After escaping from the cell, I quietly explored my surroundings. What I found were several identical cells, all of them empty. Apparently, I had been the only prisoner in this part of wherever I was. There were a couple of non-cell rooms, but they were also empty. With one exception.

  In what seemed to be a small storage closet, I found most of my stuff. The armour, the dagger, and even the three books were stored on a shelf, so I quickly took them. The only thing missing was the money, but that wasn’t important right now.

  Equipped and ready, I stood in front of a heavy iron door. The horned woman, Eleura, had come from here. I had also heard other voices when she entered, which made it likely that somebody was standing guard outside. “Any chance you guys know another way out of here?” I asked. Adam didn’t respond, but I could sense the demon’s eagerness. A mere door would not stand in its way.

  “By the way, do you have a name I could call you?” I asked it. The demon didn’t hear or ignored my question, not letting itself be distracted by me. Shaking my head I quit stalling. Stretching out a talon, I infused my claw. As silently as possible I used it to create a small hole in the door to look outside.

  All I could make out was another empty corridor. Repeating the process multiple times, I concluded that nobody was guarding the door. An unexpected blessing, even if it was a bit strange. Considering the effort they had gone through to capture me, I expected a bit more security.

  Getting through the door was also easier than expected. I simply infused my claw again and cut an opening into it, which I crawled through. To do this, I had to wait for the hole of “un-reality” that resulted in the use of my power to slowly close, which was extremely nerve-wracking. Knowing that something could jump out at me wasn’t very helpful for my mental health.

  After crawling through and getting up, I carefully scanned the corridor. Bland yellow walls, glowing stones in the ceiling, and more doors. The conclusion: I had no idea where to go.

  Suddenly, a pain shot through my demonic arm, making me wince. Looking down I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The sharp pain slowly receded, leaving behind a dull ache. Frowning, I tried to make sense of the situation. Did the demon do something? Probably not, since I couldn’t detect a change in its emotions. It was still enthusiastic after cutting apart reality. No, the more likely explanation was that my body simply couldn’t handle using these powers for too long.

  Oh well, that was a problem I currently couldn’t solve, so there was no use overly worrying about it.

  Before doing anything else I needed to decide on my goal. Obviously, escaping was the priority. I had no idea what these people wanted with me, but it definitely wasn’t anything good. The cryptic words from that strange man about the destruction of Seran only heightened my desire to escape. But getting out of here wasn’t my only goal. Fili Ocul was somehow responsible for bringing me into this world, and I needed to know more. Something had gone wrong, but what had been the purpose of the experiment?

  My thoughts also wandered to Sarvad. They had bought and tortured him, turning the child into a man seeking revenge. Didn’t he deserve justice? Didn’t I owe it to him? I unintentionally stole his body and locked him up inside the mindscape. My guilt was only slightly lessened by the fact that he had been trying to kill me.

  I sighed in resignation. All of these were valid points, but surviving needed to be my main priority. Since I didn’t know where the exit was, I had to follow the corridor and hope for good luck. Getting through the doors would take too much time and was too risky since I didn’t know what was behind them. Choosing a direction at random, I hurried down the corridor, while trying to be as quiet as possible. It didn’t take long for the chaos to start.

  I had been walking for less than a minute when the lights suddenly turned red. Then a blaring alarm cut through the silence, causing me to reflexively cover my ears. It didn’t help. The sound pierced through my entire body. Panicking, I looked around, but couldn’t find the source or the reason for the noise.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Then it got quiet again before a monotone voice started to speak.

  “Warning! A level 6 breach has occurred. All non-combat personnel are to evacuate to the nearest safe room. All Enforcers are to immediately report to their superiors to receive further instructions.”

  As soon as the voice stopped speaking, the alarm started blaring again. The message was worrisome, but what caught my attention the most was the voice. “Since when can you speak aloud, Adam? ” Adam quickly corrected me.

  “ADAM does not possess the capacity for vocal communication.”

  “Then why did that voice sound exactly like you?” Adam didn’t seem to have the answers to that question. Shrugging, I focused on the rest of the message. Did this ‘breach’ refer to me breaking out? Most likely. How did they learn about it so quickly? I shook my head. It was almost hilarious how many things had gone wrong for me, but now wasn’t the time to think about that. All that this thinking accomplished was slowing me down. I continued hurrying along the red-tinged corridor, faster than before.

  I encountered two crossroads along my path. With no way to know which way to go, I chose a direction at random. With every step I took my fear slowly started to rise. What creeped me out the most wasn’t the red light, the monotone corridors, or even the blaring alarm. No, what scared me the most was the emptiness. Several times I thought I heard rapid footsteps and even the sound of a door slamming shut, but never did I see another person.

  That changed when the corridor opened up into a larger area, filled with tables and benches. Probably some sort of eating room, considering the food strewn around on the floor, with only a bit remaining on the tables. Under normal circumstances, I would have been happy to finally see something to eat. But the bodies kind of ruined my appetite.

  Something had ripped apart several people and then scattered their bodies across the entire room. Limbs littered the floor, and blood covered literally everything. Several large splotches on the walls hinted at a very violent altercation. The poor lighting luckily hid most of the details, but the stench still made me retch. ‘Maybe that breach alert wasn’t warning people about me,’ I thought, as I stared at the massacre. A shiver spread across my claw, but I suppressed it. Now wasn’t the time for the demon to get excited.

  After mentally preparing myself, I covered my nose and slowly walked into the room. There were two other exits and I was tempted to just leave, but logic made me stay. While I had no interest in finding out whatever had done this, maybe there was something here that could help me escape.

  Approaching one of the bodies that was still fairly intact (only two limbs were missing), I knelt beside it. It was the body of a young human man wearing a white (now red) coat. His expression was one of terror, as his empty eyes stared up at the ceiling. Wincing, I gingerly closed them. I didn’t know this human, and he had worked for evil people, but nobody deserved to die like this.

  Despite my empathy, I needed to find a way out of here. After searching all the pockets of his coat, I ended up with a variety of miscellaneous items and, most importantly of all, a crumpled-up map. It took a moment for me to decipher it, not only because of the bad lighting but because it was surprisingly complicated. Apparently, this place was called ‘Facility E4’ and consisted of five expansive layers. I was inside of a ‘cafeteria’ on the second floor. The map didn’t give me an overview of everything, as some places were simply labeled as ‘Insufficient Clearance’, but it showed enough. There were several exits on this layer, with one not very far from here.

  My joy was quickly sapped by what I saw on the first floor. A large area was called ‘Containment Zone’. “At least I now know where the breach has happened,” I muttered, not happy with how close that place was to my location. That probably explained the bodies.

  I was about to put the map into one of my pockets when an idea struck me. “Hey Adam, could you memorise this for me?” Some of my mental essence was drained.

  “Memorisation complete. Should ADAM display memorised content?”

  “Thank you, Adam, that would be nice.” Immediately my entire vision was covered by the map. “Wow,” I whispered. “It’s fascinating how much you can do.” With some finicking, the map only occupied a part of my vision and I could turn it on and off on command.

  After all of that was done, I glanced at the physical map. A frown spread across my mouth. Since when was there a blood stain on the map? I could have sworn that it had been completely clean when I first picked it up. Suddenly another blood drop joined the first. Then another. With a gulp I realised something. Slowly I placed the map on the body and looked up.

  If my face hadn’t been pale before, now it certainly was. ‘Why do so many bad things happen to me?’ I asked myself, as I stared at the writhing mass of tentacles on the ceiling. Another drop of blood dripped down and landed on my cheek.