Archive of Our Own ^beta

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December 12

What do you actually write in a diary? I guess I just write whatever comes into my mind.

My name is Samantha Blair, and I’ve been stationed at the Aurora Research Facility for about a month now. This place will be my home for roughly the next 11 months. I graduated two years ago with a PhD in chemistry. This is my new job. It wasn’t easy to get it. After all, there are only a few positions available in this facility. There are 12 of us in total, and my job is to analyze ice and soil samples. It’s summer here at the moment. The sun doesn’t set this close to the South Pole any more, and at night it only gets a bit dusky, which, admittedly, bothers me more than I thought it would. Doug* gave me this journal “so I won’t lose track of time.” I wonder if that will help. At least I can try.

*Douglas Garry, station leader

December 13

Nothing interesting. After breakfast, I set about sorting the samples from the last research team and finding out which of them still needed to be analyzed and which didn’t. So the same thing I’ve been doing for over a week now. What were they thinking? “We’ll be gone soon anyway, let the next team take care of it?” After me, the deluge. Typical. Half of the samples are not properly labeled, and even for those that are, it takes forever to find out what has already been done with them. It’s all in the lab books, my ass. I can hardly do anything with the cryptic notes there if I manage to decipher the handwriting at all. On top of that, I have to pick the measurement data out of disorganized piles of paper. It was all planned differently. They were actually supposed to measure their own stuff, but towards the end of their stay, one device after another broke down. The devices are working again. Now, we’re supposed to carry out these measurements first and send them the results.

December 14

Sorting samples, searching for corresponding measurement data. Nothing new. Jeff gave me a new drill core. At least I was able to take a few measurements today.

*Jeffrey Norris, geologist

December 15

As I was going about my usual business, John* arrived and said that we were going to be hit by a heavy snowstorm in the next few days. According to the weather data, the storm will last for several days, maybe even weeks. We have to prepare the station. So we spent the whole day outside moving equipment into storage rooms or fixating it. I’m still freezing.

*John Bennings, meteorologist

December 16

Dark clouds have gathered. After so many days of sunshine, the darkness, if you can call it that, is a welcome change.

December 17

It’s been snowing since last night, and the snowfall is getting heavier, although it will be another 2-3 days before it really starts. David* expressed concerns about the dogs, but Marcus** said they don’t mind the little bit of snow. Quite the opposite. Huskies love this weather. Marcus looks after the dogs. He will know best. When I think about it, it occurs to me that we are probably one of the only stations left that still uses dog sleds. We also have snowmobiles, but Marcus always says the dogs are more reliable.

Later, we decided who should clear the paths and when. The work should continue if possible. However, if the storm gets too bad, the research buildings will remain closed until it subsides.

*David Palmer, technical chief

**Marcus Clark, responsible for the dogs, thermal engineering, welding work

December 18

The howling of the wind gets stronger and stronger. Eerie. I have hardly slept a wink. At least I’m slowly making progress with the samples.

December 19

I spent half the day clearing paths. It is a Sisyphean task. As soon as I was finished, I had to start all over because everything was covered in snow again. And the worst is yet to come. If it goes on like this, I can forget about work for a while.

December 20

Jeff was on clearing duty today. He also said there was no point. After dinner, we agreed that we would only clear the paths to the important buildings, everything else would have to wait until the storm subsided. At least the dogs are having fun. And Lena. She built a giant snowman. Lena Fuchs is still a student and the youngest of our team, and you can tell. When I see her so carefree, I sometimes think I’m getting old…

The fact that Lena is here is not a matter of course. Normally, students are not accepted for research stays. However, Lena has excellent grades, so she was selected regardless of the usual rules. At least, that’s the official reason. For those who believe it. Her father just happens to have a lot of political influence and a ton of money. It would be a true miracle if he hadn’t set the whole thing up.

She’s supposed to help me with the measurements, but that will have to wait until the samples are sorted and the storm calmed down. In the first few weeks, however, I had already shown her how to operate the measurement devices. To pass the time, I’ve now given her a pile of papers to read.

December 21

We have a visitor. The last thing you expect at the South Pole in the middle of a snowstorm is a visitor. Her name is Veronica Edwards. She is British and works at the Umbrella facility nearby. She says she is a senior researcher. There’s been a virus outbreak. She hasn’t said what kind of virus it is, only that it’s not airborne and that the likelihood of her being infected is low. In general, she kept a rather low profile. However, she said that under the circumstances she cannot stay in the Umbrella facility. If she is infected with something, we can’t let her roam around freely, but not helping her is not an option either, so we put her in quarantine. Actually, that was her suggestion. Isaac* has prepared a room in the northeast storage building for the purpose. She waited in the snowmobile she came in. The building is quite large, and it also has a shower room and restrooms. Additionally, the supply in the northeastern storage building is largely separated from the other buildings, and we can lock an area from the outside. That could work. It was supposed to be modified into another research building this summer, but the modification has been postponed for another year or so. However, it has already been largely emptied. She said two weeks of quarantine would be enough. For the time being, only Isaac and Harry** will look after her. Isaac is our doctor. Harry has volunteered. They will stay away from the rest of us to minimize the risk of a virus outbreak during that time. In case of an emergency, they have walkie-talkies.

We have offered to contact Umbrella and tell them what happened, but Dr. Edwards said she had done that before she left the Umbrella facility. They’ll send people as soon as the storm subsides. If they’re taking so long, that must mean it’s not that bad, right? Or that it’s already too late, and there’s nothing they can do anyway. Shit. We’re not prepared for incidents like this.

* Dr. Isaac Copper physician, and by necessity veterinarian

** Harold Childs vehicle mechanic

December 21 Addendum I

I have to distract myself from the thought that the woman might have infected us all with some deadly virus. And I forgot to write that our new arrival is rather strange. She was at least wearing a jacket, but underneath, she had only put on a long purple dress, high-heeled shoes, and white velvet gloves. The clothes looked anything but cheap. She looked more like she wanted to go to a gala than work in a research laboratory. Who walks around like that in Antarctica? Well, maybe she wasn’t on duty when the outbreak happened. That would also explain why she managed to escape and, according to her own statement, is probably not infected. But even as casual wear, her outfit looks pretty bizarre in a place like this.

She had to wait quite a long time in the snowmobile until the provisional quarantine was ready. Wasn’t she cold in her thin clothes? She didn’t complain. And I couldn’t see any signs that she was freezing either. Admittedly, I kept a safe distance. Speaking of snowmobiles, judging by the tracks, she was driving as if she was drunk and almost crashed into one of the buildings. Can she just not drive, or are these signs that she’s not feeling well? A fever, perhaps?

