Somewhere within the Applied Sciences building in a student lab, Tessa slowly woke from her exhaustion. After a wave of dizziness passed, she pushed herself up from an experiment table and suddenly paused halfway through. When did she get here? How did she get here? Pausing to sift through her foggy memory before passing out earlier, she recalled a silhouette and then darkness, but before that, there were the creepy students. The scene flashed through her eyes of someone looking exactly like her staring back at her and she shivered before taking a peek around her surroundings.
She was laid out on an experiment table, surrounded by island counters with other bodies on them. Tessa didn’t dare move anymore as she watched the bodies around her, looking for any signs of life such as a rising chest, flickering eyelashes, or slight movements of fingers. The lab around her had no unique traits, which only added to the tension around Tessa.
After a few minutes of waiting around and finding nothing, Tessa threw her legs over the side of the table and slid down to the floor. She stabilized her footing before slowly moving forward carefully. Her eyes continually darting around the lab trying to find any material denoting a lab number so she would know where she was exactly. She had only come to the Applied Sciences building a few times with her girlfriend to check out the handsome young professor’s assistant, Mr. Garcia. She absentmindedly wondered if the professor’s assistant was somewhere in this world as well as she checked the bodies on the counters. From their ages, all of them were students and they were still breathing steadily, albeit barely. Rousing her courage, she stepped close enough to the nearest one to see if there anything she could do to wake the man.
The young man on the counter wore a neat polo shirt with dark slacks, had clean fingernails, short combed hair and pearly white teeth. At any other time, he would be considered quite handsome to Tessa. She reached out her left hand with a slight tremble and shook the young man’s shoulder gently. Getting no response, she pushed a little harder and still there was nothing. A frown crossed her lips as her brows furrowed deeply, Tessa could tell that he wasn’t asleep and he didn’t have any track marks from needles. She bent down slightly and sniffed around his face, trying to detect medication or alcohol on his breath. There was a slight scent of something, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
The sudden sound of a key in the door of the lab startled Tessa, prompting her to run and hide in the supply closet on the other side of the lab. It was barely fifteen square meters and only held very basic supplies such as used glass test tubes, flasks, gloves and goggles. There were also some unmarked transparent canisters with flesh and organs that Tessa couldn’t identify, including a slug-like creature. She tore her eyes away from it after scanning the room before peeking out at the lab, where a new pair of men were standing next to the young man that she tried to wake earlier.
The pair of men wore pristine lab coats and carried silver briefcases in each hand. The shorter of the two men placed the briefcases on the table where Tessa had lain and opened the first of the four cases. Six metal cylinders were inside, packed with a black foam and marked with an odd symbol that Tessa thought she had seen somewhere in the library while reading mythology books for an essay. The taller man took one of the cylinders and motioned for the other man to hold down the young man on the counter. Unscrewing the lid, he placed the opening next to the man’s mouth while using his other hand to pry it open. A slimy black worm with no eyes or obvious mouth slid out and into the youth’s mouth before crawling deep into his throat. The young man began convulsing shortly after it disappeared and then started screaming with his eyes wide open for a few seconds before calming down. Ten seconds later the young man sat up and stretched his arms and legs very stiffly as if the body was brand new. The trio spoke to each other in a language that Tessa couldn’t recognize and repeated the process on the remaining people in the lab. With everyone converted, the group walked out of the lab, bringing the suitcases with them.
Tessa let out the breath she was holding in the whole time after the door closed and the footsteps disappeared. She slipped out of the closet and placed her ear against the lab exit, slowly made her way to the lab exit door and placed her ear to the door to listen for any noises. There was nothing after a long time and her fingers grasped the door handle, rotating it slowly to make the least amount of sound possible. Shuffling to the side of the doorway, she stuck her head out and scanned the hallway. It was completely empty, without even the barest hint of life, human or otherwise. Tessa stepped out into the open corridor, keeping her head on a swivel as she traveled with her back pressed against the wall. Her heart was beating fast as she kept an ear open for the group of men and women with the strange slimy worms inside their bodies. She was still unsure what they were but she was positive that she did not want to find out anytime soon.
Thirty Minutes later, she finally made it to the exit of the building. The entire walk was extremely slow as she kept stopping to listen for signs of movement. Finding nothing along the way, Tessa prepared herself mentally to leave the building and make a quick escape in any direction other than this creepy building. She took in a deep breath and pulled open the door, stepped outside and found nothing out of the ordinary. She had exited from the other side of the building, opposite to the entrance she entered previously so the infamous campus lake was behind her. The peaceful green lawn, evergreen trees and empty parking lot greeted her.
Tessa sprinted between the trees just to be careful as she crossed the otherwise completely open lawn. There was still nothing after making it to another building and she pressed herself against it. From what she could remember, this was the main cafeteria. At the thought of food, her stomach rumbled and she began to weigh the pros and cons of scavenging the kitchen and pantry. There would be food, potential weapons and perhaps a phone. She couldn’t recall what happened to her cell phone or her purse after tripping at the lake. On the other hand, there was a high chance of finding more worm students and being trapped if the kitchen didn’t have a second exit. Flipping a coin internally, she laughed at herself after a minute and decided to scavenge the cafeteria despite the risks.
With a brave face, Tessa pushed open the door to the cafeteria and took in a sharp intake of breath. There were no worm students, certainly, but it was so much worse. The far side of the cafeteria, opposite the door and close to the kitchens was a wall of pulsating purplish black flesh. Semi-transparent cocoons held familiar students and professors, with creatures similar to minnows swimming around them, nibbling away at their flesh. There were thousands inside the cocoon, with a variety of sizes. Tessa ran to the trash bin on the side and retched hard for a few minutes.
Gasping for air, she struggled to pull herself together and walked to the kitchen, ignoring the opposing wall. She wanted nothing more than to leave this place immediately but she also needed to eat something and to help her fellow classmates. She recognized the professor’s assistant, Mr. Garcia, along with her roommates in the cocoons. The only method that she could think of to save them was to burn everything down and she needed matches or a lighter for that. The only place nearby to get those lights would be the kitchen.
After a grueling couple hundred steps, she made it to the kitchen and closed the door behind her. The sight was a relief for sore eyes as there was nothing suggesting any foul creatures in there. Pots and pants hung from hooks along with knives sheathed in sharpeners, the faint smell of cooked meat still lingered in the area and remnants of cut vegetables were still on a board on the island counter. Moving quickly, she opened the pantry and grabbed a few canned meats and fruits, placing them on the island counter. Then she scoured the cabinets until she found a cloth grocery bag, packed it all up and grabbed a candle lighter in one hand with the bag slung over the other arm.
Tessa turned all of the knobs in the kitchen stoves to max along with the ovens and left their doors open. Then she walked out of the kitchen, tore a strip from her shirt, lit it with the candle lighter and threw it at the flesh wall before sprinting out. The pulsating flesh was surprisingly flammable and burned ferociously. It gave Tessa bit of a fright as she wasn’t sure if the stoves and oven used gas and would explode; it was only her guess from movies. She rushed out of the cafeteria exit and ran without looking back as the fire was spreading far faster than she estimated and the worms would definitely notice it. She managed to hide in an open university branded bus before stopping for a break. Finally turning back, she saw more than a few dozen students and teachers standing around the burning cafeteria with black worms waving in the air from their mouths.
