< intercomm dialogue >
system ||
'AI speaking' ||
[ Location ]
_______________________
Reese walked in the dark after the phone's batteries died.
The tunnel is one way, giving him no other option but to go forward.
Delving deeper into the dark, it's getting hard to breathe. Like the darkness is blocking oxygen from coming in.
It felt like he is walking blindly into uncharted territory.
'So this is how it feels to walk blind.' he thought.
Because of the deafening silence, it was like music to his ears to hear something new.
He heard a faint sound of a zombie snarling in a far distance. Even the smallest of sounds echoed in his ears in this enclosed lonely tunnel.
The smell pungent smell of rotting bodies got stronger from there.
Reese never thought he'd even consider it as a sliver of hope of being accompanied by zombies.
'I must be losing my mind.' he joked to himself.
This time, he willingly let go of the wall and sprinted forward. If the tunnel is leading to one way alone, there was no need to keep holding on.
The sound is getting louder, the thought of getting closer to it makes his heart beat faster.
He saw sparks of orange at the end of the tunnel. All the more he pursued to chase it.
"Hilde!" a man's voice screamed.
Reese is expecting that Hilde say something back but instead he heard her snarl.
His heart skipped a beat at the thought that she is gone. That he came too late.
Reese focused his eyes on the orange light - a torch on the ground! He sees two shadows on the wall.
The man lying on his back, defending himself from the zombie tackling him.
Reese's brow creased when he had a better look at the two figures.
"Hilde snap out of it!" the man shouts.
Hilde's skin is gray, her wounds were the only ones with color. Blood saturated the bandages around her injuries.
Her eyes once shined of blue now turning pale in transition to becoming gray.
"Hilde." he calls her, hoping she still knows her name.
She turned not because she remembers but because she heard a voice, a possible prey to satiate her hunger.
The man turns to Reese with concern. "Hey man, I think she's gone."
"Please tell me you can hear me." Reese ignores him.
His eyes only locked on his team member that now stood face-to-face with him.
Blood drips on her lips, head tilted to the side, growling lowly.
"Hilde?" Reese croaked.
He can see the bite marks on her arms. Hilde has been missing for days, if she were bit since then then the infection would have spread far already.
She walked towards him, her legs wobbling.
"No, no, no, no. This can't be..."
Even with the truth already right in front of him, he refuses to accept that this is real.
"Watch out!"
The man pulled Reese behind him and lands a kick on Hilde's stomach to push her away.
He pulled his shotgun up, the barrel pointed at her. He hesitated to pull the trigger.
They've been together for a few days but he is already fond of her company.
"What are you doing? Don't!"
Reese is just about to get back on his feet when the man pulls the trigger.
Multiple bullets flew in the air and cuts through her rotting flesh. Her chest bled, her blouse soaked in red.
Her body falls on her back on the ground. Her fingers twitched at the last attempt to grab one of them.
"I'm sorry, we have to go." the man held Reese by his arm.
Reese resisted but the man held him tighter and pulls him away.
"The exit is right here. Come on."
He leads the way and shows Reese the manhole ladder that would lead them back to society.
"There's more of them coming. We need to be out before they come."
"Who's they?"
"Zombies." the man replied with a shrug.
"Zombies? You mean like..." Reese couldn't bring himself to say it.
Hilde became one of them even. It is a painful truth to accept for him. Not when she is like family to him.
Denial arises and clouding his judgment.
"Yeah, more of those mindless things." The man confirms.
Then both of them turns to Hilde's body lay flat on the ground. Her hands no longer twitched. Blood flowed from the gunshot wounds.
"I'm sorry about your friend." The man apologizes.
He can see that Reese is fond of Hilde and that they were close.
"How did you know her?" Reese turns away from Hilde's body to focus his gaze on the man.
"I'm Isaac." He offers his hand. "Hilde and I met a couple of days back."
"Met how? Were you also taken?"
"I've been here longer than her. I got her out as fast as I could but..." Isaac looked down, "she turned anyways."
"Thank you for being there for her." Reese says.
If he knew Hilde long enough, he knows that she fought as long as she could until the rescue team arrives.
It is his biggest regret that he did not arrive in time to save her, to prevent this from happening.
"She needed someone to be there for her in her last hour."
"She's a good person." Isaac says.
"Do you mind if I bring you to the station? We need to brief you and you can tell us everything you k—"
Reese paused.
"Everything I know?" Isaac tried to finish for him. "Sure I can do that."
Then Isaac turns to the ladder.
"I'll check what's up there."
It hit Reese.
Another theory.
If Isaac had been in this abyss of a dungeon longer than him and longer than Hilde.
Then the phone that he found... is it possible that it belonged to him? Is he related to the mole?
"Wait."
Isaac halted his movements, his feet already settled on the first metal stop near the bottom.
"Hm?"
Reese pulled out the blacked out phone from his pocket to show him.
"Is this yours?"
Isaac squinted his eyes at the dark blue mobile phone. The screen partly cracked and its glossy phone case covered in dirt.
Reese tilts the phone side to side so he can have a better view other angles.
"No." Isaac denies. "My phone is black."
"Are you sure? This is black without the case."
Isaac climbs down. "Can I see?"
He hesitated to give it to him, but Reese swallowed his suspicion and threw the phone over.
Isaac examines the phone closely this time, his finger sliding over the cracks and the dirt.
"No, it isn't mine. But it probably belongs to another person in this dungeon."
"There's someone else here?"