The Typical Life of Dr. Kendraki
Dr. Kendraki arrives at work, drenched in sweat, the sun shining brightly above his head. Wiping the sweat off his brow, he glances inside, the receptionist showing no signs of notice. If he had a car he wouldn’t have to rent a bicycle for work, although in his current financial standings a car was the least of his concerns. He walks through a sliding glass door into a pure clean white laboratory. He loved his work; getting in late meant staying late, however, and he would have to endure the piercing eyes of the receptionist, following him down the hall. Not now, he had to work, he’d been getting pretty close to impressing Steve, his boss.
Taking a left down the hallway and a right at the next, pressing the small buttons on the bleak metal panel, he took the short ride to the basement. Walking past many offices, all tidy and empty, he now approached a small white door with a bronze plaque reading “Mr. Kendal” He was disappointed that it still hadn’t been fixed. He’d definitely spent the extra time around the office, bailing out on dates his friends had set up and skipping out on seeing his family. He sighed, sliding the keycard through the reader he entered the small study.
Papers sat on his desk, likely research notes that he had to organize and file. It always amazed him why they kept them around, as they had already made an online cloud to store all the information necessary. Adjusting his glasses he sat down in his stiff office chair, long hours of work ahead. Glancing around the small office he notes the coat-rack, (never used) the clock ticking away (albeit 3 minutes off), his Windows 7 computer which looked like an artifact in the otherwise modern workspace. He chuckled, a fire axe sat securely in a small metal box, as if it would ever get used. He wondered if everyone had their own axe in their office. Setting down, he sets to work, only the quiet buzz of the lights above him. He longed at a poster, he wanted too get away from it all he wasn’t progressing in work like he had hoped and he wanted desperately too get some time off.
He awoke with a start his head aching from staring at paper after paper all with big black blocks obscuring most of which is confidential. He must’ve been overwhelmed with all the work he had to get done. There were distant crashing noises, work would have to wait, an immense feeling of dread washed over him, work was the least of his concerns. Leaving his now dark office, forcing open the now jammed door, he looked down the hallway at distant smoke and flickering lights. There was a viscous substance coating the wall trailing down the hallway towards the elevator. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to stick around and find out, he hadn’t worked long enough to know what things were going on in this secure facility but he had a good idea to take one of the alternative routes out.
Small bits of plaster flecked off the ceiling as something rumbled in the distance. That can’t possibly be good, it was time to leave. Kendraki ran down the hallway, going down the stairs deeper into the facility, careful not to touch any of the goo on the way down. He went down to sublevel D where he would make his way to the maintenance tunnels and climb back up to the surface. Heading out of the stairs and making his way down a dark hallway with flashing red lights being the only light and cells lining the walls the walls. One of the cells he came upon lay open, curious as to what was inside he peered in, an ornate locket sat inside the safe, could be valuable seeing as how well secured everything was, he pocketed it. Before returning to the dark hallway. He now noticed a light at the end of the hallway, walking towards it he retrieved, a flashlight, sweat still on the handle from its previous user.
More dust dropped from the ceiling, distant commotion, he had to get out, he wasn’t sure who or what was making its way further down. The shouts and cries were not reassuring. Kendraki continued to the end of a hallway, trying to open the door at the end only to find that it was stuck. The metal door was twisted and warped, he came at it with a running start smashing the door open and tumbling down into the stairwell below. He slammed into some rubble that littered the stairwell the stairs up had collapsed, resulting in sharp railing tearing into his leg. He pulled himself off the metal, groaning, a crimson fluid flowed out of his leg, he noticed he dropped the locket he had earlier, it had fallen open on the floor. He picked up the amulet and secured it around his neck. Kendraki pulled himself along the rails and dragging the limp noodle of a leg behind him,
Reaching the bottom of the stairs he noticed the pain had all but gone away, the locket with its shimmering silver, emitting a soft glow in the pitch black of the stairs. He was glad that he picked it back up, but didn’t want to mess with its magic anymore, he closed it tucking it in his pocket. He reached engineering and technical, which is where the maintenance tunnels are. He stopped at a mostly glass room with many panels and controls broken glass around the shattered doors. As he entered, he was struck from behind forcefully, his back burned as he was thrown to the floo. Kendraki quickly threw his coat off, and ran weaving between overturned chairs and mugs too the far end of the room. A dark entity made of the same viscous substance of earlier followed melting chairs as he walked through them. Reaching the far end of the room, ducking underneath small bolts of electricity from a nearby panel. He looked around for a way to escape the inhuman entity, a sort of cloudy darkness and fear surrounding his mind as he recalled the thing now approaching him.
He slipped on some papers on the floor falling backwards against some dials and switches, frantically he pulled at them catching a dial and twisting it around the heat in the room drastically increased and an arch of lighting struck across the room burning and scattering papes striking the entity in the chest blasting the corrosive substance all over. It squealed an inhuman shriek and retreated into a puddle of it’s own corrosive effect. He got back to work turning on auxiliary power, which would allow him to exit through the maintenance tunnels. He left the burning room and fled quickly, not wishing to run into anymore “anomalies”, skidding down the gritty grey hallways littered with pipes and failing lighting. He reached the manually sealed maintenance doors, gripping the rusty metal and tugging hard, the door gave way and swung open to a long brick hallway swampy with water from broken pipes. Jogging through the bog he went straight past many outlets of more of the same endless red faded brick. He reached a smaller door, easily opening with a little push, opening too blue sky and green grass. The birds chirped, as he took a deep sigh, he wasn’t going to go back to work for a while.