Touchdown Desperation

Touchdown Desperation

Elsie’s pov~

Angel looked around, fear on his face as he walked closely behind me.

The tunnels shook and I could feel we were under Chicago.

But where, and where is the nearest exit?

We passed sewage systems and vents before we finally arrived close to another tunnel.

“I think we have been through here” Angel said, pointing at the tunnel.

What have we been going in circles?

I was shaking visibly now, I was scared and this wasn't part of the plan.

My revenge was not supposed to go this way.

Quickly I turned into the tunnel again, “Hey! But we've gone that way, hey lady!” he called after me.

“Elsie! I'm Elsie, and I don't know what the hell I'm doing okay!” I replied, startling him.

I sank to the floor, This isn't how I saw things turning out.

Angel stopped in front of me, shocked by my outburst, my unhinged self was starting to reflect.

I didn't mean to scream but I was extremely overwhelmed.

The choices all now seemed too difficult, but the walls were closing in, fast, and I had to get back home.

To Tiffany.

And so I managed myself and got up from where I sank out of desperation.

Every second wasted meant my daughter was still in mortal danger from everyone.

Why is her picture down here? What is this lab and how is Angel related to all of this I had to find out.

This maze of forgotten, smelly damp tunnels was mocking me with dead ends until I had to break down and cry.

“No I'm not going to die down here,” I muttered.

Angel knelt beside me, his timid voice much softer now, almost like he was comforting me instead.

He touched my hair and smiled, and all of a sudden I'd forgotten he was the scared one for a second.

“No Elsie, we won't die here. Just… breathe, okay?”

I looked up at him, his face streaked with sweat and fear but still for a young boy he managed to stay in control of his emotions, It made me wonder how long he had been holding on to it.

But somehow his holding onto a shred of hope for my sake made him look fierce in the darkness.

With an almost childlike humour, I played with him and tickled him until he was happier.

I'm the adult here, I have to get my shit together.

As we jumped up and down the floor shifted underneath us with a dull sound.

A thud.

And a metal door groaned open behind the wall.

We stepped back in fear and turned to it fully.

“See I told you not to be afraid”

I peered inside and it appeared to be a regular bedroom.

“What the, is someone living here ” I muttered to myself.

We stepped in, both holding onto each other dearly.

The wall had shifted, revealing a much narrower hidden corridor that was dimly lit by a nostalgic green glow. 

I didn’t wait, I couldn't, we had to find a way out of here, and right now.

I walked in further with Angel holding on to me.

At first, it looked like a regular bedroom, there was a bed at the centre and on the shelves there were vials and blood samples.

On the floor, scribbled notes in Latin and English littered the room.

There were large screens lining the far wall, and footage of various DNA strands was being monitored in real-time. 

I saw one screen showing Tiffany’s picture and name, and anger washed through me.

I saw a video of her in real-time asleep in her bed, and Angelo was reading her a bedtime story.

I never thought he had it in him but I was glad he could.

I wondered if she missed me at all, 

“Friend?” Angel asked pointing to Tiffany, I smiled and nodded, “Yes angel that's my daughter Tiffany” he was confused, he had thought he'd be seeing her outside and not being monitored on a screen.

“What is this place?” I breathed sharply, my voice trembling terribly as I scanned the files on the desk.

I opened one, then another and another, each one further confusing me and derailing me from my true aim.

Finding out what this place is.

Tiffany’s name and mine were stamped across the top of each document.

Now I'm involved?

I couldn’t stop my palms from sweating and shaking as they rightly should.

Then Angel staggered back in shock, his eyes wide, pointing at a large glass panel behind the main desk.

Inside, floating in some sort of fluid, was a huge purple blob.

Its face is covered in wires, breathing masks covering what seemed to be its nose, and it has scars. 

The liquid churned with an electric pulse, currents that matched the annoying beeping in the room.

On its chest, stitched cruelly into its skin, was a symbol: a black circle like the one from the red room.

With bleeding red at the edges.

“Oh my God,” Angel exclaimed in fear, backing away, Obviously he hadn't come this far into the tunnel before.

We looked around further as we went deeper into the bedroom, a huge portrait of a man in white standing in the middle of others wearing red caught my attention.

His face looked oddly familiar, “Is this him?” I asked Angel. 

He nodded, “Yes, the man in white” I took a much closer look.

“Shit That’s Arlo,” I exclaimed in disbelief.

What the hell is he doing all the way out here, with all of this? Watching Tiffany.

Angel tugged at my arm, and I turned to him. “Who is he?” 

“Arlo Sutton” I replied, giving him another look.

“ He used to be a weird one, dabbling in the cult ever so often, Arlo was a bully in school. That’s him” I pointed at the man in the middle standing majestically in front of his followers.

“I swear to God, it’s him. What the hell does he want with me?”

Angel walked toward a monitor, shaking. “Back then he called himself a wizard, even though he got accepted into MIT., he vanished years ago, shortly after a year there, Everyone thought he ran away or got tired of the place” I paused looking around.

“ He was definitely crazy, he used to say crazy stuff about turning people's souls into magic stuff…. Soul alchemist” I said under my breath “It's all making sense now, he is some sort of crazy satanic scientist someone is paying to run tests on you, Oh my God angel” I pulled him closer and hugged him tightly.

“Im sorry he put you through all of that”

My eyes returned to the notes littered on the floor, I picked a few of them up, Lines of research about a serum caught my roaming eyes.

Lines about Vybe, same reason I'm down here, I read it attentively.

One line made my fingers freeze.