Also, I remembered Doug mentioning in the first or second week that Umbrella isn’t even doing research at the facility anymore. It’s supposed to be a materials storage facility or something like that. Well, Dr. Edwards claims she is a researcher there. I’ll ask Doug about the facility again when I get a chance.

December 21 Addendum II

Nicole*** wanted to contact AAD and ask how we should proceed with Dr. Edwards. However, due to the storm, there is currently no way through with our communication system. Always at the best possible time, of course! At least it’s not broken. Nicole has checked it. In a few days, the storm should ease a little, although not stop. She’ll try again then. Until then, we’re on our own. As old as the communication system is, I’m not surprised that it doesn’t work currently. It probably dates back to when the station was founded in the 70s.

***Nicole Windows, telecommunications, electronics, computers

AAD = Australian Antarctic Division

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December 27

I barely slept for more than two hours today, and I’m completely exhausted. All the things that happened yesterday, the strange howling of the dogs in the night that you can even hear through the walls now that the storm has subsided, the tense atmosphere. There’s just so much coming together.

David and Doug brought some food to everyone’s room this morning. About an hour later, we all had to sit down and try to reconstruct what we did yesterday. Only Greg wasn’t there, but Isaac had given him the walkie-talkie. None of us have an alibi for the whole day except Greg, who, even if he could have snuck out of the infirmary, can hardly use an axe or anything like that with his inflamed hand. And well, I know it wasn’t me.

Even though I still don’t know who the culprit is, I find some of us more suspicious than others. It’s probably not worth writing down everything that’s been said in detail here. But I should go through the list of suspects.

First, there’s Dr. Veronica Edwards, if that is even her real name. What do we actually know about her? She claims to be from Umbrella, but she’s never shown us any ID to prove it. The snowmobile she arrived in belongs to Umbrella. However, the model is a standard model. Theoretically, you could buy one somewhere and then put an Umbrella logo on it. That doesn’t prove much. What she told Harry could all be a lie. Even her strange and childish behavior could be acting. Maybe she’s trying to appear less threatening? At least we know since yesterday that she can behave differently. But her motivation is a mystery to me. We have nothing of value here. And if she just wanted to kill us, she could do it without the whole virus outbreak story. Besides, this is the South Pole. If she’s behind it, there must be others who organized the whole thing. She’s hardly going to have come here as an individual to pull some weird stunt, is she? So what’s this all about?

However, she cannot have destroyed the communication system herself. The storage building has no windows, like almost all the buildings here, and if she can’t shrink to rat size, she can’t get out through the ventilation system either. That leaves the door as the only way out, and someone must have unlocked it. Letting her out to lock her back in later seems too risky and inconvenient. So, someone else must have done it. In any case, one of us is in cahoots with her.

We likely can rule out outsiders as perpetrators. David and Doug walked around the outskirts of the entire research station yesterday but couldn’t find any footprints or vehicle tracks. In addition, outsiders would not have had a key to the building with the communication system. It must have been locked. After all, we were told on the first day that the buildings had to be locked for security reasons if nobody was inside. I never gave it much thought until today. It probably has something to do with fire safety. There shouldn’t be any burglars here, at least so far.

Next would be Harry and Isaac, who have the closest contact with Edwards. If one of them is involved, they could have been offered money. The same goes for the other suspects, probably. After all, it’s possible that one of the others snuck out at night to meet her, for example. But there is still the question of what Edwards gets out of it.

Isaac said he was in the infirmary all day yesterday. He only left it at mealtimes to get food for himself and Greg. Other than that, he brought Edwards her breakfast and spent some time with her. This woman sleeps quite late, so it was around 10 am. Greg could confirm that, but he also said that Isaac had given him some anesthetics because of the pain. He slept from late morning, after Isaac came back from Edwards, until the afternoon.

Harry said he has been in his vehicle workshop all day, which is also his temporary sleeping quarters at the moment until Edwards comes out of quarantine. (These precautions seem so pointless right now. Everything is going haywire anyway. And Harry and Isaac were sitting with the rest of us the entire time.) He only left it at mealtimes. He also spent lunch and dinner with Edwards. Except for that no one has seen him outside either, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

How long does it take to destroy the communication system? If you get the axe days in advance and have it with you, maybe 10-15 minutes? Definitely not any longer. Both of them would certainly have had the opportunity when they went to Edwards or came back from her. The communications building is in the eastern part of the research station, not that far from the northeastern storage building. In addition, the entrance is not visible from the central area as it is hidden by other buildings. There was no need for the two of them to sneak out of the vehicle workshop or the infirmary later. Combining it with their visits to Edwards would have been the most inconspicuous option.

But the others are no less suspicious. Nicole is the only one who entered the building after the day Edwards arrived. She was also the only one there yesterday morning during the alleged contact with AAD. Nicole could have destroyed the communication system far earlier and destroyed the evidence at her leisure. If the destroyed communication system had been discovered by someone earlier, that would certainly not have been a problem either. This would only have accelerated the chain of events. It’s strange that whoever it was waited until the last moment to destroy it. Perhaps Nicole simply wanted to create a false alibi with the alleged connection to AAD?

Next, there’s John. He was on clearing duty yesterday. Now that the storm has subsided, all the buildings should be made accessible again. That’s why he was outside for most of the day. He was able to move around the whole station without appearing suspicious. Even if he hadn’t been visible for a short time, that wouldn’t have been unusual. We would have assumed that he went to the toilet or was warming up in a building. However, none of us pay any particular attention to the person on clearing duty anymore. A brief greeting or a few words when he’s around, that’s it. So, probably no one would have even noticed his absence.

Michael is also suspicious. He said that the tentacle monster thing still hadn’t left him in peace, so yesterday, he went to check the access points to the supply shaft. Apparently, almost all of them were in a bad state, the grids were damaged, screws were rusted through or missing completely, and some grids had only been taped on. The only buildings he hadn’t been in were the infirmary, the northeastern storage building, and Harry’s vehicle workshop. When asked if he had been to the communications building, he responded hesitantly but then admitted that he had been there but not in the room with the system itself. The access to the shaft is in a small room to the right of the entrance, the communication system is in a larger room to the left of it. He was there at around 2 pm. Michael could not say whether the system was still intact at that time. But he was sure that nobody else was in the building with him. In any case, he would have had the opportunity to destroy the communication system, and if he had left any traces, that would be a good alibi.

Lena was almost 45 minutes late for lunch yesterday. She said she had been reading and forgot the time. It’s not unusual for her to forget the time when she’s busy, but it’s a strange coincidence that it happened yesterday. After all, we were all gathered in the same building for a long time. That would have been a good opportunity to go to the communication system unnoticed.

