"Slow down, ay. Take a second to -" Frank tailed off, and she looked 
up to see his gaze fixed on the end of the dim corridor. She knew 
what he had seen. 


The old man walked towards then, trailing a viscid ooze. When 
Frank trained the torch on him, his eyes shone avid and empty. 
Twenty feet from them. 


"Hey! Stop, now!" Frank shouted. "! will shoot you!" 
The grinning cadaver kept coming. Fifteen feet. Twelve. 
Frank fired, three shots. Two hits to the chest. 


The old man stopped, gradually crumpling forward. The researcher 
let out a breath. The glistening corpse sank into the floor, swallowed 
by the slime it had generated. She felt sick with shock. 


"What the fuck was that?" Frank started towards the blackened floor, 


but she held his sleeve. 


"Wait! It's - | think it's some kind of acid." Her voice was hushed, her 
throat felt raw. "We need to call someone." 


Frank pulled out his radio, but paused, his thumb over the button. 
"Not until | know what to report." 


Suddenly she didn't want him to move away, not even a few feet. 
"Please," she said, stepping into Frank's path, "there's nothing like 
this on the database, there's nothing! We need an MTF." 


"Ay, don't tell me my job." said Frank, sounding piqued. "First, | need 
to w" 


"No!" She was gripping his sleeves. "Frank, | know dimensional 
anomalies, and this was from one. | saw it step out of a wall!” 


Frank tried to shrug her off, but pushed too hard. She fell awkwardly, 
a wrench of pain from her ankle. Tears sprang to her eyes, and 
Frank was instantly regretful. 


"Oh god, I'm sorry. | didn't mean -" 


He cut off, as a glob of black mucus landed on his radio, setting it 
fizzing. Frank dropped it like he had been stung, and glanced 
upwards. The next drop landed in his right eye. 


The researcher scrambled backwards as Frank roared and clutched 
his face. She could hear the hiss as the corrosion ate at his eye 
socket from the inside. Then she saw that grinning face emerge 
from the dark patch on the ceiling, and the old man dropped onto 
Frank's back. One hand slid into the muscles of his shoulder like it 
was dough, and Frank's roar became a scream. As he crashed into 
the wall of the corridor, she saw the other hand sink into Frank's 
throat and tear, and the scream was abruptly cut off. Frank started 
to collapse into the wall as it darkened around him. The last thing 
she saw was those eyes, locked on hers as they sank back into the 
blackness. Empty eyes, but somehow full of promise. 


Her heart pounded, and the taste of bile was in her throat. She tried 
to stand, but she was lightheaded and her ankle was throbbing. She 


had to run. She had to run - every second not running was death. 
Dragging herself up on a cabinet, she tried to think, eyes flicking 
between the ruined radio and the puckered bruises on the wall and 
floor. Run. Where? Guard's office. The alarm. 


She forced herself forward, gasping at the pain in her foot. Her lungs 
burned. Every shadow in the half-lit hallway loomed like a threat. Not 
much further now. Don't look behind. Each step was a battle: trying 
to move faster, to stop her leg from buckling. Forward momentum 
was the only thing keeping her upright. She rounded the last corner, 
saw the guard station at the end of the hall. It looked empty. She 
could make it. With a grunt of effort she pushed herself to a final run, 
closing the final yards and crashing through the guard-room doors. 


Her first step inside sank shin-deep into the frothing muck that used 
to be the floor. She fell and her hands were caught too, skin burning 
as they were sucked deeper into the ground. Looking up, she could 
see the console with the alarm button, just out of reach, and she 
wailed in sick despair. It was the last sound she made before the 
world was consumed by night. 


Death did not come. She was submerged in a lake of pitch, but 
somehow the researcher could still breathe, could still think. Was 
she still falling? She couldn't tell. All feeling had vanished, her skin 
no longer stinging, although the blood still pounded in her ankle. She 
stayed there suspended for minutes, unsure of the passing of time, 
of what this meant. Then the gloom lightened, blurred, and resolved 
into a tiled floor. 


The grey light showed her a room she didn't recognise, but which 
was somehow familiar. Dust, dead leaves and scraps of metal were 
strewn across the floor, and one of the walls had buckled in on itself. 
She pulled herself over to the door and looked out into a dilapidated 
hallway, mould and rust covering the ceiling, and the floor contorted 
like a writhing snake. There were no lights, but the hall was lit by a 
grey-green glow, a sickly aurora undulating sluggishly across every 
surface. 


She'd been right: it was a dimensional anomaly. Probably controlled 
by that thing. The researcher felt desperate. Probably it had made 
this place or had lived here for years, so it would know every inch. 


But if she had fallen into it, that meant there was a way out. She just 
had to keep moving, and she would find it. 


