"Holy fuck! How is this possible?" Lucas reread the file, trying to see if he was dreaming.
What the fuck! How can it be so coincidental? My drug was meant to enhance human strength. How can it be used like this?
Lucas picked up another file and read it thoroughly. This time, he noticed changes in the ratio of the chemical compounds.
Every ratio had been tried and tested, and the result had been noted.
Lucas continued to read, not caring about the men outside who were still searching the other parts of the lab.
"Lucas, did you find something?" Vance peeked inside the room after a few minutes passed, and his chest constricted when he saw the blood stains on the wall.
"Oh my God!" Vance's body ran cold, and he was close to turning on his heels and running away from the dreadful place.
It was as if the more time they spent in the lab, the higher the possibility of the demons coming for them.
"Lucas, what are you looking at?" Vance ignored the gory sight and entered the room.
Controlling his fear as much as possible, he leaned forward, sneaking a glance at the contents of the file in Lucas's hands.
Lucas ignored him and read the file before moving on to the next. When he reached the fourth one, he realized it was the last file. It was filled with details about all the experiments before chaos and bloodshed erupted in the world.
Although he was shocked beyond words when he realized that his experiment was the initial phase of Operation Genesis, the information in the last file completely blew his mind away. His death seemed less devastating all of a sudden.
Lucas had to hold onto Vance for support. "Vance, this...this..."
Vance held Lucas, whose face had lost all color in a blink. "Lucas, what's wrong? What.."
"Vance, this is... this is... this is the experiment report. The humans mutated into monsters after inhaling the chemical mentioned here."
"What did you say?"
Vance more or less believed Lucas when he had informed them about the possibility of humans themselves mutating into monsters. However, somewhere in his heart, he was hoping for it to be Lucas's mere notion.
Now that they had evidence to support Lucas's claims, Vance went blank, and his blood froze in terror.
"Lucas, are you... Are you sure?"
"Yes, Vance. Hundred percent. It was Wren and Jackson who started the catastrophe."
Lucas frowned, a strange thought popping into his mind. But before he could hold on to it, it disappeared.
Pushing his tongue against the inside of his cheek, he started checking the other files in the room as well. However, there wasn't any useful information in them.
"We should have brought Patrick with us," Lucas mumbled, feeling frustrated all of a sudden.
"Vance, Lucas," Dave shouted from outside the room, his voice filled with panic. His voice echoed through the place, startling the two men. "Guys, you may want to check this out."
Lucas and Vance ran out of the room instantly, prepared to fire at anyone they saw.
"Dave, where are you?" Vance shouted, feeling a chill run down his spine as they moved deeper into the lab.
The place was already creepy as hell with all the darkness and dried blood.
Now, with Dave's voice echoing through the place, adding a ghostly presence to the experience, it became almost unbearable, traumatic even.
"Vance, come to the basement," Dave shouted back, and Vance and Lucas ran in the direction of the voice.
The more they ventured inside the lab, the more they came across bizarre-looking equipment, some of which Lucas recognized.
However, they didn't bother about them and searched for Dave instead.
"He's downstairs," Vance informed when they reached a staircase.
Although alarm bells rang in Lucas's mind, he didn't delay and followed Vance, who was sprinting with all his might.
"Dave," Lucas panted, reaching the man a few seconds later than Vance. "What happened?"
Holding his waist, he tried to gather his strength and calm his racing heart.
Dave didn't speak. Instead, he just raised his hand to point at something, and both Vance and Lucas turned to see what he was staring at.
At first, they were just curious. Why was Dave agitated all of a sudden? What got him all frightened and pale?
The next instant, their eyes widened in horror when they saw fresh blood and mutilated bodies lying in a pile.
The room was as big as Patrick's lab. But it was filled with torn limbs and bodies, both from humans and monsters.
"What the fuck!" Vance's mind exploded, and his guts churned when the pungent smell of blood hit his nose.
They had been in a hurry before, and the entire lab was filled with the smell of blood. So, they hadn't sensed anything amiss before.
Now that they were in the basement, the air was filled with a strong, metallic odor.
Lucas's state was no less different. The gory sight made his head spin, and he forced himself to remain calm even though he was close to throwing up.
"How is this possible?" Vance mumbled, unable to believe what he was seeing.
How could there be fresh blood when the people of Aslan had been killed months ago?
Lucas too couldn't fathom what was happening, and he looked at the pile of limbs and mutilated bodies.
"Was Aslan under attack again?" Lucas asked no one in particular.
"Even if there was, there should have only been bodies and limbs of the monsters here. No human resided here after the last attack," Vance explained, feeling cold all of a sudden.
The basement was freezing. Coupled with the mutilated bodies, it only felt all the more glacial.
"And how did the bodies get here in the first place? Even if we assume some humans were hiding in Aslan, there is no fresh blood anywhere else except around the dead bodies," Dave pointed out, and Lucas observed the place closely.
Dave was right. Although the basement walls and floor were coated with dried blood, there was fresh blood only around the pile of torn limbs and mangled bodies.
There wasn't any attack, nor did it seem like someone had moved everything to the basement.
"Do you want to..." Lucas gulped, clenching his hands tightly. "Do you want to search this place first?"
Neither man wanted to stay in the place any longer. However, it was a matter of life and death. They had to find answers and a solution to stop the mayhem. Otherwise, it wouldn't be long before they perished with the others.
The three men examined the place, splitting up as they looked for clues.
However, there was nothing of worth in the basement. Heck, there wasn't even a secret door that could explain how the bodies got there in the first place.
Lucas broke into a cold sweat when his eyes fell on the butchered bodies. An unsettling feeling sprouted in his heart, and his palms turned clammy.
For a moment, a bizarre thought emerged in his mind.
Could they be the people of Novastra who died two days ago?
But before he could dwell more upon it, he heard a noise from upstairs.
In the silent and spine-chilling place, it was awfully loud and reverberating, and the three men stiffened in their places at once.