Now There Are Just 8 Of Us
Trust No One.
I woke up on the cold floor, the linoleum hard beneath me. The lights above hummed, as I sat up slowly, hands flat on the ground, like the floor might tell me something. Where I was, how I got here, and why my head felt like static.
But there was nothing.
Just white walls, a cot, a tiny desk, and a camera in the corner, its red light blinking lazily. There were no windows. No clock. Just the sound of the lights.
I didn’t scream or bang on the door. I just sat there, trying to breathe normally, hoping something would make sense.
The door clicked open, like they expected me to walk out without asking questions.
So, I did.
The hallway outside had yellowed walls, and dirt was collecting in the corners. Every door looked the same — no labels, nothing to distinguish one from another. The air smelled faintly of dust and something chemical.
I walked until I heard voices.
There were nine of us, including me.
Everyone looked as confused as I felt, but no one said it out loud. We all played the game — introductions, small smiles, and little details.
Anna was scribbling in a notebook.
Kim stood like she was waiting for the problem to solve itself.
Lena barely spoke, her eyes darting to scan possible exits.
Vern kept fiddling with his sleeve.
Bo smiled so much. A little too much.
Dani kept her eyes on everyone, as if she were waiting for one of us to slip up.
Harper had this distant look, like she wasn’t here.
Yun kept asking about a phone signal, even though we all knew there wasn’t one.
And me? I stayed quiet. Observing, saying just enough not to be weird.
None of us remembered how we ended up here. Vague details. A train. A blackout. Someone mentioned being in bed, then nothing. We all had holes in our memories.
We found what used to be a break room. The tables were dusty, the sealed water bottles untouched, and the food packets long past their expiration dates by years; a cracked screen looped a silent logo endlessly on the wall.
We expected someone to show up. A staff member. A scientist. Anyone.
But then, the intercom clicked on.
“Facility under lockdown. Remain calm. Further instruction will follow.”
That was it.
We waited. We tried opening doors. We mapped the halls, marking places we’d already searched. Some rooms were empty, others had broken equipment, rusted trays, and cages. It looked like a research lab but had been abandoned long ago.
The first night, I stayed with Kim and Vern, but I don’t think anyone managed to sleep.
Around midnight, the lights flickered once. Then they buzzed back on.
In the morning, one of us was gone.
Yun.
He’d been with Harper on night patrol. She said he went to check something and never came back. She waited. Called out. Thought maybe he was just taking a leak, so she returned to where the others were. She didn’t seem to be lying, but her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
We found him hours later, two floors down. In a room that looked like a holding chamber. Or a morgue.
He was lying on his back, eyes wide open, and arms out like he’d fallen — his phone beside him, screen cracked wide down the middle.
There were no signs of impact. No blood. But his neck was snapped.
We buried him in one of the old soil testing rooms. Or, at least, we tried to bury him — covered him with metal panels and some dusty sheets we found on the side.
Since then, Dani has started keeping track of things. Snapping photos of the rooms before she left them, just in case. Maybe the changes meant something. Maybe they were clues — some twisted part of a puzzle she hadn’t figured out yet.
Harper tried to act like we were still a team, making small talk now and then, sticking close to Anna, Lena, and Bo like none of us were on edge around her. But let’s be real — she was the last person to be seen with Yun.
Nothing sat right. Every sound and flicker became suspicious.
The days blurred. Fear and constant vigilance wore us down. We moved like ghosts. No one spoke more than necessary. Pretending everything was fine. We didn’t know why we were here. We didn’t know what was coming next.
It felt like the building was waiting for us to break. The hallways seemed longer the more we walked them. The walls felt like they were closing in. There were places we hadn’t dared to go — dark rooms that felt wrong, rooms humming with something more than just electricity.
Then, one morning, we heard it.
Footsteps.
I was in the old lab area with Lena and Anna, trying to make sense of some files I’d found. They didn’t explain much — just research notes, chemicals, sketches of things I didn’t recognize.
The sound of footsteps echoed in the hall — soft at first, then louder. It wasn’t just one set. It was a group. We froze. The voices started rising — muttering, too fast, too low.
I walked toward the sound without thinking, the others following close behind. We turned a corner, and there he was.
A man was standing in the doorway. But he wasn’t looking at us. He stared at the walls, hand pressed to the side like he was listening to something, but nothing was there. His eyes, wide and unblinking, scanned the hallway. And the worst part was how he was dressed. Not like us. Not like someone who’d been locked up here for who knows how long.
He looked like he’d just walked off the street. Clean clothes. Calm. Like, none of this was strange at all.
Dani was the first to speak. “Who are you?”
His head snapped toward her, like he didn’t understand why we were standing there.
“You don’t know who I am?” His voice was too calm, almost as if he had no clue why we were all staring.
“No,” I said, stepping forward. “Why are you here?”
He didn’t say anything. Just turned and walked away down the hall like we weren’t even there. Like we didn’t matter.
We didn’t follow him. We couldn’t. After what happened to Yun, the fact that someone else was here felt wrong.
But things started to get weirder.
More footsteps. More people. Some of them looked like they’d been here longer than us. Some… didn’t look right. Their faces were pale, hollow, like they hadn’t eaten or slept for days, maybe weeks. They didn’t speak. They didn’t even look at us.
