Chapter 6 - The Quarantine
The heavy blast doors hissed and slid open with exactly twelve seconds left on the countdown.
Elias and I sprinted out of the sub-level, coughing as the metallic smell of the lower depths clung to our clothes.
We rode the elevator back to the main floor in absolute, horrified silence.
My mother had supposedly died in a tragic house fire when I was four years old.
The realization that my father had kept her locked in a glass box beneath our feet for twenty years was shattering my mind.
When the elevator doors opened, Cole was standing there, leaning heavily against the wall.
He was pale, sweating profusely, and clutching his bandaged shoulder.
"We have a massive problem," Cole said, not wasting time on introductions.
"When I accessed the mainframe to let you out, I triggered an automated security tripwire."
Suddenly, my father's voice echoed through the compound's intercom system.
It was a pre-recorded message, cold and heavily distorted by static.
"If you are hearing this, the primary containment has failed," my father's voice announced.
"The house is now officially in total quarantine mode."
"No one leaves until the asset is neutralized."
The lights in the hallway shifted from standard white to a harsh, blinding ultraviolet purple.
Elias suddenly dropped his rifle, his hands clutching his chest as he fell to his knees.
He began coughing violently, a deep, rattling sound that tore from his lungs.
I dropped down beside him, turning him over.
Black, spider-web-like veins were rapidly spreading up his neck, pulsing beneath his skin.
"What is happening to him?" I screamed, looking at Cole for answers.
Cole knelt beside us, his eyes filled with grim recognition.
"Your father did not lock your mother away because she was crazy," Cole revealed darkly.
"He locked her away because she was the carrier of a highly engineered, synthetic plague."
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Elias coughed again, and this time, thick black blood splattered onto the pristine floor.
"And whatever broke her out of that cage," Cole added quietly, "just infected your brother."
