Title: Echo Floor
The air trembled with tension.
Two boys stood inches apart, fists clenched, eyes blazing. One of them—lean, wild-eyed, something broken in him—lunged forward. The other met him halfway. Their bodies collided in a frenzy of shouts and hits that echoed far too loudly for a place so empty.
"Enough! Stop it!" The girl’s voice sliced through the chaos.
She was slight and calm, yet her voice carried strange authority. She stepped between them, arms outstretched, fearless. The boys stopped as if yanked by invisible strings, their heaving breaths loud in the eerie silence.
They were inside a facility—spacious, but abandoned-looking. Walls of deep black teal surrounded them, sleek and shimmering faintly like oil under light. No windows. No clocks. Just corridors and shadows.
The girl turned to the leaner boy. “Let’s go.”
He nodded. They moved to the elevators—two identical doors side by side, matching the walls in colour and texture as if the entire building had been carved from the same strange stone.
She stepped into the right one. He hesitated.
“Hey,” he called softly, heart hammering. “I’m not getting a good feeling. Please… come with me instead.”
She looked at him. Sad eyes. Silent.
He pressed the button to ascend—but his finger hovered. A deeper dread bloomed in his chest.
Something’s not right.
His instincts screamed.
Down.
He began pressing the downward button over and over. The doors sealed silently, and the lift began to descend.
Lower. Lower.
The numbers on the display were strange. Symbols he didn’t recognize flickered and changed.
DING.
The doors slid open.
A narrow hallway stretched before him, dimly lit by bluish overhead panels. The air was colder here. Stale. To the left, a door stood slightly open. Voices drifted from inside.
He approached.
“…did you review the latest specimen’s data?”
A woman’s voice. Calm, clinical.
“Too advanced. We’ll have to isolate—”
He leaned closer. The door creaked under his weight. The woman turned. She saw him.
He froze.
Without hesitation, she stepped forward and raised a sleek black device. A flash of light—
------
Laser.
Bolts hit his chest. He gasped. But nothing happened.
“Ma’am, help me!” he cried out, desperate. “I’m in danger!”
The woman narrowed her eyes. Lifted a voice comm.
"A patient somehow accessed Level R. Immediate retrieval."
His knees buckled. His breath turned shallow.
In his ear, a voice—not hers. A synthetic, female tone.
"Disabling hearing senses… Disabling sweat glands… Preparing containment."
He staggered backwards. The walls felt alive. Wrong.
He ran.
Turned corner after corner. Halls repeating themselves. Something was warping. Looping.
Finally—
He fell against a door.
It opened.
White light poured out.
Inside: metal tables. Harsh spotlights. Surgical tools aligned with inhuman precision.
An operating theatre.
His eyes widened—
Then everything went dark.
---
To be continued...
(P.S: this was my dream before I woke up this morning... It was chilling yet extremely exciting.)
