P-3

The next day I thought about quitting the job, yet something was nagging me in the back of my head. I got the feeling I should not do that, that there was someone or something waiting for me there. I had no means of finding out where the feeling came from though.

When I went inside, I was stopped at the lobby and immediately directed to the director’s office. I was urged to make haste, as it seems they were expecting me already. The elevator ride to the top floor seemed like it took ages, that’s how it felt at the time, once there though, when I finally stood in front of the door I froze up.

I was scared of the Director, not really able to explain why though, maybe it was something about her bearing. After taking a deep breath and collecting myself I knocked at the door

“Enter mister Vhid, we have been expecting you.”

The nervousness only intensified at hearing her voice, yet with no way to avoid her I entered. I was expecting the director to be alone, and as such I figured the meeting would be a bit more private, yet waiting for me inside were both the director Elga Caen and one of the scientists from yesterday, Mike.

“I heard about what you did yesterday.”

She calmly stated. Her calm or rather cool demeanor, not to mention her gaze, made me tense up. I swallowed nervously in an attempt to calm down a little, which somewhat succeeded.

“I must say I’m impressed, I did not think someone with as little experience like you..” She paused and seized me u slowly from head to toe. “Would be able to solve a problem which our scientists couldn’t solve this past year.”

She stood up and looked out the window, after a long pause she continued.

“I’m thinking of having you work with mister Zhaun here. At first you will have a lot to learn, however a fresh outlook on our research would most probably be immensely useful.”

After the director finished speaking, she took a brief pause to look out at something on the horizon, though soon after she turned to the scientist present and continued.

“As discussed before you will be responsible for teaching mister Vhid, as he will be working with you from now on, is that understood?”

“Yes miss Caen, clearly.” came a quick and short answer.

“Now.” she turned to me and both her voice and expression turned cold. “You do understand that you have no other choice than to continue working with us.”

It was not a question, but a statement which made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and a a chill ran along my spine. “Is she serious? Is she saying what I think she is?” I thought and immediately understood unemployment was the least of my worries, I have heard about people disappearing before, but I thought those were only rumors. I tried answering as calmly as I could, yet I cannot say how well I did, considering the state of my mind then.

“Yes, I understand miss Caen.”

“Good, there is some paperwork you will have to sign as you leave, it is the usual legal documents. My secretary will have it for you to take care of as you leave, take care of it then.”

She seemed a bit, how to put it, gentler and less intimidating, I think I felt a bit of compassion in her voice, like she felt pity or sorry for what I got mixed up in. That may have been just my imagination though.

“You can leave now mister Vhid, take today off, after all you have a busy day ahead of you tomorrow. Now if you will excuse me, I have some matters to discuss with mister Zhaun.”

That was my cue to leave, and thank you for that, I probably would have ran out even if the conversation got less tense at the end.

“Good bye mister Vhid.” She calmly said as she sat down back at her desk.

“Good bye.” I muttered as I left the room.

I was about to go straight towards the elevator when I heard my name called. As I turned towards the voice, I remembered about the documents I had to sign. I got a bit embarrassed as the secretary was a cute girl, probably around my age.

Though what made me blush was the realization that I stood in front of the director’s door, all fidgety without noticing she was there… I just wanted to leave as soon as possible.

“Please sign here, here and here mister Vhid.”

I signed quickly and left the building…. I needed time to think as everything around was in a haze, somehow I found myself sitting on a bench in the nearby park. My thoughts were in chaos, my hands shaking. “What to do now?” I thought and sighed.

“The contract has been signed, but what choice did I have? Leave and presumably wind up dead somewhere? No, that would not be a good choice.” I slapped both my cheeks with open hands, the feeling calming me down slightly.

“Time to get myself together and make the best of the mess I got myself into.”

I resolved myself, yet as I thought those words my stomach started growling. I laughed at the noise, if I can get hungry in this situation then it can’t be that bad.

“Time to go get some food. I should go home and cook for once.” I rubbed my stomach, it got a bit too round since I started working at the lab.

“Well some exercises would do me good too.” I laughed again and went home. There I ate and spent the rest of the day relaxing and mentally preparing myself for what was yet to come.

Small update

No new story post today. Though I expanded on the second part of the prologue. It just seemed that what I had written up fit more there than as a new post. I’ll try having more up the following week. Sorry for that.

I had an eventful week though. I got married on Final Fantasy XIV, got my crafting and gathering up. Some gear upgrades, not to mention furnished my house a bit ^^ I played some other games which I will not mention, though I know I should have been working on editing the story.