Marcus was with the dogs all morning. In the afternoon, he took care of his work and was out on his own. I don’t know what I should think of him. I’m sure the thing with the dogs is somehow connected to the destroyed communication system. So Marcus must have done both. Would Marcus inject his dogs with anything? Marcus loves those animals, and he looked really worried yesterday. On the other hand, he is also the one who could most easily give the dogs something. And we never found out what frightened the animals. Maybe Marcus used some kind of tool to get the snow off the roof, and that tool left the scratch marks? A tool like an axe, perhaps? But he never seemed like a good actor to me. Everyone else always said he is more of the direct type too. I just don’t know.

David and Jeff were on kitchen duty. They were there in the morning, at lunchtime, and in the late afternoon. They might have had the opportunity to destroy the system for about three hours in the afternoon, but I think it is less likely than with the others. John had seen them outside once during that time, and that was at the other end of the station. However, I can’t completely rule them out as the perpetrators. If they had been careful, they would certainly have been able to sneak past John later without any problems.

I just can’t and won’t believe that it was Doug. He’s been working here for several years and has been the station manager for two years. He keeps saying how much it all means to him and that the people here are almost like his family. Would he really do something like that? I guess anyone can be bought if the amount of money is big enough, and he would have had the opportunity to do it yesterday as he was out on his own most of the day doing some maintenance work. Still. All we can do now is wait and see.

Doug and David couldn’t find the axe. And they don’t know exactly where it was taken either, but it’s probably from the tool store. The tools there are completely messed up, and the inventory lists are no longer correct. Everyone only uses their own collection of tools, which is why what is still in the tool store has been completely neglected for years. The lists should be used to record who took and returned what and when. But the last time they were updated was in 1993.

There’s one thing I can’t get out of my head. Isaac said that maybe the situation got too much for one of us, and they destroyed the communication system in a knee-jerk reaction. Well, he’s a doctor and should know more about it than I do, but that seems illogical to me. This isn’t the first stay in this research station for several of us here, and we all have to pass a series of psychological tests to be allowed to be here at all. He should know that too. I can’t imagine any of us going so crazy at the first sign of trouble, especially as the solution to almost all our problems was already within reach. Was he trying to distract from himself (and Edwards)? Well, maybe I’m being paranoid, and he just wanted to say that we should consider all possibilities.

In any case, from now on we have to spend the day with a partner. During the night, we should stay in our own rooms and keep the doors locked. My partner is Lena. I’ll keep an eye on her.

Chapter Text

December 28

Everything is a mess in my head. All my thoughts are going round in circles. After today, I no longer know what to believe. It’s best if I write everything down in order. I have to document everything. If I don’t write this down, no one will know what’s going on.

Doug and David woke us up today very early in the morning. “Woke us up” is actually an exaggeration. Nobody has been able to sleep properly for days anyway. Doug then announced that he is going to the Umbrella facility today to get help. We can’t contact anyone, and we can’t rely on AAD sending someone over in time either. We must do something ourselves if we want to be rescued, and Umbrella is our only option. Two of us were supposed to accompany him on his tour. He chose me on the grounds that he wanted a scientist with him if there really was a virus outbreak. He quickly ended my brief protest that I was neither a biologist nor a virologist by saying that he knew that, but Isaac had to stay here and look after Greg, and he considered the others to be even less competent in this matter.

Speaking of Greg, he seems to be feeling better since tonight. That’s the only good news in days. Isaac doesn’t want anyone to visit him or talk to him. He is still very weak and needs rest, but the worst is probably behind him. It’s almost too good to be true. His condition has deteriorated steadily since the bite, and yesterday, he even had difficulties speaking.

David chose the second person to come along - Jeff. Why Jeff in particular? I assume David trusts him somewhat because they were together most of the day when the communication system was destroyed. Besides, Doug’s second choice certainly wouldn’t have been Jeff.

I thought David would come with us personally, but he said he would take care of the station while we were gone. He also wanted to try to get the communications system back up and running with Nicole, at least to the point where we could send a distress signal. An endeavor that was doomed to failure from the start. All that’s left of the thing is scrap metal. But I understand him. Just sitting around makes you crazy, so at least you can pretend to yourself that you’re doing something important. It was no different for me. I didn’t expect much from our trip to the Umbrella facility from the beginning, but it was kind of nice to get out for once. Away from the suspicious looks of the others.

Doug gave us 30 minutes to get ready while he fetched the snowmobile. The storm had passed, and we had a clear blue sky. Only a few small clouds were passing by. On the way there, we first discussed our tasks. There had been no time for this at the Aurora Station. Our main goal was to request help, if they didn’t connect us to AAD, they should let us speak to Alfred Ashford or someone else at Umbrella who was somewhat important. Someone who can organize help. Beyond that, we should find out more about Edwards. Is she really who she says she is? Is she telling the truth? Why did she come to us and not stay at the Umbrella facility? The last thing we had to do was to get supplies. Food, medicine, we would take everything they can spare at Umbrella. Who knows what else will happen and whether our supplies will be further depleted.

Doug told us that the workers at the facility work in shifts. There were different sections, some of which had no contact with the laboratories at all. Even if there was a virus outbreak, not all of the workforce would be affected. Someone will be able to help us, he believed. We spent the rest of the journey in silence. After the past few days, no one felt like talking, and even though there were only three of us, the mistrust in the air was palpable.

Although the facility was only about 11 km away, it took us almost an hour to reach it. Due to the large amounts of freshly fallen snow, progress was slow. In some places, the ground gave way too much to continue. We then had to switch to other safer routes. The last thing we needed was for the snowmobile to tip over, leaving us stranded in the middle of nowhere. Marcus always said that dog sleds are more reliable. Now I know what he meant. But we can forget about the dogs. The situation with them is getting worse every day. We’ll probably have to put them down. But how? We can’t give them a lethal injection in their condition. They’re too wild for that, and we don’t have any guns. Marcus and Isaac wanted to come up with something. Poor animals, what’s wrong with them? Most likely I’d say rabies because of the aggression, but there’s no rabies here. Besides, rabies doesn’t cause them to lose their fur and grow tumor-like formations on their bodies within days, some fleshy, others armor-like and hard. Their bodies also change; their proportions are all wrong. The other strange behaviors cannot be explained by rabies either. From a distance, you can see them standing or sitting still, all staring at the north-eastern storage building as if they were in a trance. It seems almost religious as if they are worshipping something.

The Umbrella facility was huge. I knew it was big, but I hadn’t imagined it would be that big. And the visible part wasn’t even all of it. A large segment of the facility is located underground, built in an abandoned mine. In the eastern part, there was a giant hangar where aircraft and vehicles were parked, as well as runways, and a helipad. In the western part was a large, rectangular, three-story building complex surrounded to the south and west by several warehouses. Approximately in the middle of the two areas in the southern part was the radio tower, a round, broad tower with a glass dome as a roof - our destination.

