Tony grimaced as he took a few steps towards a body on the ground. He poked it with his index finger and spoke in a revolted tone:
"They are definitely dead. There isn't anything to do here, so let's just continue walking through this corridor."
Kevin hesitated for a second.
"But... What if there is something behind these corpses? There wouldn't be many people that would search through them. It's also strange that, except for a few surface-level injuries, the bodies are relatively unscathed. Normally, some limbs would be severed, or something like that."
"Bro! I am not staying in this for that long, walking through dead bodies to search for some secret that might not even exist! Maybe they only took the unharmed corpses!"
Leo immediately retorted.
Momentarily, everyone stood still without speaking a word. Leo was the first one to walk away from the room and back into the milky-white hallway.
Then, Tony stepped out of the room, with Alesha walking right behind him. I followed them, and the siblings soon got out as well.
The group walked further into the hallway in silence. Only the sound of the shoes hitting the white floor could be heard in this seemingly endless corridor.
After another minute of walking, we found a large white door. The door was exactly like the other door in the hallway, with no indication of what was hidden behind it.
The group stopped in front of the large door and looked at each other. Leo let out a sigh and slowly walked forward.
He extended his arm and carefully put his hand on the colorless handle.
Then, he quickly lowered the handle and kicked the door open.
~Bam~
The door rapidly swung open, hitting the wall and creating a blaring sound.
We looked through the doorway and spotted a familiar scene.
"Again?" Tony let out a slight murmur under his breath before pinching his glabella.
A countless number of corpses laid there, muddled on top of each other, once again.
Leo stepped forward and reached for the hinge of the door again. This time, not to open the door, but to close it instead.
~Bam~
Yanking the cold handle, he slammed the door closed.
Kevin sighed in an exaggerated way and put his right hand on Leo's left shoulder.
"Let's just ignore this room and check the rest of this hallway. They can't have that many corpses left, right?"
Leo slowly nodded with a tired expression.
We started walking towards the end of the hallway again. I felt an indiscernible atmosphere follow our group, and everyone kept quiet.
'Seeing that many corpses stacked on top of each other can undoubtedly make someone nauseous. Although there isn't any sympathy, it still feels weird to see that many dead people in the same place.'
After yet another minute, we finally reached the end of the corridor.
At the end of the corridor stood another door. The door was once again identical to the two doors before it.
Kevin approached the large door with a blank expression, and he quietly opened the door.
The first thing that we found behind the door was a demon corpse. Behind the corpse laid countless more corpses.
As though it was already expected, no one showed any surprise on their face or body.
Kevin then took a step into the room, turning his head and looking around.
"There's nothing here. We can just go back and enter that other hallway."
He walked out of the room again and calmly closed the door.
"Alright, let's go."
The group walked back to the start of the hallway. After passing the second white door, they noticed a small red dot appear from the other side of the hallway.
"Hey, do you guys see that?" Leo asked in a low voice. "Shit, I forgot we're actually still in the enemy mountain..."
Everyone lowered their body and Kevin quickly opened the white door on the side of the wall.
"Get over here. Let's hide and wait until they get closer. It seems like they haven't noticed us yet."
The others and I went into the room with the corpses and Kevin then quietly closed the door.
"We can hide inside the mountain of corpses and peek through the holes if they come into this room." I suggested to the rest.
Alesha winced slightly and curled her body a tiny bit.
"No... That's a bit too... Ehm, sickening for me. Let's just hide behind the mountain, and not inside of it."
"Alright, I understand. Let's do that then."
We quickly went to the back of the demon corpse mountain and peeked through the holes of the edge of the mountain towards the large door.
After a dozen seconds, the sound of rusty wheels creaking against the solid ground resounded in the room.
The source of the tiresome sound came closer until it eventually stopped in front of the large door.
The handle of the door went down, as the door slowly shifted open. On the other side of the doorway stood a demon with a bored expression.
Behind the demon was a huge carriage that carried dozens of red-skinned demon bodies on its back.
"Is the door open yet? Let's do this quickly, so we'll have more free time later!" A grumpy voice sounded from behind the carriage.
'There seems to be another one behind the corpse carriage.'
"Yeah! The door is completely open!" The demon in front of the door turned his head and shouted.
The carriage slowly moved into the room, and the two demons kicked the dead demons off the carriage.
~Thud~
~Thud~
Corpses piled up on top of each other, and the two demons were nearly finished with the removal.
~Whoosh~
Suddenly, two small daggers flew through the air, piercing the heads of the two demons, along with all the corpses in the way.
The two newly created corpses plummeted down the carriage, joining the other corpses.
"Phew, now that's taken care of. We should quickly continue before they find out that something is wrong." Kevin heaved a sigh of relief, as he walked over the dead bodies towards the large door.
The others also walked over to the door, some more careful than others to not step onto the bodies.
Everyone walked back into the long hallway, returning to the start of the secret base.
The minute of walking quickly passed, and we saw the humongous door that could easily let an ogre through.
This time, we walked through the other corridor. At first, it seemed exactly like the first corridor, but after a while, the floor became littered with small shards of glass and crumpled pieces of paper.
'At least they kept the graveyard part of the building clean.' I thought while looking at one of the pieces of paper.
As I looked at the piece of paper, I noticed something akin to a human figure crudely drawn on top of it.
'It seems like I'm not the only one that spotted the weird drawings on the paper. Kevin, Tony and Iris are all staring at the pieces of paper, while Alesha and Leo are completely focused on the other end of the hallway.'
Tony bent his back and picked up a piece of paper and uncrumpled it.
He examined the uncrumpled paper and said in a calm voice: "Hey, wait a bit. These pieces of paper could have useful information on them. We should at least pick them up and skim through some."
Kevin squinted his eyes.
"Alright, but please make it quick. I don't want to stay in this eerie mountain any longer than needed."
"Then help us collect the paper." Tony said before turning the paper around, letting everyone see the contents of the document.
There was a human figure drawn on the upper half of the paper with a big red cross drawn over the figure. The human had short, black hair and brown eyes. His proportions were normal, and he looked like an average person.
Below the figure was a small piece of text, with the title '#EXPERIMENT 1194'.
The small text stated:
'It is another failure. It has been disposed of.
The defects include but are not limited to: Loss of brain cells, extreme irritation of the skin, irregular nail growth, and death.'
Bryan silently read the information on the paper and nonchalantly thought in his head. 'So they're experimenting on humans? I remember being involved in such an experiment a while ago when I was still living in the city. If this is the 1194th experiment, then could all those corpses actually be from former humans? They're that close to making artificial demons?'
Tony turned the piece of paper and crumpled it into his pockets, before saying: "It seems they are experimenting on humans, and they've been doing it for quite some time."
I politely raised my right hand and said: "Actually, I've been kidnapped by demons before. While I was in their base, they were also experimenting on humans there. It looked like they were trying to turn humans into demons there. Maybe they're doing the same thing here?"
Everyone thought to themselves for a moment. Tony's face scrunched up, Iris grimaced, and Kevin had a complicated face.
The grossed-out Tony said: "Does that mean that those mountains of corpses could have been... Humans...?