Chapter 4: The Girl in Gown 217

Chapter 4: The Girl in Gown 217

The siren was a physical assault, a blade of sound carving through the air. The red emergency strobes pulsed in a frantic, sickening rhythm, painting the sterile corridor in flashes of blood and shadow. Alex’s mind reeled, caught between the monstrous implication of the "Terror Rating" and the immediate, primal reality of being trapped. The synthesized voice boomed again, cold and final: "CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL ZETA ENGAGED."

Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through him. He was out of place, a ghost in the machine who had just seen a forbidden screen. His fingerprints were all over the tablet lying face-up on the floor, its screen still displaying the damning file of Subject 217. He had to hide. Now.

His janitor’s cart, his flimsy shield of normalcy, was his only hope. He shoved it against the wall, ducking behind the large plastic bin and pulling a few empty trash bags over his head and shoulders. It was a pathetic hiding spot, but in the chaotic, strobing light, it might just be enough. He held his breath, his heart hammering a painful tattoo against his ribs, the cheap plastic smelling of disinfectant and fear.

Seconds later, a heavy thud echoed from the end of the hall. Not the slam of a lockdown door, but the hiss and clank of a magnetic lock being overridden. Footsteps followed—not the panicked scuffle of fleeing staff, but the heavy, rhythmic tread of boots. Multiple sets. They were moving with purpose, with training.

Through a gap in the plastic bags, Alex watched them enter the corridor. Five figures, dressed in the same dark blue scrubs as the orderlies, but their posture was all wrong. They moved like soldiers, not medical staff. Strapped to their thighs were tactical holsters, and in their hands, they carried sleek, black devices that looked like a cross between a cattle prod and a rifle. And clipped to each of their belts, catching the red light with every pulse, was a blue keycard.

Jamie's warning screamed in his head. The Blue Keycard Club. The real face. This was it.

Leading them was a man who didn't belong. He wore a crisp, tailored white lab coat over a ridiculously expensive-looking suit, his dark curly hair perfectly styled even in the midst of the chaos. He was handsome, radiating a calm, predatory confidence that was more terrifying than the siren itself. He held a tablet, his fingers swiping across the screen with practiced ease. Alex didn't need to see his keycard to know who he was. This was the man in charge. This was Dr. Julian Narsi.

Narsi stopped, his cold eyes scanning the corridor. He seemed to look right through Alex’s hiding spot without seeing him. His gaze was fixed on the far end of the wing.

"West wing access," Narsi commanded, his voice smooth and controlled, cutting through the din of the alarm. "She can't have gotten far. Non-lethal takedown if possible. Emphasis on if possible. I want my asset recovered, not destroyed."

One of the armed orderlies nodded and pressed his blue keycard to a panel on the wall. A section of the corridor, previously seamless, hissed open, revealing a connecting passage. The team filed through, their boots thudding on the metal flooring. Narsi followed, his composure absolute, a king entering his battlefield. The door slid shut behind them.

Alex stayed frozen, his body trembling uncontrollably. My asset. The words echoed in the silence, colder than any sterile surface in the building. He wasn't a doctor talking about a patient. He was a scientist talking about a piece of equipment.

Then the scream came.

It tore through the walls from the direction they had gone, a sound so raw and bloodcurdling it bypassed his ears and struck directly at his soul. It was a woman’s voice, shredded with pure, unadulterated terror and agony. It wasn't the sound of a struggle; it was the sound of a breaking point, of a mind being pushed past the very edge of endurance. Alex flinched so violently he nearly knocked the cart over, clapping his hands over his ears.

The scream held for three, four, five eternal seconds, then was choked off with a wet, gurgling finality.

And then, a new horror: a sudden, brutal silence.

The absence of sound was somehow worse. The alarm had cut out at the same instant, plunging the corridor into an eerie, pulsing quiet. Only the strobing red lights remained, silently screaming. The silence was heavy, profound. It spoke of a terrible, swift conclusion.

He had to move. They would be coming back, sweeping the area. His abandoned tablet was a ticking bomb. He peeked out. The corridor was empty. He scrambled from behind the cart, snatching the tablet and shoving it into the large waste bin, burying it under the other bags. It wasn't a solution, but it was the best he could do.

He couldn't go back the way he came. He had to go forward, away from Narsi and his team. He crept down the corridor, his sneakers silent on the polished floor, every flicker of the strobing light a fresh wave of paranoia. He checked the doors as he passed. All sealed tight. Locked in.

He reached the end of the wing, where a small alcove led to a supply closet. The door was slightly ajar. Maybe he could hide in there until the lockdown ended, pretend he’d been caught on the wrong side of the doors. It was a sliver of a chance, but it was all he had.

He gently pushed the door open, his eyes adjusting to the near-total darkness within. A faint chemical smell, bleach and linen, hung in the air. He slipped inside, pulling the door almost shut, leaving only a hairline crack to see through.

His back bumped against something, and he spun around with a silent gasp.

He wasn't alone.

Crouched in the far corner, illuminated by the thin, pulsating red line of light from the corridor, was a figure. A young woman, no older than her early twenties, her body thin and gaunt under a standard-issue pale blue hospital gown. Her head was shaved, revealing a latticework of faint, silvery scars across her scalp, the same places he’d seen wires connected on the patients in their beds.

It was her. It had to be. Subject 217. Eve.

Her wide, haunted eyes were locked on him, reflecting the strobing light. They were pools of raw terror, but underneath it, a furious, defiant fire burned. Her breath came in shallow, ragged bursts. And in her hand, clutched so tightly her knuckles were white, was a jagged shard of glass from a broken beaker, its edge glinting like a sliver of ice.

She was coiled like a cornered animal, holding the shard out in front of her like a dagger. This was the source of the lockdown. This was Narsi’s ‘asset’. This was the girl whose terror they had been measuring, and who had finally, impossibly, broken free.

Alex froze, his hands raised in a useless gesture of peace. The scream he'd heard... had it been hers? Or had it been one of Narsi's men?

All he knew was that he was trapped in a tiny, dark room with the one person in this entire facility who was more desperate, and more dangerous, than the men hunting for them both.