Why not?
Emily looks back and forth between Lena and Sasha.
Tony said he had some success with his mice,
why shouldn't we try it?
Tony also died after... Sasha is
interrupted by coughing. ...after trying it
on himself.
Not like anything else is gonna happen to
us...
Lena shakes her head.
I don't want to spend my remaining days
alone. Just don't do it, please.
Emily gets up and paces around the module. Is that
proper grammar? Her eyes fall on the drawers in the adjacent
maintenance module. An idea forms in her head...
Emily, where are you going?
She steps inside and rummages through a bunch of drawers, leaving them
open as she opens the next one.
What are you doing with that hammer?
She storms off into the hallway; Lena jumps up and runs after her.
As she runs through the door to the lab module, she smashes the hammer into its control panel. Arcing noises, the hissing of air pressure getting released, the broken equipment alarm beeps. The door comes falling down behind her, slamming into the floor and latching with a loud click. She looks around for a moment as she catches her breath.
The walls are lined with workbenches and cupboards above them. In the center is an additional large workbench where Tony's lab mice are still running around in their cage, oblivious to the situation. Emily had kept them as pets after he died.
Banging on the door – Lena is outside. Emily walks over to the Erlenmeyer flask that's sitting next to the sink built into one of the workbenches. She lifts it up and looks through the clear, blue liquid. Tony had written some science-y words on the flask along with "cure 5x concentrated", and closed it off with a glass stopper. Emily removes the stopper and grabs a small beaker from the drying rack on the wall above the sink. She pours some of the liquid into the beaker, sets the flask aside, and tops it off with water from the tap. Holding the beaker in her hands, she hesitates.
Buzzing noises and clicking from the door. The latching mechanism opens. Emily's hesitation is over, she lifts the beaker to her mouth and drinks the liquid. It has a pungent smell and burns in her throat but she downs it in two gulps. The door moves up a bit. Through the opening, she hears Lena struggling on the other side. A foot appears in the door, followed by Lena's hands. Emily begins to feel dizzy, she sets the beaker onto the center workbench and holds on to the edge of the work surface. Lena slowly lifts the door and pushes it back into the ceiling, holding a screwdriver in her mouth. The panel covering the latching mechanism has been removed and is leaning against the wall. Emily starts to move towards the door but feels too dizzy to walk. She still sees Lena jam the screwdriver in the side of the door before her knees give out and she falls. A burning sensation spreads throughout her body as she lays on the floor. Lena starts to yell at her but she drifts out of consciousness before she can process any of the words.
She wakes up briefly while getting carried down the hallway. The pain is unbearable. In an attempt to scream, she sighs before everything goes black again. The next time she regains consciousness is while throwing up in her bed. She gasps for air, then she drifts away again.
Copyright © 2023 Jan Danielzick (aka. BodgeMaster) – All rights reserved.