Kristen and Diane. They might need us," I suggested.

"Alright, let's keep moving," Rachel agreed.

"Let's try the left tunnel. If we run into something bad, we'll backtrack here and take another tunnel," I explained.

"Good idea," Rachel replied.

The tunnel was wide with a high ceiling. Every hundred yards were lit on each side of the wall and the ceiling. The walls were grayish or, more accurately, silverish, but not like the Catacombs. The walls appeared to have been mined, although that had to be eons ago. The tunnel curved a little back towards where the central tunnel would be located. 'What was this stuff? It made my skin feel different, and my neck kind of vibrated,' I thought, rubbing my neck.

"Hey, do you feel strange?" Rachel asked out of the blue.

"I was about to ask you that too. My skin and neck feels weird," I explained.

"Mine too," Rachel informed me.

The tunnel reconnected with the central tunnel and forked off further. We were at a major intersection. Something caught my sight down on the other end of the tunnel. The right path we hadn't taken. A series of yellowish dots that came in two pairs. Over a half dozen of them. Low growls followed once I noticed them. The light was still dim when the first one came into more light. What I saw was fucking unreal.

Several tall doglike or bearlike creatures that stood on two legs crept into the light. The creatures stood at least fifteen feet tall, and I could see the muscles almost busting out from their skin beneath the blackish hair that covered most of their bodies. While some had black hair, others had dark brown hair, and others had greyish-black hair. They all had one thing in common. They looked terrifying, even from this distance. Each had long, knifed-like claws on each of their fingers. Some were scraping the sides of the wall, causing sparks to ignite each time a talon touched the surface. Others stared at us with such uncontrollable intensity and anger that my body stood frozen in place. The sight before Rachel and I was straight out of a nightmare with us in the middle. First, pseudo vampires, then actual vampires, and now this. This party kept getting worse at every turn.

"We have to run again," I whispered.

"I know!" Rachel said, dumbfounded.

We couldn't go back the way we came because they could just trap us by going down the central tunnel and following us. There was the tunnel that forked behind us, and I looked back, discovering another group that had come that way. Rachel put her hand on my shoulder, and I looked at what she saw. Behind us, the way we came, another pack was running this way. The first pack blocked the way back to the elevator in the intersection. One path remained, the path straight down the middle tunnel. I looked at Rachel, and she nodded. A second later, we broke into a sprint up the central tunnel.

I ran with all my strength with Rachel a short distance behind me. Running this fast was challenging since a tether connected us by a rope. This made it so that we had to stay close to each other. I didn't dare look back behind us. The pounding of their heavy footsteps was close enough that looking back could spell death. There were over two dozen of them. If they caught up to us, we were dead or worse. The tunnel went onwards with no obvious way to get away. 'How long could we keep this pace up?' I thought, terrified of what might happen if we didn't. I wasn't out of breath yet. From the looks of it, neither was Rachael. If we could keep this pace, we might outrun those creatures.

A loud howl reverberated through the tunnels. It was loud and fearsome. A torrent of louder howls wrecked my ears in response to the first howl. The sounds were coming from all over the place. In front of us and behind us. 'Are we trapped?' I thought, panicking. Up ahead, I could make out the shadowy figure of more of the wolf-like beast racing towards us. I frantically search for another path to take. I found what I was looking for about halfway between us and them.

"Run faster, Rachel, and turn left with me!" I yelled.

"Okay!" Rachel shouted in return.

This was another race to see who gets to the finish line first. It was a race I had no intention of losing. My legs burned with energy as I increased my rate of speed. 'Can Rachel keep up?' I thought but realized she was beside me as we ran. The finish line was almost within reach, but it would be close. Less than a hundred yards remained when the lead monster began pulling ahead of the pack ahead of us. 'Shit, that thing was trying to stop us!' I thought hastily, trying to outrun it.

I turned into the side tunnel, slamming into the wall with Rachel barely making it in. We both fell to the ground and scrambled to get up. The creature grabbed my ankle, yanking me back with incredible force. The only thing stopping me was Rachael's deadweight. His claws sliced my ankles badly, and his other hand gripped my thighs. The side tunnel was too small for the creature to squeeze his body in.

Rachel was beating at the wild beast's hands when it slashed her chest, sending her backward. It pulled at my thighs, digging its claws into my skin, trying to pull its prize out in the open. The beast's teeth were razor sharp with elongated canines. Rachel kicked the hairy monster in the face, causing it to lose its hold on me. Before she could pull me out of its reach, a hand grabbed her ankle to knock her off her feet. Another creature had shown up and was fighting to get to us.