But before we could make our way there, we had to register with the security service, which was located in the northern part of the complex. On our way there, we noticed how deserted everything was. No vehicles transporting materials or pushing snow, no workers moving between the buildings, just a few snowflakes being whirled around by the wind. We parked the snowmobile near the entrance to the security building. The building itself was an octagonal tower four stories high. There were only windows on the top floor. The doorbell was turned off, and no one answered our knock. But the door was unlocked.

It was cold and dark inside. The electricity and heating had been turned off. Unsurprisingly, our calls went unanswered. However, Doug insisted on waiting a little in case someone did show up. We opened a small viewing window in the door so we wouldn’t be waiting completely in the dark. Ten minutes passed without anyone entering the building. The only movement came from the dust dancing in the narrow beam of light from the viewing window. Eventually, we got our flashlights to explore the building. There was no one here, but possibly, there were clues as to what was going on.

The room next to the entrance was apparently a recreation room. Lockers were lined up along one wall. Opposite them was a table with a few chairs and a worn-out brown sofa. There were toilets and showers on the 2nd floor and a small kitchen with a microwave, coffee machine, and fridge on the 3rd floor. The fridge wasn’t running, but the few food items inside were frozen due to the cold, and the water bottles had all burst. There were still a few dirty coffee cups in the sink. Nothing of interest.

Somehow, I had expected the top floor to be locked, but it wasn’t. Upstairs was the actual office of the security service. Although there were windows all around, it was dark. The snow covered a large part of the windows, so there was very little light in the room. To conserve our flashlight batteries, Jeff opened the door, which led to a balcony that spanned around the entire tower. He had to throw himself against the door several times to push away the snow that had accumulated in front of it. The telephones on the desks piqued our interest, but they were dead too. It probably wouldn’t have been possible to call anyone outside the facility anyway, even if we had had electricity.

The few records we found didn’t reveal anything either: rosters, patrol routes, equipment requirements, and weekly incident reports. Something about a guy who had tried to break into Alfred Ashford’s villa a few months ago (where is here a villa supposed to be?) and was put into jail. Alfred Ashford wanted to take care of him personally. “Accident at work” was supposed to be entered in the personnel file as the cause of death. A report was requested on the course of events. There was a handwritten note in pencil: “Should I list any particular work? What kind of work can make you lose your skin?” That was admittedly scary. I still hope it was just a macabre joke...

Afterward, we took a look outside, hoping to see some movement from up here. Nothing. But there was something in front of the radio tower, something big. When we arrived, we didn’t drive too close to the radio tower. From a distance and our low position, I thought it was a big snowdrift. From up here, however, you could see that something was under the snow. There was also what appeared to be a sculpture near the helipad. From our vantage point, however, it was largely obscured by the metal struts.

Finally, we went down to the basement. A thick steel door (locked) and a numerical code secured the armory. However, the control panel didn’t work either without electricity, otherwise, we might have searched for the code again. The other door, which probably led to the underground area, was also locked. We didn’t get anywhere from here.

On the way out, Doug stopped us. He said that he would explore the area on his own first. He knows most of the security staff. It’s unlikely that they’ll shoot him on sight, but he’s not so sure about strangers. We haven’t seen anyone yet, but we shouldn’t be careless. So we had to wait again. In the meantime, Jeff and I checked the lockers. All but three were locked. One of the open lockers was empty, the other two contained uniforms. There was even a key in the pocket of one of the uniforms. Unfortunately, it only fitted the locks of the rooms above ground in the building. The underground area remained inaccessible. I took the key with me anyway.

We spent the rest of the time trying to pick the locks of the other lockers with a piece of wire we had found in the kitchen. To no avail. After about 20 minutes, Doug came back. He had walked about half the distance to the radio tower and then turned off towards the building complex. No sign of people.

On our way to the radio tower, we noticed that someone must have been here at least until a few days ago. Doug had noticed it before too. The snow hadn’t been cleared away since the storm had stopped, but judging by the height, it couldn’t have been too long since the last removal. Otherwise, the snow would be much higher.

When we arrived at the radio tower, we saw what the snow-covered object was. It was an airplane that had crashed into the entrance of the tower and was partially stuck inside. And it had obviously been there for quite a while, judging by the crust of ice and snow. We couldn’t squeeze past the sides of the plane into the inside of the radio tower. There wasn’t enough room. We couldn’t get in through the plane itself either. The hatch and the door didn’t move at all. They were either frozen shut or had deformed on impact, maybe both.

A logo or crest decorated the rear. It was black, red, and something golden, a halberd and what appeared to be claws. However, only part of the bottom edge was visible through the thick ice crust on the plane. It didn’t belong to Umbrella. That much was certain. Their logo is red and white. Doug said it could be the Ashford crest. They have an eagle or griffin as their heraldic animal, something with wings and talons anyway. But he wasn’t sure about the colors. Was this Alfred Ashford here or one of his employees? Why was the plane stuck in the radio tower in the first place? Had it been an accident?

There was no point in discussing it any further. We first walked around the tower and found a fire escape. But that didn’t help us either. The ladder was retracted, and the lowest platform was so far up that even with my arms outstretched standing on Doug’s shoulders, I was still a good meter and a half too short to reach it. I might have been able to pull myself up with a rope, but we didn’t have anything like that with us. So, our only option was the underground tunnels that connected all the buildings in the facility. We just had to find a way in.

As the aircraft hangar was closest to us, we tried our luck there first. We walked around the entire building. But there was nothing we could do, all the doors were firmly locked. The key I had taken with me didn’t fit, of course. It was no use using force either, the doors wouldn’t budge.

Next, we wanted to take a closer look at the building complex, but before that, we went to the supposed sculpture. After walking around the hangar, it wasn’t too far away anyway. Doug really wanted to know what it was. There had never been any art objects on the site since he had first visited it.

The “sculpture” was actually one or more plants growing a little off the runaway near the helipad. Thick fleshy tendrils were interwoven into an almost monolithic structure about six meters high. It was impossible to tell where one tendril ended and the next began. The upper part of the plant was covered with large blue flowers that were slightly fluorescent and resembled a mixture of gentian and spider lily blossoms. It also seemed to emit a soft sound, almost like a melody. Or was I imagining it? Apparently, I had been so fixated on it that I didn’t notice Jeff and Doug’s calls or their touches for almost a minute. What the hell was that? The others didn’t say anything about the noise, so I didn’t say anything either and lied that I must have just dozed off from lack of sleep. I didn’t want them to think I was crazy. But I don’t know if they believed me.

The plant was growing out of a round hole in the ground. Not far from the hole was a drilling vehicle. Was the hole dug into the ice by it? We didn’t get too close to the plant for safety reasons. Who knows if it was poisonous. None of us had ever seen such a plant. Besides, it was actually too cold here for something like that to grow. The thing was definitely unnatural. Had Umbrella been researching something like this here? Plants that grow in inhospitable places.

