The Untold Stories of Zone-E

I have said it before and I will say it again: I suck at keeping up with this poor blog. Still, it always is here, right when I need it.

Today is September 20, 2016. As of yesterday, facebook reminded me that Zone-E is four years old. That's right, four years ago yesterday, I was holding the first ever bound copy of Zone-E in my hands. I wanted to do something special yesterday in honor of that, but it took me until today to make good on that. Following this introduction, I have a short story I started months ago, and just this morning got the last push of inspiration to finish. Anyone who has already read Zone-E knows the story of Unbris and what was there, so this will be a fun insight. And for those who don't, well, this will be a fun teaser.

So here it is.

The Great Inferno:
A Look Into the Fall of Unbris

For the collection, "Untold Stories of Zone-E"
By S.M. Taylor

Kowarsky took the steps two, sometimes three at a time. His heart thundered in his ears - or was that the commotion upstairs? It didn't matter. What mattered was getting to Section Q. If he could at least get what was there to safety, maybe the mess could be salvaged…

The stairway spilled out into a common area with several doors, the rest of it continuing down from the other side of the room. As Kowarsky sprinted through, he noticed a woman at one of the doors, punching furiously at the keypad as she tried to get it to lock. She was pressing herself and presumably all her weight onto the door, as if she were trying to keep something in.

At the sound of Kowarsky's footsteps, she turned to look at him. Her hair was falling out of what had once been a neat ponytail. Bits of wispy grey-brown hair framed her face in a frazzled picture. Her cheeks were flushed, her grey eyes mad and shiny behind her oval, frameless glasses that sat askew on her face, the right lens hanging more in front of her cheek than her eye. "Experimental Substance D-1 has gotten out. The secure storage was compromised. S-Section O is under quarantine…" Her voice fizzled out as she turned her attention back to the door, giving it one last push as the keypad finally blinked the blue color that indicated the sealing process had completed.

Kowarsky didn't wait to see what happened next. At this time he was already pounding down the stairwell. "Section Q. Section Q. Section Q." It had become a chant in his head. The quarantined room had re-awoken his fire. If things had already gone awry as close as Section O…

Jumbled yells sounded from the staircase from below. Kowarsky upped his speed, almost slipping the rest of the way down when he jumped four stairs and landed too far on the edge of the last one, barely catching himself before falling. The voices were louder now, at least some of the words comprehensible.

"Need… go now… forget…. Danger!" Cried  one voice.

"No!" The other voice said. The argument was lost after that  as Kowarsky picked up his speed, the sound of his feet on the metal stairs drowning out the words.

The others were waiting in the next common area the stairs opened up to. There was only one door on this level besides the one on the opposite side of the room that was the continuing stairs. It was at the bottom of those stairs that Kowarsky was trying to get to. The two were both men that Kowarsky knew, others who had worked in Section Q. They were huddled by the closed door in the common area - the keypad on this one was already glowing blue…

When Kowarsky hit their level, they jerked their heads up almost the minute his feet changed from metal stairs to linoleum flooring. He skidded to a stop under their combined gaze. His heartbeat was irregular, unstoppable. It pounded at a speed it never had before in his chest. He had to take just a moment to breathe in a few deep breaths before he could find his voice. The others watched him in silence as if it were him that owed more of an explanation as to why he was there.

"Is it - is it still there?" Kowarsky said when he was finally able to regain some shred of himself.
The taller of the two men - a gray haired scientist with dark, brooding eyes and taut pale skin that was pulled so tight over certain parts of his face and hands that those areas almost appeared blue - looked from the door to the stairs that led to Section Q, then back to Kowarsky. "Yes, but they say that it's what It wants. They say It's coming..."

Kowarsky recognized this man's voice to be that of the man that had been urging they go. The other man was small, wiry, and younger by at least a couple decades. His wispy blonde hair was messy, in need of a cut. Behind his large, round glasses, his green eyes seemed to take up his entire face. He stepped forward when the other finished, shooting him an obstinate glare. "We HAVE to recover the Treasure from Section Q and make sure it's secure, make sure It can't get it!"

The "Treasure" of course, was the codename for what they had been working on down in Section Q.

"I agree with Ovey," Kowarsky said, indicating the man who had just spoken. "We've worked this hard and if that thing wants it… well, then we have to work even harder to keep it from it. What will Avarice do if he finds out we just turned tail and ran?"

The older man was quite serious. There was a certain gravity in his face that Kowarsky didn't like. There was no emotion in the man's voice when he said, "Kowarsky, it doesn't matter what Avarice is going to say because it's over. This place is OVER. We're all dead."

"But..." Ovey tried to argue but the older man held up a hand to cut him off. His eyes never left Kowarsky. "We can stay here and await our doom, or we can meet it in the madness that awaits above." He raised an eyebrow. "You came from above. Certainly you can attest to what's happening - what we could only hear in the background when they called and told us to evacuate…"

Yes, of course Kowarsky could tell them… He had been in Building A where it all had started...

