Murasakino

The spooky room

   I stumbled through the door and sped along the edge of the huge, circular hall, shouting, "Wait for me, guys!" I saw a few scientists turn to look at me, intrigued by the sudden shouting from behind them. Dr Kerrett, who had stayed in the other lab, was running along behind me.
   "Murasakino," she gasped, struggling to breathe and run at the same time. "Wait... you can't... you can't get in unless..."
   The girls were crowded round Dr Kerrett's door, trying to get in.
   "It won't open!" Ao sighed, disappointed.
   "The little camera thingy won't recognise us," Midori said. "Dr Kerrett will have to open it."
   "Girls," Dr Kerrett began, before stopping by the door, her hands on her knees, panting like a tired dog. "I need to open it for you!" She looked up at the red circle, and the door opened for us. Immediately we were struck by an unexpected smell; cinnamon, vanilla and chocolate could all be detected in the air, presumably coming from a kitchen we hadn't seen. The walls were decorated by a faint floral pattern, the floors covered in what looked like wooden floorboards. Basically, Dr Kerrett's laboratory looked absolutely nothing like a laboratory.

   "You girls want to check out the spooky room?" Dr Kerret asked us in a tone that suggested all of the labs casually had a 'spooky room' in them. She had already donned a white lab coat for no obvious reason.
   "Spooky room?" Honōiro asked.
   "Yep, just through there," replied Dr Kerrett, pointing to a door at the end of the corridor, much like the one in Dr Takeda's lab. The main room that we were now in was a lot smaller than Dr Takeda's main room, as it didn't need to fit six human-sized capsules and a dining table in it. "It is a little scary in there," she said, as if speaking to a young child. "Don't say I didn't warn you!"
   The door had a sign sellotaped to the front, with a sentence written on in red marker pen;

FOX PROTOTYPES

   This sounds fun, I thought to myself. The girls decided they wanted to know where the smells were coming from, so only I went in. This door opened like a regular door, with a handle instead of a face-recognition system. The lights inside were switched off, but when I reached out to find one, I couldn't.
   "Where's the light?" I asked.
   "On the left," Dr Kerrett replied, surrounded by my identical 'sisters'. With that, I headed inside to find a light switch.

   I could feel two on the wall, and when I pushed the one closest to me a light came on at the end of the room, which was actually very long. There were tables along each wall with ccardboard boxes on them, each woth a weird new shape sticking out. The first box I passed had a note on it that was only just legible in the dim light; No. 1. Inside was a tiny computer chip, which was Dr Kerrett's first attempt at making her fox robot.
   The next one was on the opposite side, and was a similar looking object, but this one had a few more wires attatched to it. Not very spooky, I thought. However, the third box contained an early model of the fox's head, which had no fur or skin on it. It had huge, plastic eyes and lots of teeth, and I almost jumped out of my skin at the sight of it. I was suddenly aware that the door had closed, and wanted badly to get to the light at the end of the room.

   I tried not to look at the robots, but at times I couldn't help it and found myself face to face with hideous metal faces. Some had no eyes. Some had some fur, but only covering parts of the head. One even sat with its jaws gaping, a long, slimy looking tongue lolling out. My heart was now beating faster than it ever had, and I could feel sweat dripping down my forehead.
   "Dr Kerrett?" I called out, hoping she would hear me and turn a light on. There was no answer, and as I shuffled closer to the tenth box at the end of the room, the light above it went out.
   I stopped in my tracks, suddenly feeling extremely cold. My spine tingled, and I tried shouting again.
   "Dr Kerrett?" I shouted, my voice wavering. Again, no answer. The box made a rustling noise. I turned to look in its direction, holding my breath. "Dr Kerret?" It moved again. I stepped backward once, but I didn't know where the edges of the room were and felt for a moment that I would fall over.

   A small, glowing ball the size of a marble appeared inside the box, and as I stared it rose upwards and out, until it was floating a foot above the box.
   "This isn't funny," I tried to say, but my mouth was dry. The room suddenly lit up from behind me, and I turned to see that the door had been opened by a silhoutted figure, who was wielding a long, sharp syringe.
   I screamed and fell backwards, grasping for the table but missing and collapsing in a heap.
   "No! Stay away!" I shrieked, but the figure laughed an eerily familiar laugh and stepped into the room. I grabbed a fox robot from a box beside me and held it by the tail as if it were a sword. The laughing continued, and their hand reached out towards the light switch I hadn't flicked on.
   "I got you good!" Dr Kerrett chuckled, placing the syringe down on the table. I grabbed my chest, nearly hyperventilating but starting to control my breathing. "Told you it was a spooky room!" she said, laughing again.
   "Spooky?!" I cried, my voice cracking. "That was terrifying! How did you..."
   "The floaty thing? It's just a glow-in-the-dark ball hanging on some fishing line!" She broke into laughter again, a tear forming in her left eye. "That was priceless!" By now, the girls had gathered at the door, baffled as to why Pippa was practically dying of laughter at me, lying on the floor as if I had been slapped across the face.