What was also strange was that the plant wasn’t covered in snow at all. Either it must have only grown here after the storm, which would indicate insanely fast growth, or it can move and somehow shake off the snow, or it might be able to produce some kind of body heat. Was it perhaps some kind of animal with additional plant-like characteristics after all? Either way, the thing creeped us out, and we had to move on. We left the plant behind us and returned to our actual task.

As we walked, Doug told us a bit more about the building complex. It actually consisted of four separate buildings that were not connected above ground. So we had to be doubly lucky. On the one hand, the building had to be open, and on the other hand, access to the underground part had to be free as well. I had hoped that we would only have to get into the complex itself, and then we could try out several ways down.

The two longer buildings were the workers’ quarters. One of the shorter buildings contained an administrative area with offices; the other, which faced the runways and was closest to us, contained a cafeteria, infirmary, and plant engineering offices. The latter would have been the most interesting for us. After all, we might at least have been able to “borrow” a few supplies here. However, both the main entrance in the southern part and the back entrance in the northern part were locked. The same was the case with the northern workers’ quarter.

Next, we went to the office building. The main entrance, here in the northern part, was also locked. Like the other buildings before it, it had hardly any windows to protect it from the cold. The few small windows were on the 2nd and 3rd floors. As we walked to the back entrance, I looked up briefly and saw her. A woman with long reddish-brown hair was standing at one of the windows on the top floor, looking down at us. When she saw that I had spotted her, she quickly moved away from the window. Even though I had only seen the woman for 1-2 seconds, I was pretty sure that something was very wrong with her. Something about her face just wasn’t right.

Doug and Jeff didn’t believe me at first. They said maybe it was just some clouds being reflected in a window that looked vaguely like a face, or maybe I was daydreaming again. When we got to the back entrance, they were suddenly not so skeptical anymore. The back entrance was open, and the snow in front of it had obviously only recently been pushed away from the door. The floor behind the door was also wet with melted snow. The only strange thing was that there were no footprints leading to the door. Had the woman come via the underground tunnels? But why would she open the door to the outside area? Had she covered all her footprints even though no one else was here? Did she fly to the building and landed right in front of the door? Strange.

Upon entering the building, we noticed a faint acrid odor. Behind the back door was a stairwell. One staircase led up, one down. To our left was a corridor that led to the main entrance. In contrast to the security building, there was at least emergency lighting here. The actual lighting could not be switched on, though. It was anything but bright, but the little light was enough for us to move around without a flashlight once our eyes had adjusted to it. And even though it could hardly be warmer than 10°C, there was at least some heating.

I immediately wanted to go upstairs to look for the woman. Doug insisted that we work our way up systematically and check the other two floors first in case anyone else was there. Usually, that would have been my approach as well, but in this case, I thought it was a waste of time. While we were searching everything, the woman might have disappeared again by the time we got upstairs. Jeff stayed out of the discussion. Only after several minutes did he get involved. He had looked at the map hanging on one of the walls. There were only two staircases and an elevator that could be used to get to the first floor and leave the building or, using the rear staircase, to get to the basement. In either case, the woman would have to go past the corridor to get out. Jeff suggested that we search everything. There were three of us, so as long as one of us was always looking forward and one backward, she couldn’t sneak past us. The third person still had the opportunity to look inside the rooms. I would still have preferred to go upstairs first, but the plan sounded reasonable. Doug went first, I brought up the rear, and Jeff took over searching the rooms.

Most of the rooms on the first floor were locked. They couldn’t be opened either with the key I still had with me. The corridor was covered with an ugly brown carpet with large light-colored patches. The walls were covered with yellowish wallpaper on which you could still faintly make out some kind of pattern. The offices didn’t look any better. They had the same ugly carpet, only less stained, the walls were covered in wood, the office furniture was worn and probably dated back to the 1970s. There were offices for one to four people on both sides of the corridor. The telephones didn’t work here either.

Jeff searched the first three offices a little more thoroughly, but because it would otherwise take too long, he limited himself to the documents on the desks. He found documents on incoming and outgoing goods, long tables with figures, and printed e-mails, but nothing that would have helped us in any way. After that, he just made sure that no one was hiding in the room and checked anything that appeared to be suspicious. Jeff’s most interesting finding was that the most recent date on the documents was 12/16/1998, five days before Edwards came to us.

At the end of the corridor, we reached a foyer and the main entrance. The foyer was much bigger than the stairwell at the back and had been renovated at some point. The walls were painted white, and the floor was covered with tiles. Three folded-up plastic bar tables were stored under the stairs. Next to the point where the stairs reached the 2nd floor was a small glass elevator (without electricity), which had probably been installed here not so long ago.

A portrait painting of a child hung on one wall, with a bronze plaque below it that read: “Dr. Alexia Ashford, Head of Research” and on a second plaque underneath: “*01/27/1971 - †12/04/1983”. In principle, we couldn’t have cared less about the picture, but it felt like we spent far too long discussing it. At least we had the presence of mind not to take our eyes off the corridor. “That’s her. Alfred Ashford’s sister. The one who died here in the accident years ago,” Doug announced when he saw the picture. But when his eyes fell on the dates underneath, he fell silent and just shrugged his shoulders. These dates can’t be right, can they? The little girl was only 12 when she died. How can a child have a doctorate from a university? How can a child have headed the research department? And even if that is somehow possible, who would impose such a heavy burden on their little daughter? Doug added that Alfred Ashford had spoken of his twin sister, but Doug always assumed that it was a slip of the tongue and that he had meant an older sister. The way Ashford was, Doug didn’t want to get his hackles up unnecessarily by correcting him.

The girl had platinum blonde hair and light blue eyes, just like Edwards. They generally looked a lot alike. If the girl hadn’t died back then, they could pass for sisters. Edwards is probably really related to the Ashford family.

We discovered another bronze plaque on the opposite wall. However, the painting that belonged to it had been removed, and the bronze plaque was then simply painted over in white. Someone must not have been too lazy to unscrew it. A prime example of not-my-fucking-job. With the paint smeared over it, it was a little difficult to read, but we deciphered the name “Alexander Ashford”. Probably Alfred’s (and Alexia’s) father.

After what felt like an eternity, we went up to the second floor. Jeff and I took the stairs by the main entrance. Doug went back to the other one and walked up it so we wouldn’t miss the woman while we switched floors. This time, I was at the front, Jeff was at the back, and Doug searched the rooms. There were more offices accessible than on the first floor, but they were just as unremarkable, the same old worn furniture, the same brown carpet, the same meaningless documents. We did, however, find the source of the smell. There were several damp patches on the carpet in the corridor, from which the color had clearly faded. These gave it off. So it had been some kind of bleach or cleaning agent. The stains on the first floor were probably also caused by this, except the carpet there had already dried. Then we went to the third floor, again separated as before. This time, I checked the rooms.

