Chapter 1 - The Cold

Candace woke up, feeling her head spin. The ground was cold as she began to feel her surroundings. Dark and gloomy, the room she was in was made of many types of metals, mostly steel and such. Shadows drew themselves across the floor and walls and odd machinery. Only a few lights were still on inside the cold room. All of the other lights had been purposely turned off or shattered. Panels had buttons with letters on them and different symbols, but any light that would have lit them up was gone now.

As sound gradually got louder, Candace could hear the clicking and buzzing of some broken wire behind her. She turned and stared at a giant glass cylinder behind her with an opening in the front. Her feet were still in the opening, as if she had tripped or fallen out. Wires hung, broken, from the top of the glass tube, sparking occasionally. At the bottom of the tube was some freaky translucent red goo. It seemed to be already dried for some time now.

“What?” she muttered shakily.

Surprised, she shook her head. How the heck can I speak? she thought. Why can I think like this? I was just…born. How do I know this?

“Hello?” Candace said, turning her head around to see if anyone else was around. “Hello?” she said a little louder.

The only sound that answered her was the slight echo of her word throughout the laboratory.

Slowly, with weak strength, the middle teenager picked herself up. First, she got onto her elbows, then into a crouch, and finally onto her feet. The cold now only went to her feet.

Some lights turned on, as if they were motion detectors. Seeing more clearly Candace could see the panels and walls. There was a door behind her and more tubes around her. They were empty. She turned and faced the door.

“Anthony! What you doing?” A middle-aged Asian man yelled, rushing over from the door.

“Ah, get away! I know what I'm doing!” A Jamaican man.

“She's alive! She can't be alive, you listen?” The Asian man stood by the Jamaican. He clicked some buttons on the panel. The sound of the buttons were muted by…the red goo.

“If she can already open her eyes, den what? So much life already!” The lab was distorted by the bubbles rushing around. So hard to see who was talking.

“Need more experiments! Turn her off! You understand how we get fired by Mr. Gerald? No! Stop! Ah!”

“No, I told you to get away!”

A clunk sounded. Someone fell? The bubbles rushed around me. My eyelids turned my sight black. Every one of my senses slowly faded.

“G' night, Candace.”

A shiver ran down her spine, her hairs on end. She wobbled and leaned against one of the giant glass tubes.

“Candace,” she said. The cold was on her again. The cold was from her shoulder and her feet. The cold went to her head. She pushed herself off the tube.

“So cold. I need clothes.”

Her shadow led the way out. It was at the door before her. As she reached the door it opened and the shadow split into four: one going forward, one going backwards, one going left, and one going right. She stepped through and the door shut behind her. Her shadows became three.

“Hello?” she echoed again. Once more, there was nothing.

She chose the path before her, feeling the cold fade each time she lifted her bare feet. It kept returning and going, but she knew it would always be there. Her shadow followed the same pattern as the cold. When the light hit her in the front, her shadow would linger behind, waiting. Then, it would return as the light went behind her. The walls were just as cold and shadow-filled. They were made of the same metal, maybe more than steel.

Finally a door reared itself into view. She walked before it. It did not open. She tried touching the door, but it still wouldn't open. A square outline was on the right side of the door. It opened easily when she touched it. Underneath was a lit-up panel with numbers 1 to 9 and a small screen on it. One of the buttons was an asterisk.

“Now I want you to remember these numbers,” Dr. Gullihard said to Dr. Piule. “4, 9, 2, 7. And remember the asterisk at the end.”

Dr. Piule nodded. The image blurred like some TV experiencing static. Then, the image went away, turning left and right, looking at the entire hallway.

“4, 9, 2, 7, asterisk,” Candace repeated. She looked up at the ceiling, scanning for a security camera. There it was. A shining silver camera that blended in with the walls and ceiling. It panned across the hallway, then fixed its lens on her. She could clearly see the lens twist as it focused.

“Candace,” she said to the camera. “Is anyone else up there? Is anyone else even here? Please come. I'm going inside.”

After clicking in the password the door slid open and she walked inside. The lights flickered on. The room looked like a recording studio where there was a large glass window separating the control panels with the singer. But in this room there was no singer. Instead, there was some kind of machine with pointed ends. It was as if it had four long mechanical arms with giant needles at the end with which to fix something using heat. In the control part of the room there were goggles hanging from the wall. Candace took one and walked out.

She continued down the hallway, stopping by each room and punching in the numbers from her sudden flashbacks. Finally, she found a room with a rather large lab coat inside. Shrugging it on, she continued her search. It wasn't as cold anymore.

The end of the hallway was a door larger than the rest. In large red block letters, “Section 03” was securely plastered to the door. The red of the letters smeared all the way to the ground. But the smear was darker than the letters. Blood…

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