A pale dim light luminesced steadily onto the earth's surface. The obscurity made the shadows of the foliages permeated eerieness under my skin. Only realm of nothingness that seen along the way. No cars, no busses, no nocturnal predators nor preys, it just me and Leonora inside this four wheels tin.
She fainted before had a chance to tell me what made her wasted like this. The wound on her left arm worried me a lot. Did she encountered a polar bear?
After a quite long drive, i reached the destination and parked the car near the front gate of the facility. This was Professor Ivan's facility. The GPS confirmed it. There were no guards and the gates were closed tight. Out of a sudden Leonora coughed. I thought she's finally woke up. My chest pumped rapidly when i saw bloods from her mouth plopped down on the dashboard.
What's happening? There's no way the wound on her left arm was the reason she vomited bloods. This must be an internal wound or something. Unless, some kind of bacterias or viruses dwelled in her wound, infected her internal organs and thoroughly spreading to the entire blood vessels. Still, it's unlikely to happen. Even Lissavirus needed more than a day to fully infected her victim and turned a human into a rabid zombie before the poor infected human died. This one just way too fast.
I left the car and found a ring bell near the steel plate gate with an intercom attached on the concrete Pilar. I pressed the button couple times while looked up to the CCTV so they'll recognized my face. Unfortunately, i got no response. Seemed like nobody's here on the gate nor the watchtower. I got back to the car and wiped the blood out from Leonora's chest while waited for the response from the intercom. I hope she's okay.
"Hang on there Leonora. I promise once we got in there, i'll find out what make you suffered like this."
Not long after an untelligible voice spoke through the intercom. I ran toward it to answer the call.
"Mrs. Hope please stand back from the gate."
At the same time, the gate opened and a bunch of armed guards pointed their guns at me. Lasers from they weapons blinded my sight. I spontaneously knelt and raised both of my hands while shouted, "Don't shoot. It's me. Please, take Leonora to the infirmary. She needs help."
They took Leonora on a stretcher, but somehow they treated me like a fugitive. The Head of Security brought me to his office.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Hope. Something terrible just happend on this island. We have to make sure you are not a spy. Would you please to lend me your ID Card for a moment?" he typed something on his computer.
"I don't have it right now."
"Okay. We'll try a different approachment. Please get into the screening tube over there, Mrs. Hope."
I stepped inside a circular tube. A greenlight scanned me from head to toe followed by an AI woman voice.
"Name, Vennesa Hope, height, 178 centimeters, weight, 58 kilograms, body measurements, 32-28-34, eye colour, dark green, hair colour, dark brown. Date of birth, 30 June 2190, age, 31 years old, birth place, Minnesota USA, school, Wayzata Public School, College, Harvard University Cambridge MA United States, educational qualification, Master of Biology--"
"That's enough, please step out of the tube and put your hands on that tab over there, Mrs. Hope."
The AI voice ceased after the guard opened the tube door. I walked toward the tab and put my hands on it. The machine scanned my fingerprints.
"Access granted!"
"It seems you're the real deal. I apologize for the troubles, Mrs. Hope," said the Head Security.
"You just doing your job. I want to meet Dr. Ivan."
" Yes, Mom. Follow me."
I gave the key to the guards so they parked Leonora's car inside. The Head Security escorted me to Professor Ivan's office on the second floor.
"Mrs. Hope, welcome. Please have a sit," Dr. Ivan welcomed me.
"Thank you, Doctor. Before we get into the topic of discussion, i'd like to ask for your permission to utilize the medical equipment here."
"What would be the purpose of your request, Mrs. Hope?" asked Dr. Ivan.
"We've been through a perilous situation which caused your assistant, Ms. Leonora suffered an unfortunate accident. As for her condition, i diagnosed as dismal. She needs an emergency treatment and advanced medical check-up as soon as possible."
"I appreciate you worried about my assistant, but my subordinate has taken care of her. So now, let's get back to the real topic, shall we?"
"Very well, if you insist, Doctor."
"Where's my Phalleo-4? Maybe i'm mistaken, but these glasses of mine are crystal clear. I didn't see any presence of it."
"My apologize, Doctor. The package was stolen on our way here days ago. I don't mean to be rude, what do you need Phalleo-4 for, Doctor?"
He stalled and stared at me. This became an awkward situation. He took a deep breath of dissappointment and folded his hand on the table.
"For humanity. That's my answer, Mrs. Hope."
He stood and beckoned me. I followed him to the lift and ended up on the third floor underground. We walked a few meters and take a left turn and stopped near a massive white door. Even two adult elephants might be enough to get through the door side by side. We took a circular small door on the left corner. The security was extremely tight. The door would be only passable if whoever wanted to enter the room, passed all the security test. Ranging from the eye sensor, finger prints, voice recognition, and Pandora ID Card.
"Mrs. Hope, let me introduce you to the future of humanity. Welcome to Sector-13," he spoke with a tone of proudness as he opened the door.
I was stunned with the eerieness depicted by this room. The faint dingy red light filled up every corners and spaces. It's dim in term of intensity, but dreadful in regard of integrity. A shiver run up my spine when i looked at a dozen of incubators filled with the unprecedented creatures.
I stopped at the biggest incubator. It's almost three meters in height. I noticed something, it had a name under it. Nephilim. It made me look like a kitten in a cold sweat. It's immensely intimidating even with its eyes closed. The shaped of its body were not so different with us humans. However, it had some kind of weird small and short tentacles protruding from the head. It had sagging pale yellow skin from neck to face and scales all over its torso. The lower body looked like a frog's leg.
What're these monsters?