One of the doors in the middle of the corridor was open. We went to this one first. It belonged to a secretary’s office that led to the office of the head of the department of the administration, some Owen Stewart guy. I had seen the woman in his room. A glance out of the window confirmed it. That was the position. But the woman had disappeared in the meantime. Hoping that she was still on this floor, we left the head of the department’s office behind us for the time being and investigated the other rooms. There were even fewer locked offices than on the second floor. It was noticeable how untidy some of them were, with papers and office utensils strewn across the floor and chairs overturned. Was there a fight? Or had panic broken out because of something?

Despite the search, the woman had disappeared. She had either locked herself in some room and waited there until we left again or, if she was quick, she could have run off through the underground tunnels before we had entered the back entrance. To at least find out what she might have wanted here, we went back to the room where I had seen her.

I should take a closer look. Jeff and Doug waited outside, keeping an eye on the corridor to either side in case the woman was still around after all. Occasionally, they would call out to her and say: “We don’t want to hurt you,” or “We need help ourselves”, things like that.

After a brief examination of the secretary’s office, I went to the head of the department’s office. It was much bigger than the other rooms and had a more modern interior. First up was the desk. On the desk was a framed picture of a sleazy-looking guy shaking hands with a handsome young blond man. It said: “Promotion to head of department, 1994”. The blond man had the same platinum blond hair as the girl in the picture below. So that was him, Alfred Ashford. The other man had to be this Owen Stewart. He was in his early to mid-thirties in the picture, had brown hair slicked back, and a receding hairline was clearly visible. The suit he was wearing appeared to be expensive, but was completely wrinkled. He also wore a tawdry tie tied loosely around his neck with some kind of yellow pattern that reminded me of bananas. Somehow, he looked like a dodgy insurance salesman to me.

The desk drawers were littered from top to bottom. When the woman had taken anything with her from here, we would never know. At the very back of the bottom drawer, I discovered an unlabeled plastic bag with a white powder inside. Cocaine? I put it back where I’d found it.

After that, my eyes fell on a cupboard. One of the two doors was still open a crack. There were several compartments with file folders inside, but one was obviously missing. It didn’t seem to be in the office, so that must have been what the woman wanted. However, as the folders were not sorted in any recognizable pattern, it was impossible to tell what was in it. Perhaps incriminating documents?

I couldn’t help but notice the inside of the door. Photos and newspaper articles of Alfred Ashford decorated it almost from top to bottom. In most of them, he was looking at the camera, but about a third of the pictures were taken from further away, apparently without his knowledge. Not creepy at all. Owen Stewart seemed to be some kind of stalker or his psycho boss’s biggest fan.

In the rest of the room, I found nothing of interest: a few changes of clothes, several books on economics, a half-empty bottle of whisky, various packs of hair restorer, a box of Cuban cigars, luxury travel brochures, around 50 CDs and a CD player, several worn issues of Playboy (yikes!!!). As if the guy lives in his office.

I then told the others about my findings. It was time to go. But there was still one more thing to do. We wanted to look in two or three of the locked rooms. Nothing here was particularly interesting, so why were some locked and others not? The first room we chose was on the second floor. According to the map, it should be a one-person office. The doors were all made of thin, cheap wood. After three strong kicks from Doug, the door broke out from around the lock, allowing us to peek inside.

Up until this point, I thought Edwards had been lying about the virus outbreak, even though I didn’t know where everyone was. But what I saw behind the door made me reconsider for the first time that maybe she had been telling the truth after all. The sight was reminiscent of the murder scene. In the dim emergency lighting, we saw that dried blood was everywhere: on the carpet, the desk, the walls. Even if someone is bleeding from every orifice, it is impossible to leave such a pattern. It looked more as if someone had been brutally slaughtered in here.

If only there hadn’t been one detail. Three UV lamps were hanging from a hook in the ceiling on long cables, illuminating almost the entire room and causing some objects to fluoresce. There seemed to be another one behind the desk, at least another cable led to it. The socket they were connected to had a different color than the others in the room, probably an emergency power socket. There was only one logical explanation for the UV lamps, they were used for disinfection to render some kind of biohazard harmless, possibly a virus. I have the same model in my laboratory. 366 and 254 nm, the latter wavelength would be suitable. The cleaning agent, the smell of which still lingered in the air, probably had the same purpose. Nobody wanted to enter the office. It was too dangerous, and we didn’t want to investigate any other locked rooms afterward, so we went to the basement.

The basement was only accessible via the stairs at the back entrance. Once there, another corridor led along under the building, just like the one above, except that instead of offices, there were large rooms on both sides that stored files, office supplies, and boxes.

Maybe we could have found personnel files here that would have told us something about Edwards, but we had already been on the road so long that didn’t seem to matter at the moment. Doug said we could look here again before we leave, but calling for help was more important now.

The door at the end of the corridor was locked, but we could open it from our side. Behind it was another stairwell that led one floor further down. Another locked door occupied the opposite wall. According to the location, it should lead to the northern workers’ quarter. At the bottom of the stairs to our left was a short corridor that turned into a longer one. At the end of it was another door, but this one was different from the others. It was a steel door, similar to the one in the armory. There was some kind of web stuck to it. At first, we thought it was massive cobwebs until we saw the dead moth lying in the corner. The creature was huge. Its body was about 30 cm long. Another experiment? Luckily, it was dead. Doug kicked it as far away from us as possible anyway. First, the strange large plant, now this giant moth, oversized creatures seem to be common here. Did the ants come from here too? Maybe Edwards brought them with her by mistake or on purpose(?).

We didn’t want to touch the web, and removing it with our shoes was impractical. Jeff fetched a few empty folders from above for us, which at least made it easier to remove than with our feet. The steel door wasn’t locked, but we couldn’t open it either. It was badly warped and deformed and could hardly be moved. The gap, which we could only open with a lot of force, was still far too narrow to squeeze through.

The door opened into a corridor behind it. As the smallest of us, I squeezed as far into the gap as I could and told the others what I saw. There was no electricity again, so I could only see as far as the flashlight would allow. The corridor consisted of concrete, and the walls had been painted blue-grey. After about 15 meters, there was an intersection. One corridor continued straight ahead into the darkness. The other corridors went one to the left and the other to the right. There were signs next to the corridors, but the writing on them was too small, the light from the flashlight no longer sufficient, and my viewing angle too unfavorable to make out what was written on them. As the door blocked my view in the other direction, I couldn’t tell what was there.

