The Ninth Cabin

4. The Storage Room

As I followed Marshall and Unity, I distinctly felt a strange sensation. Turning around, I noticed a figure creep behind the upper level of the storage room. I quietly muttered to Marshall and Unity that I would be gone for a minute, and they nodded.

I followed the figure to the other side of the outside of the room. As I grew closer, I noticed that the door was open. Quickly stepping forward, I snuck into the door and closed it behind me. The inside of the room was dark, and the windows were boarded up from the inside. Ahead of me I could see the faint outline of a staircases banisters. Reaching my hand forward, I grasped the worn wood and slowly began descending.

I counted the exact number of steps it took to reach the basement floor. 66. I guess the designer had a dark sense of humor, and I was mostly focused on the burning of my legs. As I walked forward in the storage room, my face hit a cord. I reached up to pull it, and light filled the room from a faintly glowing lightbulb. It certainly was a storage room, and boxes lined the many shelves inside. They had had standard names of various supplies. As I continued to walk forward, I noticed a box without a label.

Curiosity gnawed at my senses so I reached to open the box. As I lifted the lid off of the container I was greeted with a horrible stench. Pulling the box out more, I looked at its contents. They were wrapped packages of some form of red solid, and a few had burst and were leaking pus throughout the container. Gagging, I grabbed one of the sealed packages and lifted it. The outside of the wrapper had a sticky coating of whatever was leaking from the burst packages. Turning it around, it held a label.

Not for human consumption. Avoid contact with eyes and nose.

Nose? That didn't make a lot of sense. Although, I guess there is a few viruses that infected you from there. Placing the package in my outfit, I decided it might be useful. I resealed the container and placed it back on its shelf.

I heard a sudden shuffling nose behind me, and turned to face it. In the dark, a decrepit figure lay hunched over staring at me. I couldn't make out any features besides its medium stature, and it tilted its head at me. I assumed that this was the figure that led me into the basement. As it tilted its head at me, it suddenly slinked back into the shadows. Deciding it wasn't worth my time, I returned back upstairs and snuck out of the top stories door.

As I exited, I skunk back to the track. One of the guards had brought out a canister, and most people had small paper cups. As I approached I noticed that the guard was giving out what appeared to be lemonade. They even had lemons on the rims of the cups. Stifling a laugh, I looked around for Marshall and Unity. Marshall was drinking a glass of the lemonade while Unity was staring at a salamander in her hands.

As I approached them, I noticed they were feeding the salamander the lemon. It's face began to scrunch up, and it ran out of Unitys hands. Surprised by their actions I called out to them. "What are you two doing? Some salamander species are poisonous, we shouldn't be scaring them off." As they looked up at me, they both let out a light chuckle. Marshall lifted up his drink and said, "You should have some! The lemons here are great." I turned towards Unity with a placid expression and said to her, "I really hope Marshall isn't usually this obsessed with lemons." Unitys face seemed to match mine as she nodded. "Yeah, his lemon obsession can get out of hand sometimes. At least he's not trying to weave a basket out of lemon rinds though."

Marshall and I both turned to Unity before breaking out in laughter. I then remembered the strange substance I had in my outfit. I motioned for them to follow me and we moved behind the truck. I pulled out the wrapped object and recounted what had happened. Marshall turned to me with a confused expression. "You don't think they make us eat that, do you?" I shook my head, and pointed at the label before responding. "No, I think it's some form of strange experiment they're hosting here."

Unity looked at the object before shaking her head.

"You don't think it's the recent escapist, do you?"