The Grey. *-(A SciFi Thriller)-*

Part XV: Ami

Ding. Ding. Ding.

Ami swatted away at her ear and her hand brushed up against hard plastic. She grabbed the device and threw it on the floor out of sleepy frustration. She had passed out with her lens still in her ear. She crumbled forward, stuck in a tangle of sheets, and awkwardly rolled off the bed with a thump.

She yawned, stretched, and sighed when she saw that the heavy bookshelf seemed unmoved in front of the still broken window. She sighed again and rubbed her eyes, finally climbing up from the floor and kicking the loose sheets to the side.

Ami reluctantly swiped the lens off the floor and checked to see what it was chiming about. With a click, several messages started tickering across the small screen - all from Charlie.

"Hey, haven't heard from you in a while. Call me when you can."

"Ami? You there?"

"Didn't see you at the park today. Just checking up on you."

Ami shook her head. How long had it been?

She clicked through the messages. Three days.

Three days.

No.

Ami let out a scream of frustration and threw the lens again, though this time on her unmade bed. She started a steady pace back and forth in her tiny flat. This had never happened before. Her eyes turned upwards to the small camera that Red installed in the corner of her room. She hesitated, then shook her head. No, she was not brave enough to watch the feed. She was not brave enough to see what the monster inside of her did with those three days. Three days.

Her mind raced as she went over what had last happened when she was awake. Ami remembered Sabrina's teary eyes as she held her and it brought it back to reality.

Optica.

Ami threw on her heavy jacket and made her way downstairs. Maybe Charlie knew something about the bizarre "marketing" company. It was the only lead she had.

She made her way through the smoggy streets, dashing between the light morning crowd, moving in autopilot towards the park. She passed the vending machine where she got her jacket, and found there was a group of people at the edge of the alleyway. A line of heavily armored Hologuards were blocking the pathway off, pushing back the growing gathering.

There was a shout in the back of the crowd, "Let us see!"

There was a rustling in the growing pack of pedestrians and the murmurs between the group grew louder. They started to edge towards the line of guards, trying to get a better look down the alley.

There was a yelp in the front of the line. One of the guards had pushed back a man who got too close as he shoved him with a metal baton. The murmur of the crowd grew into shouts.

"Hologuard scum!" came another shout from the back of the group.

Suddenly, a larger, taller guard pushed his way through from behind the line of armor. He was at least two heads above the other guards and was carrying a double-headed rifle. He put a large gloved hand in the air and a hush fell over the crowd.

"Call us what you like," his voice boomed over invisible speakers, "but we did not do this."

He stepped to the side and the other Hologuards stepped aside in line, joining him. There were sudden screams in the group, and yelps of both surprise and horror.

Ami tried to squeeze her way forward to see the cause of such shock, but the crowd was too thick. Something was there in the alleyway, something horrible.