As soon as we opened the door, we noticed a burnt smell. Something had been burning right around the door before. The wall next to me was completely charred about 3 meters down the corridor. The ceiling and floor were also covered in soot. Apart from a few small spots, the opposite wall did not seem to be affected, in the visible area at least. The fire had obviously been localized, and there was hardly any ash around. Someone must have removed it. Based on our findings on this side of the door, I assume there was also a moth web on the other side, which was deliberately burned down.

We didn’t question it when we were there, but in hindsight, I wonder why the door was so damaged in the first place. At first, I assumed that the fire was responsible, but can a relatively small and obviously controlled fire produce such intense heat to cause this amount of damage to the thick metal door?

I was just about to retreat when I heard a noise. It was hard to tell what it was. It sounded a bit like some heavy footsteps, but somehow strange. The others had heard it too. “Hello?” No answer. “Is anyone there?” Nothing. We tried once more to open the door further, but despite enormous effort, we were barely able to open it an additional centimeter. Still too narrow. I tried to get through anyway. The others stopped me in the end. If things went badly, I would have been stuck on the other side, only to realize that the noise was coming from some pipes or whatever. We didn’t know how far it goes on the other side. Maybe all the paths were closed there too. It was better to stay together. The noise didn’t sound a second time either. Who knows what it was. Maybe the woman? She couldn’t have taken the same route as us, but she must have a key. It’s possible that she got into this corridor via the workers’ quarter.

Back outside, the sudden brightness was almost unbearable. For the sake of completeness, we checked the remaining workers’ quarter. Locked. Then, we went to the warehouses located in the outer southern and western parts of the facility. Starting with the southern ones, we worked our way forward. Locked. Locked. Locked. Locked. And locked again. That applied to the large roller shutters as well as the doors next to them. We speculated that we might be able to pry open one of the roller shutters if we could find a suitable tool. There was a long, hollow metal pipe lying around somewhere. We tried it with that. Unfortunately, the end was too wide to push it under the shutter, and we couldn’t pull it up so that the pipe would fit under either. We took the pipe with us anyway.

After we had passed about two-thirds of the warehouses in the western area, we came to a large pile of snow in front of one of them. I don’t know what possessed me, but I really wanted to walk over it. After a few steps, I realized it wasn’t snow at all but mostly ice, but I kept going. On the way down, I slipped, fell, and slid all the way down the mountain. When I reached the bottom, I couldn’t stop myself from screaming. Not so much because of the bruises I’d undoubtedly sustained but because of what I had kicked off when I fell. Doug came running up. He was about to launch into a lecture about my childish behavior when he saw what I was pointing at. The words stuck in his throat. In front of us was a charred part of a human skull. It was broken, but one eye socket and the nasal cavity, as well as the upper jaw, albeit toothless, were still clearly visible. I had found the workers.

A chill ran down my spine the whole time as we continued to dig around in the pile of ice as far as we could. The iron pipe proved to be very useful. More charred bones came to light. It was hard to estimate how many bodies had been burned here. Many. But it couldn’t be all the workers. The bones were largely human, but not all of them. A few were too thick, too long, or strangely deformed. One looked like part of a human lower jaw, but the teeth were thin, needle-like pointed, and undifferentiated. It did not belong to a mammal. Perhaps these belonged to lab animals.

That was another indication that Edwards hadn’t been lying after all. As gruesome as the scene was, burning infected corpses was surely the best way to prevent the spread of the disease. The bodies appear to have been incinerated during the snowstorm. When the fire died down, and the ashes cooled, the falling snow melted and froze again to form this block of ice. But who had done that? Surely, Umbrella wouldn’t have left without leaving at least a few guards behind. Besides, the clean-up of the facility was obviously not yet complete. The only other option was the woman.

Shortly before the end of the row of warehouses in the western part, we finally found an entrance. One of the doors had been forced open from the inside. It was deformed and no longer fitted into the lock, which was also damaged and partially broken out. Had a vehicle crashed into it? The door was only provisionally secured with a chain and padlock. We had overlooked it while walking around the building complex, as there was a large piece of corrugated iron in front of it, no doubt to hide it. If we would have noticed it immediately, we could have saved a lot of time. It was harder than in the movies, but with the help of the iron pipe and force, the padlock finally gave way, and we could get inside.

The emergency lighting illuminated the warehouse. It smelled of the same cleaning agent as in the administration building. Behind a few crates, we discovered several large pools of dried blood, and there were UV lamps around them again. What was it with all the blood? Did the virus cause such bleeding, or were the infected people simply rounded up and killed here? At the back of the hall, the smell was getting stronger and stronger. There was a platform that served as a freight elevator. However, we decided to take the stairs next to it without testing whether the elevator had power. On the stairs, the acrid stench was so bad that it brought tears to our eyes. We hurried to get downstairs and away from the stairwell.

The stairs led two floors below ground and ended in a room (well, more like a widened corridor) next to the access to the freight elevator. We could only go in one direction from there. The corridor that connected to it had once been secured with a steel door. But this one had been completely destroyed. The metal, which was about five centimeters thick, was bent and twisted. It must have taken a tremendous amount of force. Torn off its hinges, the door was now just leaning against the wall.

We didn’t know exactly where we had to go. From our position, the radio tower was to the southeast, so we only wanted to take corridors that led either south or east and others only if there were none in the right direction. The signs at the intersections showed the room numbers of rooms in the respective directions. That didn’t help us, but I memorized the numbers anyway to make it easier to find my way through the maze of corridors back to the exit later.

The area where the emergency lighting was activated ended near to the twisted steel door. From there, we continued only with flashlights. We didn’t investigate the rooms, we occasionally passed, this time. We had been walking for too long and were pretty exhausted by now. In hindsight, it’s hard to say whether this was our luck or misfortune. Perhaps we could have prevented the following events if we had wasted more time. Or maybe we would all have been dead by now.

Every now and then, a door stood open. As we passed by, I saw large and small crates, tanks that were probably used to store biological material, and a filling plant for liquid nitrogen in these rooms in the beam of the flashlight.

After a while, we turned east again at an intersection. I walked in front, Doug to my right about half a step behind me. Jeff, still carrying the iron pipe, brought up the rear. He couldn’t have been more than three steps behind me. We didn’t get very far. I suddenly heard rapid footsteps and something scraping on the ground. Jeff cried out, but before I managed to turn around, something heavy crashed into my back. The force of the impact was so violent that I lost my balance and was thrown forward quite a distance. I tried in vain to absorb the impact with my hands, but my face made painful contact with the concrete floor.

What happened next could hardly have lasted more than a few seconds, even though it seemed to me as if everything was suddenly happening in slow motion. After my brain realized what had just happened and I was able to get my bearings again, I grabbed the flashlight that had fallen out of my hand and turned around. Doug had been hit too, only he had collided with the wall and not the floor. Blood was dripping from a laceration on his forehead. The next person I saw was Jeff. He was lying on the ground, holding his right leg. Blood was oozing from a gaping wound and forming a puddle on the floor. Then, next to Jeff, I saw a... thing.