She limped into the corridor, clambering over collapsed furniture and 
wiping plaster dust from her hands. The familiarity of the place 
snatched at her thoughts, but she tried to ignore them. Keep going 
forward. Look for an exit. Don't think about what might be behind 
you. Don't think about Frank. Don't think about that grin, those eyes. 


A metallic buzzing grew louder, and she realised that it had been 
there since she arrived in this place. She tried to move faster. A gust 
of wind blew around her, fetid. Her heart was racing again. This 
place was familiar, but how? She needed to stop, just for a moment. 
She grabbed at a door handle, relief flooding her when it opened. 


She walked into her old apartment, and spun in confusion. This was 
impossible. The disarray of the halls was gone, everything here was 
in its proper place. But nothing about this place was proper - she 
had left this apartment 20 years ago, the building had been torn 
down. 


The researcher sped across the room, the need to rest forgotten. 
Everything here was hers: her books, her furniture. The window 
showed the same view, an incongruously bright day. How? She 
raced to the bedroom, her bed made, everything neatly put away. 
She opened the closet, and the corpses fell out on to her. 


It was a mountain of decomposing limbs and organs, limp and slick. 
They slithered down at her under the weight of the pile, trailing gore. 
She retched at the deep, foul smell of putrescence, flailing wildly to 
pull herself free. A bloated hand pawed at her leg as it fell, and she 
felt something slippery and soft under her feet as she stood. 


This assemblage would have taken dozens of bodies, she thought, 
still gagging. As it slumped further, it exposed a face she 
recognised. Frank. A deep hole where his eye had been, and his 
neck was torn open, black jelly dripping from the flesh. Her eyes 
scanned the line of his body and saw his leg twisted viciously 
upwards, exposed bone protruding where the foot had been ripped 
off. She was trying to hold in a scream when she heard movement 
from the back of the closet. 


Without thinking, she ran. Behind her, the sounds of sinewly limbs 
pulling themselves clear of the corroded wall. She bolted for the 
door to her apartment, ankle screaming at her. She could feel the 
old man enter the room, only a few steps back. The metallic buzz 
constricted around her as she emerged. 


Staggering down the hallway, realisation overwhelmed her. This 
wasn't some old hospital or school. Her apartment had given her the 
answer. It was twisted, corrupted, but this was Site-120. She 
couldn't think about why that was. What it meant right now, was that 
she might know a way out. 


She took another left turn, skidding on the wet floor and crashing her 
head on the opposite wall. Her ears rang. The footsteps behind her 
were louder, closer. She dragged herself onwards, her breath a 
whimper from the pain in her foot. One more corridor and she should 
be back to the guard room. She hoped like hell that the dimensional 
parallels held up. The footsteps grew closer. She could hear the drip 
of ichor. 


Her vision grew dark. The hall telescoped in front of her. A hand 
clutched at her back, her lab coat melting to tatters. The guard room 
was just ahead. She was exhausted. She couldn't make it. The floor 
beneath her started to bubble. 


With a yell, she crashed through the guard room doors again, 
pushing through the oily puddle behind them and surfacing in the 
real Site-120. The ghoul was still behind her. She fell hard on the 
console and slammed her hand down on the alarm. Klaxons blared, 
and the emergency light flashed. She turned, pushing herself as far 
as she could into the corner of the console, but the old man had 
halted in the middle of the room. It was staring at the light. 


She heard a new noise, like a deep growl. Suddenly she realised 
that the corpse before her had a lump of new flesh in its throat, 
bloody and ragged. Frank's throat, she realised, and her stomach 
dropped. She looked again at the old man, seeing its misshapen 
carcass, patched and scarred. 


The old man was still transfixed by the light. Its growl built in 
intensity. "Reerreeerererereevevevrred." 


Her mouth went dry. 


The thing looked at her with its dead eyes. "Aaaaanna," it said, like a 
sigh. "Anna." 


She made no sound. Her mind was screaming. 
The old man took a step towards her. Another step. 


Five years, eleven months, twenty-one days. And twenty-five more 
years after that. Falling apart, rebuilding itself, rebuilding its world. 
For her. 


It held up its left hand. She could see the mark where the ring had 
been. 


She couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. 


The old man reached towards her, tenderly holding her cheek. Her 

skin puckered and liquefied, flesh dripping from her face. It brought 

its grinning mouth to hers and kissed her, and her teeth became hot 
wax, fusing and corroding. 


She screamed then. The old man pressed his kiss harder into her 
open mouth, his swollen grey tongue melting hers and filling her 
throat with molten muscle and caustic jelly. The last thing she felt 
was the weight of the two of them, sinking into the floor, locked ina 
final, burning embrace. 


Untitled 


This was definitely not D-3748's cell. 