Subject V: Angel's blood, mutation stable. Vybe distribution is feasible for the next few weeks.

It needs emotional stress to trigger energy reactions. 

I stared at Angel, horrified.

Oh my God, Angel’s blood is Vybe! Does that mean Angelo has been mutating his children for human consumption?

Who the hell am I married to?

“They’ve been harvesting you for your blood daring boy.” I confessed to him, “im sorry angel”

He backed away and shook his head before running into another cupboard behind him.

"No no” he whimpered softly.

I pulled the drawer open. His blood is in bags. Dozens of them. Catalogued, arranged, and dated.

"They have been powering Vybe in massive supply from blood” I explained further, but he couldn't comprehend past his age.

“ It's the new bad drug on the street. That's why you've been feeling ill and why they need you locked down here” I sighed regretfully.

“You are being drained by them on every level” I couldn't believe Angelo would do this to his offspring but then I expected nothing less.

He was void of emotions

The truth hit Angel like a wave and he fell to the ground. How do I tell him, his father is after his life?

"The entire thing..." It was never about me, I muttered, moving away from the desk. 

It has to do with him.

Angel had always been at the centre. 

Behind us, I heard a metallic hiss, “Who is there!” I called.

I heard a maniacal laugh follow, “ your biggest regret”

Theo’s pov~

With the crying child in my arms, I slowly detached her from her dead mother. I laid the child's face close to her mother until her dead lips pressed against hers. I got up, bloodied, but I couldn't give up. The blinking light flickered on again and I saw the room in its entirety. Something was off about it, it was almost like a puzzle I had to solve to get ahead. I walked further into the hollow room, and I noticed other symbols surrounded a dark circle.

With my boots clicking on the floor, a little Terry’s blood was stuck to them.

, I moved closer to the dark circle. The dull amber glow of the symbols engraved into the wall pulsed weakly around it, though ancient in design it was spooky in its accuracy. 

Scrubbing away dust and bits of dried stuff that smelled of iron and time unknown to man, I knelt. Hidden among the symbols were numbers.

Who the hell put this here? How long has this been under Chicago's tunnels?

Parts of it were strewn about like fragments of a shattered memory. I noticed a glimmer of light behind one of the panes. 

When I pressed it, a section of the wall opened up to reveal a keypad that was old and metallic yet still worked. 

The numerals started to blink. It went like this: 5... 7... 2... 8….

Instinctually, I went into them backwards.

The wall croaked and creaked loudly as mechanisms deep within shifted. I stepped back.

The naked child in my arms was screaming her lungs out.

A thick metal door creaked open, cold blue air spilling out like poison.

I held my breath and I stepped inside.

It was the same room I'd told Elsie to run into earlier.

Where I had left her—where I had trapped Elsie.

My stomach twisted into an uncomfortable knot, It was a lab with strange things in a tube.

I knew this was illegal, and whatever they were doing here was diabolical.

But something glinted in the corner, a gold-tinted paper, half buried under a toppled file on the desk. 

I reached for it and pulled it free. 

A receipt….. Old but recent.

Recipient:  Arlo Sutton
Sender: Selene Agnus
Amount: $1,000,000
Memo: Acquisition of subject 004

My hand tightened around the paper

Got you!

Selene’s fake name was enough to convince me. I pulled out my phone and snapped a photo of it, my fingers trembling at the horror that must be going down here. 

A transaction of  Blood money, Proof that somehow Elsie’s husband is involved, enough for Wade to use.

A loud crash echoed from deeper within the lab and then her scream followed.

Elsie!

I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed a cover for the crying baby in my arms and I bolted through the lab door, but it wouldn't budge.

“Shit!” I cursed. With my heavy legs I pounded hard against the door, I pounded until I could feel a dent.

The next big push split open the door, and behind the wall further horror awaited me.

With no time to investigate, I looked out for the sound again.

The floor shook beneath me, and I saw a lid I ran into descending cold, rusting stairs leading into a tunnel that narrowed ahead.

The light dimmed until only my flashlight served as the source.

Another scream.

I'm closer now, hold on Elsie.

I ran.

At the end of the tunnel, the floor opened into a bedroom. It reeked of abomination and rot.

Chaos met my eyes and I couldn't believe the creature I was seeing pulsating inside a huge container.

Then I saw her, a man held a gun to her face, and the scared child from earlier was with her.

“Let her go or kill whatever that is” he looked at me wide-eyed.

Elsie was terrified, she looked at the crying baby in my arms with a puzzled look.

“I see you were able to get subject 010 out safely, give her to me and I'll let you leave here alive” the man in white said.

“No one is leaving here, not especially you, I'm placing you under citizen’s arrest” the man laughed maniacally.

“Then I have no choice!” he shot at Elsie, Fortunately, she flung herself into a corner before it could hit her.

With the baby still in my arms I did something I never thought I'd do, I wrapped the baby’s cord around his neck and with my pocket knife, I sliced what’s left connecting the baby away and held onto it.

He crashed to the floor, the child was screaming now and I knew I couldn't comfort her anymore, I slid her to Elsie who caught her just in time.

I held the cord over his neck and stuffed the part with the placenta into his mouth, he gargled blood and ultimately he choked on it.

I pushed him aside when I finally got service.

Ping!

A voicemail came in, and it was from my lawyer.

“Hey Theo man, where are you? I've been calling you all day, it's really bad. The judge granted the Marlowes custody of Tammy, They are going to take her off life support if you don't come to court to shut it down physically by 8am tomorrow, This is the last chance to save your son”