Stay tuned for an update this week, as I’ll try having it up by wednesday. Also follow the posts on Sygnus.com. There’s a lot of interesting gaming and related articles there. However aside from that a wide range of topics is covered there also. A great read if I can say so myself. ^^

P-2

Being unemployed and failing to get a job after graduation for almost two years really gets a guy down. I remember I had dreams, wanted to go on with my interests, but without a source of income it’s not really that easy. When I finally managed to get I couldn’t believe how lucky I got, now looking back that might have been when the gears of time started ticking down on me.

The company was  one of the bigger ones in the industry. What they were looking for in applicants were certain genetic strands in their DNA. They didn’t tell us what they were looking for but there was a written aptitude test apart from the usual physical exam and blood tests. They took quite a lot of samples from us. There were about ten applicants and they were looking for maybe two or three people depending on how the tests would go. Supposedly they were working on projects concerning genetics and Nanomachines.

Strangely enough I passed and they seemed to be really interested in my DNA structure, supposedly it was unique and had some traits that were of interest. That was probably why they employed me, since I don’t believe I did too good on the written test. No matter the reason I got the job, they didn’t employ anyone else or at least I wasn’t informed if they did.

The first few days were the usual BHP training and drills for me to get to know the layout and people I would be working with. They were the  stereotypical image of scientists, though they looked me as some kind of sample to dissect rather than a co-worker, sent shivers down my spine sometimes.

Well I can’t blame them, after all according to the contract that’s what I was, or rather I was supposed to be tested for some kind of future experiments, however I could back out at any time. Since there was no danger to my life,  I stayed, not to mention the pay was really good.

Every day since then was mostly testing, taking samples plus the usual grunt work, nothing too bad. However after a month, even that changed, for better or worse. I was doing some writing in one of the labs where they were tweaking the Nano machines, I wasn’t sure why but to at least one of them my presence there seemed to be irritating.

Soon they did come to a standstill as something wasn’t working as it they had anticipated, which in turn was frustrating them, they even had an argument over it. What I overheard, which wasn’t hard as they were really loud, was that either the Nanites  were faulty or there weren’t enough samples. Still after about 15 minutes they left, leaving it as it is. It seemed they took a break for the day or rather had to, since they came to a dead end.

A few minutes after they left I finished my own work and as I was leaving I noticed they didn’t turn off the machines, granted I was the one mostly doing that since many of the scientists there were forgetful. Since the time table didn’t have anyone on overtime, I was supposed to close up after them anyway.

The machine they were working on had to do with gene splicing and Nanite control. I did get the basic instruction since I was responsible for some of the equipment, the screen however showed some strange values. From what I made out they were working on DNA spliced mostly from the same test subject, V-01HD, which was my id number.

What was strange though was that normally, at least according to what I knew, they don’t work on one batch of samples, not to mention they had a wide assortment of subjects to choose from, as everyone on the lab donated samples for experiments.

“This is wrong.”

I wasn’t really well versed in the specifics, but I could see some of their setting were just bogus.  Granted I didn’t work with the equipment, but if it has something to do with computers I catch on quite quickly, not to mention some of the scientists really liked to chat about the technical and programming nuances.

My curiosity got the better of me, that and I kind of felt sorry for the machine and nanites, so I changed some settings. Soon after I was done the display started displaying data as it worked on the smaples. Fortunately it was not overly complicated so I understood most of what was happening there. Still this kind of research was banned by the government and there was no mention of it in any of the data. Why then were they working on any of this?

“What the hell are you doing?”

The question got me out of my daydream, making me notice I was not alone. The next instant I was pushed away from the machine, the force was enough to make me fall to the ground.

“Did he damage anything?! Mike?” 

He was still looking at me with hostility,yet when his colleague did not give heim an answer he turned to face him. Mike was looking at the monitor with an expression of shock on his face.

“Jack… It’s working… he got it to work…”

“What?! Let me see.”

Jack looked at the monitor, his eyes widening. Soon after though, he once again directed his attention to me. He came up to me and continued to shout while dragging me back to my feet by the collar.

“What? How? How and what did you do?”

“Jack, let him go how can he answer that if you shake him like that.”

Mike was calm, now if I think about it he was too calm, as if he knew something, but at the time I was too shaken to notice. Jack let me go finally, so I answered after getting my clothes in order.

“I just tweaked the settings a bit. Some of them were wrong so I changed them. I know I should not have modified your work but I could not help myself.”

Jack almost attacked me again, but was stopped by Mike. Who had a thoughtful expression, even if he wanted to hide it. Still it seemed he was of higher rank than Jack as the other listened, albeit still complained quietly.

