CHAPTER 5 – THE EXPERIMENT HIDDEN BENEATH BLACKWOOD
The forest shook as ancient stone collapsed around them.
Prisoners screamed.
Some crumbled into dust.
Others aged fifty years in only seconds, falling to their knees as time reclaimed what had been stolen.
Emily stood frozen.
Her entire world had just been shattered.
There was no curse.
No haunted forest.
No supernatural force.
Someone had created this nightmare.
"Emily!"
Noah pulled her toward a narrow tunnel.
"We have to go!"
Behind them, Victor Ashcroft crawled desperately across the floor, blood dripping from his hands.
"Bring me the key!"
"You don't understand!"
"If they find out it's missing..."
"They'll kill us all!"
Emily stopped.
"They?"
Victor's terrified expression answered before his mouth did.
For the first time...
The old man wasn't the monster.
He was afraid of someone else.
Someone far worse.
Suddenly...
A deafening siren echoed through the underground complex.
WARNING. SECURITY BREACH DETECTED.
Emily looked up.
That wasn't an old speaker.
It was modern.
Crystal clear.
Hidden cameras emerged from the ceiling.
Red lights blinked to life.
A calm female voice filled every corridor.
Containment failure confirmed.
Initiating Protocol Nine.
Noah's face turned white.
"Oh, no..."
Emily grabbed him.
"What is Protocol Nine?"
He whispered only one word.
"Extermination."
The lights instantly turned blood-red.
Heavy steel doors slammed shut throughout the tunnels.
The prisoners began pounding desperately against them.
"They're locking us in!"
"We're trapped!"
Then...
The walls opened.
Small hidden compartments slid outward.
Inside each compartment...
Was a black automatic rifle.
Emily stared in horror.
"No..."
Mechanical arms grabbed the weapons.
One after another...
Autonomous security robots stepped from the walls.
Featureless.
Silent.
Merciless.
Each machine scanned the prisoners with glowing blue eyes.
Unauthorized subjects detected.
Lethal force approved.
The first shot echoed through the cavern.
Then another.
Then dozens.
Chaos erupted.
People ran in every direction.
Some collapsed instantly.
Others screamed for loved ones they hadn't seen in decades.
Emily covered her ears.
"This can't be real!"
Noah shoved her toward another tunnel.
"There's only one exit!"
The Labrador barked furiously and sprinted ahead.
As they ran, Emily noticed something strange.
Every hallway looked less like a prison...
And more like a research facility.
Glass observation windows.
Electronic keypads.
Fingerprint scanners.
Laboratories.
Rows of computers still glowing with power.
One monitor suddenly flickered on by itself.
A video began playing.
A young scientist appeared on the screen.
His trembling voice filled the hallway.
"Project ETERNITY. Day 1,863."
"Our objective was never immortality."
"It was memory preservation."
"But the serum reacted differently beneath Blackwood's rare magnetic field."
"We accidentally created a time distortion zone."
Emily stared at the screen.
The scientist continued.
"Victor Ashcroft volunteered as our first human subject."
"It worked."
"He stopped aging."
"But every additional subject stabilized his condition."
"The experiment required exactly one hundred living hosts."
Emily's heart nearly stopped.
One hundred.
Victor had said there were ninety-nine souls.
That meant...
She was never chosen by chance.
She had always been the final piece.
The scientist's face became desperate.
"If you're watching this..."
"Run."
"They're coming to erase every witness."
The video suddenly cut to black.
A loud explosion shook the hallway.
The ceiling cracked.
Concrete rained down around them.
The Labrador darted through a half-open security door.
Emily and Noah followed.
Inside...
They discovered a control room unlike anything they'd seen before.
Hundreds of monitors displayed live camera feeds from every corner of Blackwood Forest.
Roads.
Cabins.
Police stations.
Even the town square.
Emily felt sick.
"They've been watching everyone..."
Noah slowly approached the largest monitor.
On the screen...
A black helicopter descended toward the forest.
Then another.
Then another.
Dozens of heavily armed soldiers in black tactical gear jumped out before the helicopters even landed.
Each wore the same silver emblem on their shoulder.
A circle...
Surrounding the Roman numeral XIII.
One commander spoke into his radio.
His voice echoed through the control room speakers.
"Team Alpha has arrived."
"No survivors."
"Recover Subject Zero."
"Terminate everyone else."
Emily looked at Noah.
Noah looked at Victor.
Victor slowly closed his eyes.
Then whispered the words that made everyone lose hope.
"They've never failed a cleanup mission."
Outside...
The sound of automatic gunfire grew closer.
And the control room door...
May you like
Slowly began to unlock from the outside.
To Be Continued...