For one thing, the room was silent. During the day, his cellmates 
were constantly shuffling, scribbling on the blank paper they were 
generously given, getting into stupid arguments, and doing whatever 
else they could to alleviate the boredom. At night, there was tossing, 
turning, snoring (he really wanted to stuff a pillow in the mouth of the 
guy who slept above him), and the muted scratching of pens from 
those who refused to sleep at normal hours. For another thing, it 
was colder. They didn't exactly have luxury heating in the D-class 
blocks, but D-3748 swore he could almost see his breath. He tugged 
at the sleeves of his ill-fitting jumpsuit and curled himself up as 
tightly as possible. 


Blinking the sleep from his eyes revealed further differences: the 
walls were multicolored tile, not the grayish-white cinderblock-like 
surroundings he was familiar with. The metallic bunk beds were 
absent. The opening that led to the common bathroom area was 
missing. In fact, looking around, there didn't seem to be an entrance 
or exit to the room at all. There was only a person, asleep against 
the same wall D-3748 had woken up on, wearing a collared shirt and 
khakis. Not another D-class, then. He couldn't tell if the person was 
male or female; their hair obscured their face from his viewing angle. 
They, unlike him, had clearly seen a qualified barber in the last 
several years, though like their clothing, their hair was slightly 
unkempt, presumably from whoever or whatever had brought them 
here in their sleep. 


D-3748's eyes roved around the tile on the opposite wall. He 
wondered whether he should prod the other person awake. Maybe 
then he'd at least have someone to talk to. 


He didn't have to wonder for long, though. Soon he heard the other 
person shifting next to him, and turned his head slightly to see them 
(he still couldn't discern their gender) looking around blearily and 


rolling their shoulders. He caught them muttering something under 
their breath about falling asleep in the bathroom again. 


Yeah, definitely not another D-class. 


The other person shivered and pulled their knees up to their chest. 
More awake now, they noticed D-3748, and confusion briefly passed 
over their face before it settled into a stoic (if tired-looking) 
expression. They sighed. "I don't suppose you're responsible for... 
our...current situation," they said, more of a question than a 
statement. D-3748 furrowed his brow and shook his head. How 
could he have brought them here? He didn't even know who this 
other person was. Or where they were. And last he'd checked, he 
didn't have the magical power to enter rooms without doors. 


"Some of the things here can go through walls," he said, thinking 
aloud. "Maybe it was one of them." 


"It better not be," the other person mumbled. "That'll be a hell of a lot 
of paperwork." 


D-3748, still unable to figure it out himself, finally asked, "So are you 
a man or a woman?" That was probably rude, but politeness was a 
habit lost to the uncounted months he had spent doing odd chores 
and following nonsensical orders for experiments in a magic science 
lab...place...thing. 


The person seemed unfazed. "Neither. I'm O5-6." They paused and 
felt around in their shirt pocket. "Not much harm in telling you that," 
they added, after they'd found whatever they were looking for. 


What the hell kind of name is that? was D-3748's first thought, but 
he could hardly talk. He barely remembered his original name. He 
was pretty sure the Foundation people had wiped his memory more 
than a few times. Maybe that was what the person had found in their 
pocket: something to wipe his mind when they escaped so he 
wouldn't remember anything they told him. Well, that wasn't so bad; 
it was better than sitting in freezing silence with this stranger, 
anyway. 


So he asked his second question. "Are you a robot?" It would 


certainly fit, with the person's numeric designation, apparent lack of 
gender, and slightly stilted demeanor. 


The person — O5-6 — snorted, the first appreciable bit of emotion 
D-3748 had seen. "No." They shook their head. "The O5 stands for 
Overseer, clearance level five. The six is just to identify which one | 
am." 


"Level five?" D-3748 asked. He'd seen a rare few ID tags showing a 
clearance level of four (those people tended to be far too important 
to even glance at him). "Is that the highest?" 


A nod. "People like you don't usually see us. I'm assuming you're 
unaware of how far the Foundation reaches, but there are thirteen of 
us, and we're in charge. We're the most powerful people in the 
world" — D-3748 raised his eyebrows incredulously — "There are 
meant to be safeguards against us being trapped in isolated rooms 
with..." They glanced at him, implying with people like you. "There 
was a time when you were all criminals serving life terms or awaiting 
death sentences. That got unfeasible pretty quickly. There just aren't 
enough felons in the world." 


D-3748 tried to think back to when he had first arrived at the 
Foundation. His memory was foggy, but he vaguely recalled...no, no 
he didn't. "Where else do you get us, then?" he asked, not daring to 
voice the real question on his mind: where did I come from? 


"Here and there," the O5 said. "Many of you are nobodies. No 
friends, no family, no job, nobody to miss you. So we just pick you 
up off the street and give you something to do." 


"You think you're a savior?" 
"| didn't say that."