Renee quietly followed her brother into the darkness, navigating through what felt like a passage. Many negative ideas creeped her senses, and the thought of running into another monster while being consumed in this blinding darkness made her ball her hands tightly at her side, grasping a firmer hold on her trembling resolve.
She straightened her spine, bracing herself for the worst – like it would really do anything. But it was either this, or going back out there and getting consumed by whatever the heck those creatures were.
Venturing deeper into the passage with Cyrus's footsteps leading her in his direction, Renee tried to feel the walls with her hands. It felt cool to the touch, the texture rough on her skin, and as she continued to feel her way through, her fingers flipped what felt like a switch, and the lights automatically came on.
".....!"
Startled, Renee froze for a couple of minutes before allowing her gaze to settle on her environment. Her lips parted in awe when a sleek, high-tech lab was revealed to her crimson eyes, her ruby irises glistening in surprise.
All the lights came on, brightening the vicinity, and when Renee looked behind her, the dark passage was also brightly lit. The walls, which she could see clearly now bore semblance to that of an underground cave, as if it had been built below the house.
"Sweet mother of Neptune." Cyrus had the same jaw-dropping expression as her.
"This is…" his contemplating voice broke through her daze, and he moved forward, "an underground high-tech lab."
For a moment, Renee stayed rooted in her spot, bewildered by the sight that just unfolded before her very eyes, and she immediately felt like she was stuck in a dream. Her ruby eyes scanned the rows of computers, flashing monitors, experimental equipment, and the soft glows from the overhead light.
It must have cost her parents a fortune to build such an advancement, and the sight had distracted her thoughts temporarily from the situation outside.
Being a tech enthusiast, Cyrus hurried towards one of the computers, already side-tracked by all the gadgets he was seeing.
The computer hummed to life as her brother powered up the system, the screen displaying intricate data and code.
Taking into account that the place was safe to enter, Renee finally walked into the tech-lab. She's read in books, and seen in movies how scientists and tech geniuses tend to build one lab below their home, for the sake of private experimentation. She never really believed such a thing was possible until now, even when she saw it once in a movie, she made a huge deal over it to the point she pleaded with Cyrus to take her there.
He refused of course, teasing her for being an old ninety's woman, but alas! She's seeing one right now, and below their home too!
She moved to his side, peering into the computer as if she would understand a thing he was doing. A password was required to enter the computer's main interface, and that had Cyrus guessing for many possibilities.
He entered a familiar date on the screen, and the monitor immediately flickered with charts and graphs, granting him entrance to continue his initial progress.
"How did you–?"
"It's our parents, they use their wedding anniversary date for almost all their passcodes." Cyrus blatantly explained, and Renee couldn't help but nod in defeat.
There was a high chance her parents used the same passcodes because they assumed they wouldn't find the lab, but now that they have, Renee's mind raced with many uncertainties.
How long did her parents intend to keep this place a secret from them?
With this thought in mind, her mindfulness had overcome her earlier reaction to the lavishness of the lab, because a few minutes ago, she was about to become raw steaks to a monster who used to be human. If they hadn't found this place at the nick of time, she and her brother wouldn't be standing here, looking alive right now.
"Cyrus, don't you think we have major problems at our hands right now?" She queried the young man who was still trying to crack the intricate codes on the screen, "something awful is happening out there and we have no clue what it is, you saw it yourself… people are… are turning into mutated monsters and uncle James is no more! What… what do we do now?"
Cyrus stopped typing after taking his sister's dilemma into consideration. He turned around in the swivel chair to meet her apprehensive gaze, her eyes begging him for some answers as she stood meters away, and unfortunately for the both of them, he was equally clueless about what he just witnessed.
"I… I don't know." He admitted, "I didn't know what was happening until I heard you scream. I wasn't even aware of what I shot at until the deed had been done. Something was grabbing you, Renee and my fingers reacted on the trigger before I could even control myself. I too, I'm scared to figure out what's out there."
He stroked his temples to ease the headache, palming his face and weaving his fingers into his hair. He was afraid, his heart was about to combust after sighting that creature, and he couldn't even identify the species as uncle James, not until he caught a glimpse of the ivy cap in their living room.
"I pray his soul finds peace." Renee whispered in her heart, having lost another father-figure. "What do we do then… if we can't go outside to figure out the problem, what do we—"
And she paused.
Her hands instinctively reached for her pocket in her night pants, and she exclaimed. "My phone!"
Feeling the solidness of her phone in her pocket, she turned to Cyrus, "we could surf the internet and see what's happening for ourselves!"
Bringing out her phone, she switched it on and handed it to Cyrus. The wifi signal was still working, and her brother was able to access the news website where a crisis report was being given.
The situation on the video report was no different from what they had witnessed. A lot of people were running around in the background, screaming at the unknown, but unfortunately, they couldn't hear a thing since the internet kept having an error disruption, and when they hoped for a stable wifi, the signal was lost, and the image instantly blacked out.
"It's no use." Cyrus handed the phone back to his sister and faced the computer, "the wifi has been disrupted. Maybe if I can crack the codes on these things it might help…woah! The hell!!"
Cyrus stopped short in his sentence when the building suddenly quaked.
A loud 'BOOM' could be heard from above, as if a nuclear bomb had dropped, and the whole building quivered from the aftermath.
The siblings braced themselves for the impact, holding onto whatever they could find to avoid the violent shook, and it took some minutes before the tremor subsided. An eerie silence followed suit, but the underground lab incurred no major damages.
Renee placed her arm on the table and helped her trembling self up to her feet. She was trying to put her bewildered senses together when a female robotic voice pierced through the silence, echoing in her mind.
[Congratulations, Agent, System online, User Identified]
"Huh?" Startled, Renee turned to her brother who happened to be watching her with the same startling expression.
Momentarily dazed, she asked, "did you hear something?"
Cyrus barely had the chance to respond when a holographic display materialized a few inches away from Renee's face. It projected a sleek system logo with a BRC drawn in the circle, rotating automatically. The disembodied voice continued.
[This is a planetary monster alert for all inhabitants on the planet Terravale.]
[The system has identified individuals with exceptional abilities to navigate the combat invasion. User has been selected amongst five billion inhabitants in the Stellar system to evacuate the land.]
[Accessing user data. Displaying stats.]
[User profile]
. Name: Renee Blackwell
. Age: 22
. Class: Survivor/ Apothecary
. Level: 1
. Experience points (XP): (0/100)
. Alchemy: (0/100)
. Strength: 100
. Agility: 100
. Intelligence: (50/100)
. Vitality: 100
. Skills: Locked
.
.