Together, we kicked it with our free limbs to escape. More of them were fighting each other out in the open to reach us. I gained enough space to scramble back to pull Rachel with the tether wrapped around her waist. It was enough to break her free, but her ankle paid the price with deep wounds. Multiple hands reached for us, clawing at the walls and ground to get a hold of us. Running was out of the question at the moment. We had to get to a safe spot with these wounds. This section had less light than the main tunnel. It looked to me to be a service tunnel. We hobbled along, using the wall to help us along.

"That was out of control," I said after we'd walked a while.

"We have to do something about these wounds soon," Rachel said weakly.

I turned to look at her. She was sweating heavily. I checked her chest wound, which wasn't deep. Although her wound was still bleeding. Her ankle was the same way. Now that I had noticed, I checked my wounds, revealing it was the same for me.

"You look sick, Rachel," I pointed out.

"So do you Kristonia," Rachel said, sliding against the wall to her knees.

"We should rest here and stop the bleeding," I suggest resting beside her.

I cut my bruised thighs up badly. 'How were we supposed to stop the bleeding when we had nothing to use? Our skirts weren't enough. Not to mention they were filthy now,' I thought. Rachel was right as I felt sick, and my body was burning up like a fire. The wounds on my legs hurt the most, and felt like white hot metal was touching my skin. The blood felt like it was bubbling out of my wound, but I couldn't be sure in the little light there was. I felt like vomiting.

"What do you think is wrong with it?" I asked the only doctor I could at the moment.

No answer came from her for a few minutes.

"Rachael?" I asked again.

When I didn't get an answer, I checked on her, finding she'd passed out. Her body was on fire like mine was and was hot to the touch. 'We have to keep moving,' I thought. I put Rachael's arm around my shoulder and struggled up. Her weight was heavy. My pace was slow as it was taxing trying to carry her along without her help. Everything was hurting now that I must have a fever or something worse. I trotted down the tunnel until a door came into view. The door was rusting and half open. I sat Rachel down beside the wall and limped to the door, pushing it open. Inside was a dark room smelling of mold and stall air.

I searched for a light switch along the wall by the door. A click sounded as I ran my hand over something. The light flickered on and off for several seconds before finally brightening the room and an orange glow. It looked to be some kind of bunk room or barracks. Two long rows of beds were in the middle, with beds lining all the walls. On the right end was a doorway with a sign that said Mess hall; the other had a similar outlet that said latrine. 'Those sounded like what the military called the kitchen and bathrooms. This was some military barracks,' I thought. I helped Rachel to the nearest bed.

The next thing was to secure the door and check the other areas. First, I untethered myself from Rachel so I could explore our surroundings. I slid a bunk bed in front of the door, and that took all the energy I had left. I checked the bathrooms first. Nothing there but a bunch of stalls and showers. Each booth was empty, with nothing of use that I could see.

The kitchen was different. There were many military-style rations and plenty of bottled water, too. 'Someone was still using this place?' I asked myself, checking the labels on a pack of rations, "Expires 2677 A.D." 'What does that mean?' I wondered. These markings were on all the rations, and the text made no sense. I looked for more of that writing, and it was on all the goods here. The only thing I understood was Mess and Latrine. All the other markings didn't have any meaning to me. 'How old was this place, and what language was this?' I pondered.

A metal picture was on the wall by what looked like a refrigerator. It was an image of something with more of that text. The only words I recognized were Mother and Earth. It said "Mother Earth," the rest was unrecognizable. 'Wasn't this Mother Earth?' I thought. Another metal picture depicted something similar, but the image was different. The round planet said, "New Earth,"

'What did New mean?' I have seen that word before, but only in history lessons. The more I investigated, the more questions I had. 'Why was all this under DNA Labs, and what were they up to?' Those questions ran through my mind.

I found some clothes in one of the bunk's trunks. A jumpsuit of some kind. It had a military badge that said "United Earth Coalition," Again, the only word I understood was Earth. In another bunk, I found some backpacks. Over by Rachel, I started collecting supplies and had a pack for Kristen and Diane. I used some bed sheets to make bandages for Rachel and me after I cleaned our wounds. She was out cold and still burning up. I wasn't well, and fatigue was catching up to me. I placed all the gear on her top bunk and crawled in with her. 'It felt safer for us to stay close to each other,' I thought as I drifted off.