I had to remember that was what I came here to do. I came here to chase a story, not come home with a man, even if Axel had turned into something I hadn’t expected. I had to remember myself and my career and not focus on what his cock could do to me when it pressed deep in between my legs. Such sweet and delicious things, I thought with a shiver.
My body heated, and I had to shake my head, pushing the feelings of arousal far, far away.
I breathed in deep and took a step toward the portal, ignoring the pulse of desire between my legs.
First, I lifted one finger and pushed it into the black light. I held my breath for a long moment, waiting for my finger to shear off, but it never happened. I grew bolder, putting my whole hand into the light and still, nothing happened.
It must be engineered for human travel.
I realized then that there were no human trails down the mountain. No roads, no cars, and everything began to make sense. The portals connected all the seemingly innocuous buildings together. If I was a betting woman, I would have guessed it was alien technology that the human scientists had developed into use here on Earth.
The scientist within me was fascinated. The journalist within me wanted to know more.
I took a daring step forward and then another, and before I knew it, the portal had swallowed me completely. At once, my body felt weightless, as though it was falling through a black hole and then suddenly, my heels slammed into the ground beneath me and my body lurched forward. I took one step and then another as I stumbled and then all at once, I was awash in light. I blinked a few times before my eyes adjusted to the brightness.
I gasped at what I saw next.
My fingers rose to my lips in horror.
Holy shit. It was a museum of horrors.
I had ended up in a massive, football stadium-sized room, lined with white tile floors and white walls. Row upon row of fluid-filled containers bordered the walkways, each one full of greenish fluid. Within each glass prison was a floating body, some more human and some more alien than others.
Aliens that looked just like Axel. Some that looked like Saleos and others still that were completely unrecognizable, a veritable museum of science experiments gone wrong.
Seeing them like this, my stomach roiled, and bile rose to my throat. I stared for a long time, my disbelief rising with each passing second.
I took a heavy swallow then and urged myself forward. I walked down the aisle, trying to keep my science mind at the forefront of my thoughts. Small metal plaques denoted the mutational spectrum of each specimen, noting the faults and pluses of each being preserved in formaldehyde for the rest of their days, encased forever for the future scientific study of every single one of their cells. I found remains of aliens of all ages, from childhood to full adulthood. It was appalling, and my stomach roiled at the sight of the humanlike bodies floating in thick liquid, eyes closed as if they were only sleeping. Only I knew they weren’t.
I knew each one of them had been killed, some in a more grisly manner than others.
Each one noted cause of death. Some detailed some advanced kind of weapon I didn’t have the training to understand. Their bodies were the most mangled. Others said that growth had ceased at a certain age or had aged far too quickly. Some had gone feral. Many of them had been put down through needle-tip lethal injection, oddly enough, in the same spot on the backs of their necks. I didn’t look too closely after that, as my stomach was recoiling against it. I shook my head, it wasn’t important now. I looked away, trying to see where the strange museum of horrors led.
What sounded like a step scraped against the tile close by and I stilled.
Slowly, I moved out of the aisle, hiding between the shadows and searching in the darkness for someone else, anyone else that may have survived. Was I not the only one left?
For a long time, everything was silent.
I waited, my eyes lifting to search the skylights overhead, noticing that the sun was still high up in the sky. For a good fifteen minutes I waited and searched the room around me and found nothing. I was alone after all. Maybe my brain was just playing tricks on me.
Finally, I could wait no longer, and I left my hiding place and continued my exploration of the room.
At the end of the hall of horrors w
as a room that consisted of a variety of communication devices, and to my surprise, electricity still powered many of them on. I didn’t know if the source was solar or wind power, or power from the city, but I was happy to see green, blue, and red lights glittering all around me.
One of the speakers was humming nearby. I reached for it, turning the volume toggle and a male voice sounded loud and clear.
“Come in, Echelon 67. Come in. Any and all civilians and personnel to abandon the territory within forty-eight hours. Incoming bomb strike to arrive at zero twelve hundred hours in order to eliminate Subject #725 and all other threats. Please abandon your homes and workplaces immediately. Retreat to underground bunkers as soon as possible,” the voice said.
It repeated the same message. Over and over.
They couldn’t mean that. Could they?
Horror chilled me to the bone. Should Axel and I stay in the mountains and not find shelter very soon, we were as good as dead. Saleos was good as dead too.
I looked around me and quickly turned down the toggle once again.