I don’t know what it was. I would most likely describe it as a lizard man. It was roughly humanoid in shape, about the size of a small person, and completely covered in green scales. Its face was flat. The top of its head and back were also flattened and bordered by spikes on either side. It had no visible sexual organs. The creature’s upper body was broad and massive. The muscular arms were quite long, the legs appeared somewhat short compared to the rest of the body but no less muscular. Both arms and legs ended in long curved claws.

I couldn’t move an inch, either still dazed from my fall or paralyzed by fear. I stared at the horrible creature, transfixed. The thing was bent over Jeff, one of its clawed arms raised, ready to kill him, when a loud noise rang out. The lizard man slumped down, falling over in front. His body convulsed, his limbs twitched a few times, then he lay motionless. It took me a moment to realize that sound was a gunshot. Someone had shot the thing.

Then, a voice rang out from the darkness. “I knew there was one left. I’ve been after him for days. He was definitely smarter than the others, thought he could hide from me.” Then she stepped into the beam of the flashlight. It was the woman I had seen earlier. She was carrying a sniper rifle. Actually, I don’t even know if she was a human or just another monster. Everything about her was wrong.

Her auburn hair tied into a ponytail was the only normal thing about her. Her skin was a strange, sickly shade, pale and slightly grayish. She had combed her hair over it a little, but you could still see the small horns growing irregularly on the right side of her head. Her eyes had two different colors. Her left eye was blue, the right one bright yellow. She had a lot of plaster stuck around her right eye. Had she already had them earlier? There was something wrong with her face, but I don’t think she had the plasters yet. She had covered her nose and mouth with a surgical mask, but when she spoke, you could still see from her movements that her mouth opened wider than should be possible for a human.

The red jacket she was wearing should have been much too big for her. But somehow, her grotesquely long arms still stuck out quite a bit from the sleeves. Sometimes, something seemed to move under the jacket. Had she hidden a second pair of arms there? Her legs were not straight, like those of a human, but bent, like a dog’s hind legs. She tried to stand as straight as possible, probably so that we wouldn’t notice. This was visibly difficult for her, so she often fell back into her natural posture, probably involuntarily. There must also have been something wrong with her feet. Her boots didn’t seem too big, but she still clearly had problems walking. It was as if the boots didn’t fit her whatsoever and would slip off her feet at any moment. The woman was a very bizarre sight. Although she hardly looked human, she made every effort to appear so to us.

The woman came closer. She did not give her name. “Your little excursion has lasted long enough now. Time to go back home.” Doug tried to explain who we were and what we were doing here. Before he could finish the first sentence, she interrupted him. “I know who you are, and I can guess what you’re doing here. I’m just afraid I can’t let you do that. I have orders not to kill you, but if you don’t cooperate now, I have to hurt you.”

She paid no attention to Jeff, still lying on the floor, as she went straight to Doug. When she had almost reached him, he suddenly threw himself at her and tried to snatch the sniper rifle from her. I assume Doug was hoping to threaten her with it. Despite her strange proportions, the woman was quicker. In a split second, she dodged Doug and managed to use his momentum to turn him to face the wall while twisting his arms behind his back. “Hands off. I only borrowed this. If you break it, the owner will get very angry. And you don’t want to see what happens when the owner is angry.” She was now holding Doug’s arms with only one hand. Doug is over 1.9 meters tall and anything but weak, but even though he tried his hardest, he couldn’t escape her grip. With her second hand, she rummaged around in a pocket of her jacket and pulled something out. It was a syringe. She pulled the cap off with her pointy teeth and then rammed the needle into Doug’s neck. His legs gave way a few seconds later, and he sank to the floor.

Then she turned to me. I mumbled something I can’t really remember and tried to crawl away backward. When she reached me, she pulled me up by the hair a little, rammed another syringe into my neck, and let me fall back down. The anesthetic worked quickly. Everything around me went dark. The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was her walking toward Jeff.

About 2.5 hours later, we woke up again. To our surprise, the Umbrella facility was nowhere to be seen. We were all wrapped up in thick blankets in our snowmobile. A glance at the instruments showed we were close to the Aurora Station, only about 400 meters away. The woman must have driven us here. Not only that, but she also treated us. She had stitched up Jeff’s leg wound and Doug’s laceration, albeit stuporous. And although the left side of my face was so swollen after the collision with the concrete floor that I could barely see out of my left eye, I didn’t feel any pain. She must have given me some painkillers.

There was no trace of the woman. Her footprints ended abruptly, about 10 meters away from the vehicle. As if she could teleport. Our biggest concern, however, was Jeff. He had lost a lot of blood and wasn’t feeling well. The snowmobile wouldn’t start. Doug couldn’t quickly find the cause of this either. In the end, we decided to walk the rest of the way and leave the vehicle there. We can still get it tomorrow.

Jeff couldn’t put any weight on his injured leg. At first, we tried to support him so that he could hop on one leg. That was too strenuous for him after just a few meters. Then Doug tried to give him a piggyback ride, but this was unnecessarily dangerous in the deep snow. We finally took the blankets with us and let Jeff sit on one, which we pulled back to the station. Luckily, the route was slightly downhill, so gravity helped a little.

I was grateful for the painkillers. At least, I didn’t feel anything. It was only in the daylight that I saw how battered my hands were, completely torn and encrusted with dried blood. My wrists were certainly not in any better condition either.

First, we went to the infirmary. Isaac was pretty annoyed. He wouldn’t even let us into the treatment room, saying: “Greg really needs to rest now.” He then examined our injuries in the entrance area, left briefly, and came back with an iodine solution, which he used to disinfect our wounds. Isaac bandaged Jeff’s leg and put a gauze compress on Doug’s laceration. He gave me a pack of painkillers and told me to cool the swelling. Isaac left the stitches on the wounds as they were. He said they were far from professional, but they served their purpose. Only if they open up or become infected would he stitch them up properly again. Jeff was to spend the next few days in bed, which is where we took him.

Afterwards, we told everyone what had happened. On the way back, we had already discussed what we should and shouldn’t say. We decided to tell everything as it had happened, leaving out only the encounters with the monsters, the plant, the moth, the lizard man, and the direct confrontation with the woman. We did, however, say that I had seen a woman in a window. As for the injuries, we made something up.

Was it the right decision to hide these things? But would anyone believe us if we started talking about monsters? They would just think we were crazy. The plant won’t get away there, the moth and the lizard man are dead, and the woman at least poses no immediate threat to our lives. She had more than enough opportunity to kill us. Even though her motives and who she’s working for are a mystery. Umbrella? Edwards? An unknown third party? All we can do now is wait and see.