We kept moving. No one talked about what we saw. Not because we didn’t want to, but because we couldn’t. The air was too thick. We all felt it.
The third night after the man showed up, something unexpected happened again — a loud crash, followed by hurried footsteps.
I was about to head out when Anna grabbed my arm.
“I saw him,” she said, voice trembling. I didn’t have to ask who she meant.
I turned to the others. “We need to go. Now.”
But there was nowhere to go.
Some doors were locked.
The hallways are endless.
And someone was still out there.
We moved fast. Our footsteps too loud, our hearts beating too fast. The halls twisted and stretched in impossible ways. It didn’t feel real.
We didn’t know if we were running toward something — or away from it.
The noise, the footsteps, and the strange hum in the air were all too much. My head was buzzing, and each step on the linoleum was making it worse. We couldn’t outrun it. Whatever it was, we were already too deep.
We found ourselves back at the break room, but this time it felt different. The air was heavier. Anna’s hand was shaking in mine. Her grip was desperate. The others were already in there, but none looked at us. They were all looking at the screen on the wall. It flickered, then went black. We waited. But no one spoke.
I felt the weight of the silence settle in, and I didn’t have to turn around to know that something was wrong. The room had changed, too. The walls weren’t the same pale yellow anymore; they were darker, like the color of something rotting. It felt like the whole place was decaying.
“What’s going on?” Kim’s voice cracked through the stillness, her eyes darting nervously from face to face. She was scared, too. We all were.
I tried to steady my breath, but something wasn’t right. Something inside me — a feeling that I couldn’t quite place — was clawing at me. The thought crept in, slowly but surely. Maybe we hadn’t just ended up here by accident. Maybe none of us had.
I turned to Anna. “Did you see anything else? Anything more?”
She shook her head, her eyes wide, a little too wide. She wasn’t looking at me anymore, but somewhere past me. And I followed her gaze.
There, standing in the doorway, was the man. But now… it wasn’t just him. There were others. More faces, more figures, all staring at us in silence. Some were the same pale, hollow ones we’d seen before. But some… I could have sworn I recognized them.
The room spun for a moment. I could hear my pulse pounding in my ears. I staggered back, hand on the table to catch myself.
I knew these people.
I didn’t know how. I didn’t know why, but I knew.
And then the pieces started to fall into place, even though I didn’t want them to.
The man who showed up out of nowhere… the ones who’d been here longer than us. The faces in the hallways, their eyes. There was something familiar in them — something I couldn’t ignore anymore.
I didn’t say it out loud, but I knew. I knew because it was too close to what I had been trying to forget. I had seen these faces before. I had been here before. This wasn’t just some trap or random experiment. We had all played a part in this, willingly or not. I couldn’t remember when it started, but I had been here before. I had done things I couldn’t remember… but I knew, deep down, that I had.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Anna’s voice broke through the thoughts, sharp and panicked.
I couldn’t answer her. I didn’t know how. How do you tell someone you suspect you might have caused this? That I might be the one who set the wheels in motion?
The truth pressed against my chest, suffocating me. I knew this place wasn’t just some random research facility. It was ours. We were the ones who’d started it. We had all been involved in something that had led to this.
I looked at the man. His calm demeanor was nothing more than a mask. Behind it, I saw something darker — something he had been hiding, and I had been a part of it.
I could see it now, the memory breaking through the fog. I had been with the others at the time — Kim, Vern, and me. Four rooms were in that corridor, and the hallways felt like a maze. The three of us had split up to make it more efficient. I had convinced them to do it. We thought it would speed things up. But something changed when I ended up in the room where Yun was.
I hadn’t meant for it to happen. I hadn’t meant to hurt him. But there was something… uncontrollable. It surged through me, overtook me. And for a second, I wasn’t sure if it was because we were alone. I don’t know if it was the isolation or something more profound, but I felt different. It was like I was a predator, and Yun was merely prey.
Helpless. Clueless. I could see the confusion in his eyes, the way he didn’t even realize what was happening until it was too late. I didn’t remember the details, not exactly. All I knew was the overwhelming force, the violence, the rage. I didn’t have control anymore.
Yun didn’t stand a chance.
I could still hear the sickening thud of his body hitting the ground, the look in his eyes, wide and uncomprehending. I didn’t know if I was myself anymore. I wasn’t sure who I was in that moment, but I knew I was no longer in control.
The others didn’t know what happened. They couldn’t have. I had kept it from them, buried it deep. But I couldn’t bury it anymore. Not now. Not here.
“Who’s to blame for this?” Dani’s voice was low but cut through the silence like a blade. I heard the edge in it, the sharpness of someone who wanted answers. But none of us had any.
I wanted to say something. I wanted to defend myself. Maybe even point a finger at the man standing there, who had shown up like he owned the place and knew something we didn’t. But… I couldn’t.
Something inside me felt like I should have known better. Like I should have remembered all the things I had tried to bury. Maybe it wasn’t just the man. Maybe it was all of us. All of us, tangled in this mess.
The door slammed shut behind us.
And I whispered, barely audible, “I’m sorry.”
But I wasn’t sure who I was apologizing to.