“No, you did good. We were looking for a breakthrough since we had problems like this before. Go home now, there won’t have any problems because of this, don’t worry about loosing your job, you won’t get fired”.

I didn’t know how, but he knew I was scared of that, so hearing that made me feel relieved.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, but the head would probably want to talk to you tomorrow.” I shuddered at that thought. I don’t know why but the Head of the lab was somehow scary. She was a woman in her mid-thirties, with many accomplishments as a scientist, but she was somehow intimidating. “I’ll take my leave then.” I said, gathered my things and left. I did hear them arguing in the lab but I wanted to be home as soon as possible. “Quite a mess I’m in.” Was the last thing I thought to myself before going home.

P-1

After opening my eyes all I could see was destruction. It was inside of a building, more of a lab than an office, though with all of the damage done one could not be sure. Still I couldn’t believe how calm I was, unfeeling, looking at this from above as if I was watching a movie.

It was not important, after all I didn’t feel like I could interact or change anything, yes, I was clearly just an observer, bound to watch over this place for some reason. However what caught my attention was the unmoving body of a man, probably an employee of this place, he looked in his thirties, though that was hard to tell as not only was he lying face down, but also  in a pool of blood due to the bullet wounds he suffered.

He’s a goner, that’s for sure, the bullets probably pierced his organs. The man’s whole form spasmed, it seemed as if he was driven to move, something he still had to accomplish even despite his wounds.

“Why is he even struggling?”

I asked myself, just looking at him one would cringe feeling sick, the blood, his torn flesh, it looked as if some has been torn out by the bullets leaving chunks missing. The pain he was in should be unbearable to anyone, how could he even stand like that. Something stirred inside of me, but it was not compassion or uneasiness, it was curiosity.

I had to know why, why he tried so much, despite the pain and suffering he was going through. His back was facing me this whole time so I could see where he was headed. A door, a very sturdy one at that, it seemed to have been hit by bullets, however there were only a few small scratches on it. I was drawn towards the sealed place, however once I passed the researcher I caught his face in the corner of my eye.

“No… impos….ible…”

That face, just a glimpse made me turn to face him. I felt fear, even though before I didn’t feel anything. His… no… MY face, was looking at me, no at the door… How was this possible unless… It dawned on me, I was looking at my own memories.

It is said you go through your life from beginning till end right when you die. It seemed partially true for me, as I still didn’t know why I wanted to open that door, as if my memory was fragmented. I didn’t even notice when I calmed down, this surprised me, yet felt as if I, in life, was a person who just accepted things as they went.

“But still… Why am I…?”

It hit me as I asked that question, not the reason, but a memory, it was that of the attack, or rather the moment when the bullets pierced my body, the pain I felt, but not who it was or why. There was something else though, a thought that formed in my mind then, “Stay put and wait, you still have a final job to do.” Why, what was this last mission I had to do…More questions than answers. So I watched myself, watched as my body sluggishly limped towards the door, moving thanks to will alone.

“My head…”

I clutched my head, the pain unbearable, the images, feelings, all of it jumbled an chaotic, running through me as if everything I forgot just broke through a dam and flooded my consciousness. I have no idea how much time passed, seemed like decades, but it seemed it was only a fraction of that time, as the me I watched only managed to open the door now.

“I remember…”

Indeed, I knew what was there and why I tried to open it so much, however I had no idea if I succeeded, as this memory was somehow far from me. Maybe if I start at the beginning, at how all this started, I will remember…

I shook my head, death is a funny thing, ultimately all in existence will die, no matter who or what you are. I felt no sadness, no pain anymore, just… an inkling I still had to do something, that this was not over…

“You get born and you die, that is the course of life…” I took a deep breath…

“My name is Paul Vhid and this… is my story…”

Starting out

Welcome to the Fox Den~!

This blog will contain my thoughts on games, some of my writing and things I like.  I primarily created it to talk about the games I play, events that are currently active in them, as well as the book I’m writing.

The story I am working on is in no means finished, I hope to make it an interesting growing story anyone can enjoy. Still most of this is a rough draft and will be reworked in the future. Not to mention the story itself is something I have been picking up many times over the years only to stop and carry on with other things.

Yet what I want to do is to finish the story as it has been inside of my head for a few years now…. growing… yes I only need to write, but that is hard sometimes, as putting what I have in my head to paper is the problem. This is also the reason I created the blog, to start writing. At least a little at a time.

Thank you for reading and I hope you will enjoy the story.