Sora Williams - March 2120
The lab had once been a marvel. It had once been the pride and pinnacle of this company. A shining testament to its innovation, ambition and unwaving belief in shaping humaities future.
Floor to ceiling windows strethed across the room, offering a panoramic view of the night skyline. Towers gleaming like needlepoints, their lights now smeared through the cracks in the glass. Thirty floors up, the world below looks distant, lively, unreal. Unlike the choas within the lab.
The room reeked of iron, smoke and the unmistakable tang of blood. What has been a sterile, high tech workspace now looked like the aftermath of a warzone.
Flickering lights sputtered from the ceiling, half of them shattered outright, their fragments crunching under the footfall of a singular man left standing.
The once flawless floor is now littered with overturned lab benches and shattered holoscreens.
From the corner of my eye, I see the "GenX" signature blue interface glow faintly on what remained of the intact consoles, their surface of the letters smeared with blood and handprints.
Bodies lay scattered across the room.
One of the technicians now slumped against the wall, eyes staring at nothing, her tablet still clutched in a rigid hand. A streak of red painted the floors from one end of the lab to the other, like a brush dragged by a dying hand. The silence is deafening, save for the low hum of dying machines and the soft hiss of sparking wires.
I dared not breathe. Not a whisper. One wrong move, one misstep and it would all be over for me.
Everyone else must be dead if he made it this far up. I crouched in the corner, trembling, unable to stand or speak. My lab coat, once white and crisp was filthy now and damped with sweat.
Every nerve in my body screamed not to move. I clutched my wedding ring with white knuckled fingers, as though it were my last tether to hope as I watch the blood pool under the benches. It felt like the only thing keeping me grounded, the only thing keeping me from unraveling. My mind kepy drifting back to her, my granddaughter, twirling in her graduation dress, cheeks flushed with joy. I just seen her day ago. She had made me promise I'd be there to watch her speech.
And then… footsteps.
Measured. Echoing. Not Rushed.
He was coming.
He stepped through the wreckage like he belonged in it. His sihouette cut sharly against the shattered glass, backlit by the flickering lights and skyline beyond. He didn't look human. Not anymore.
His eyes locked onto instantly. Cold. Black. Empty.
He came to kneel before me, bringing his face level to mine. A small whimper escaped my lips.
"Mr. Williams." His voice was quiet, low, but edged with something dangerous.
My throat felt raw. "Ye… yes?" I swallowed hard, the air thick with blood and fear.
"Do you know who I am?" His black eyes bore into mine. Tired, but uncompromising. The eyes of a man who no longer seeks mercy.
I nodded, unable to look away from those eyes.
"Langford… you're Langford,"
He nodded. I sank back a little, relieved by distance as he stood back up. There was no telling what he would do next, but I had to ask. I had to understand.
"Why?" I rasped. "Why all of this? The bodies, the blood… These people believed in you. GeneX cared for you. Why kill them?"
He snorted, a humorless laugh. It deepened until he covered his face with his hand, shaking. The sound felt like a blade twisting in the silence, full of contempt and grief more than amusement.
He let his hand fall away. His gaze was distant for a moment as he stared beyond the skyline.
"I never meant for it to go this far. I never wanted to kill so many people. But…" He stopped, as though the weight of the next words might tear him apart.
"You took him from me." He whispered it, voice fragile and broken.
My heart stopped.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came out.
And then he turned to look at me.
"No… that doesn't matter anymore. Where are the Lunex vials?".
His question struck me like ice. Those vials, they were the core, the prize of our company. The terrible power they hold. He'd come not simply to destroy, but to possess.
I stiffened. "I'm afraid I don't have access to them anymore."
He exhaled sharply, and reached behind him, drawing a gun from a harness. My heart skipped as he advanced.
Suddenly he stiffened, his face contorted as he grabs his head in pain although it looked like it hadn't been injured.
"ENOUGH!", he suddenly shouts.
I recoiled, pressed into the cold wall by the intensity.
"Mr. Williams, don't treat me like an idiot." His tone dropped, icy and controlled. "Get me access to the vials. Then I'll let you walk away."
A promise. A threat.
I close my eyes. I could see her again, my grandaughter. Her joy. Her future.
However, I couldn't do it. I couldn't risk him letting the vials get into the wrong hands. It could lead to chaos.
I tilted my head upward, mustering what dignity I had left. "I'm afraid I cannot help you."
Langford's expression flickered. Then his voice, calm and final. "Then you no longer serve any purpose."
A flash. A crack of thunder. A spray of red across my throat.
I staggered back, my hands instinctively clutching the wound, blood pouring between my fingers as I gasped for air. He turned, the cold click of his boots echoing in the shattered silence of the lab.
Darkness began to creep at the edges of my vision, my body growing heavy, but one thought pierced through the fog.
I hope my family doesn't cry too much.