He had been in a meeting with the head of the Development Department and the head of the Research Department. He had been there to answer questions regarding their work in Section Q. That was when there had been a bang, like a bomb and the floor shook beneath them, almost like an earthquake. The shaking became more violent, sending the binders full of records on the back wall tumbling to the ground, the bookcase right after them. The nearest window shattered… The door crashed open to reveal a manic secretary. She was near hysterical when she spoke,  "I just got a call… Experiment R has broken out of containment. Intelligence spiked off the scale before It broke Its bonds. They say… they say It spoke of redemption. They say that It calls to destroy… It's going for Section Q first…That's all I got before… before the lines failed and the phone went dead…" She dissolved into tears, burying her face in her hands.

Kowarsky's body had at first gone numb, but now it seemed his cells had reawoken at once, all screaming in the same frenzy, "We must get the Treasure before Experiment R does!" What the experiment wanted with it didn't matter. The Treasure was beyond worth, beyond measure of power. If It combined with the Treasure who knew what would happen…

He was out of the room before anyone could say anything else. He was greeted by shattered glass and toppled furniture. People were yelling but he didn't stop to answer any pleas for help. There was only one thing that needed his protection in that moment.

It was only upon thinking back on his trek to Section Q that he realized how little he had paid attention to things around him. In his panic, he had fallen into tunnell vision, barely aware of what was in front of him. It was only the things directly in his path that he could recall. A broken bookcase in his path at one point and a whole slew of papers scattered across the floor of any office he passed through. Somewhere in the back of his consciousness he could hear yells and screams, but the actual words that went with them evaded his perception. He could faintly remember the smell of smoke at some point like sonething was on fire, but he couldnt remember exactly where.

The only thing that was clear before he started down the stairwell in Building B was moving from Building A to Building B. There was a bridge that connected the two buildings from the second level. The framework to the bridge was some form of steel that was supposed to stand up to even fire and earthquakes. It was the walls and ceiling of it that were less secure. It was made of glass - a heavy duty, industrial kind, so it could hold up to weather it was expected to face in its current location.

When he saw what had become of that glass, Kowarsky couldn't help but stop dead in his tracks. Only that framework stood. The glass was shattered. When he focused on certain sections he could see the almost invisible remains of the glass, broken into dangerous edges, jagged and just waiting for an unsuspecting victim. It was a moment before his thoughts caught back up to him, spurring him on with a scream of warning inside his head, "HURRY!"

He didn't move across as fast as he should have. Despite the fact that every cell in his body seemed to be alive with nerves, urging him to run, his curiosity was too strong. He glanced over the side of the bridge and immediately wished he hadn't. He could see shapes laying lifelessly below the bridge that he could only think to be bodies of those that had been on the bridge when whatever had happened, happened. There were people running from the buildings as fast as they could…

There was another rumble as a second earthquake like shock ran through the area. The bridge lurched, rocking ominously back and forth. Kowarsky did a sort of dance with his feet to keep his balance since he had not had the notice to plant himself better. It only lasted a few seconds like the last one and then he ran across the bridge, realizing how stupid it was to dawdle on something that could snap any moment.

Just before he passed the threshold into Building B, he looked back to where he had come from. Building A was smoking. A thick, black cloud protruded from one side. Most of the windows were blown out. Another rumble shook the ground and he watched for just a few seconds, mesmerized by the way the building quivered like a tree swaying in the wind. Then he turned back to his mission.

All scanners where an I.D. card would normally need to be presented for access were now blinking with violent red lights and error messages. Kowarsky skipped past them, leaping over the small desk beside the metal detectors where security would normally be.

The only opposition he had to face on his way to the stairs - the elevator was not a good choice, even in his panic he was smart enough to remember that - was the people who were still trying to evacuate, pushing the opposite direction of him. He shoved through them, not caring who he pushed until he was safe in the quiet of the stairwell. The commotion was muffled, the only clear noises being his pounding feet and heart. It wasn't long before he came full circle, having explained the journey to the other men from his department.

Ovey watched him with wide eyes. The other man's expression had not changed from when he spoke before. "So it's confirmed that It's loose and after the Treasure?" He looked to Ovey then back to Kowarsky. "Then we REALLY have to get out of here."

"But-" Kowarsky began to argue, but the other man cut him off. "The Treasure is not worth any of our lives, no matter how much you think it is, or AVARICE has made you think it is."

"I though you said we were dead anyway," Kowarsky snapped before he could be interrupted again.

The other man looked tired. "We have a small window to get out of here, Kowarsky. It isn't in the building yet, or if It is, It hasn't figured out what floor It needs to be on. We have a chance to get out of here until it starts coming down, until it blocks our only exit. We-" He didn't get to finish.

The building lurched and the room around them went pitch black as the three men tried to keep their footing. The lights were out for maybe five seconds before the backups went on, bathing the room in a eerie, red glow. Once they could see again, the older man headed for the way Kowarsky had come, Ovey right on his heels.

"The Treasure!" Kowarsky insisted.

The other man continued up the stairs, not giving Kowarsky a second thought. Ovey hesitated on the bottom step of the stairwell. He looked over his shoulder at Kowarsky. "I'm sorry, but it's true. The Treasure isn't worth our lives." He didn't wait to see what Kowarsky would choose to do, and shot up the stairs as fast as his feet could take him.

Kowarsky could only stare at where the others had been standing just a moment before. His mind seemed to have gone blank except for one question: What do I do? Since this had begun, his one prerogative had been to get the Treasure, to save it, but the others had been the first to interrupt that, to question it. He turned to look at the entrance to the final descent into Section Q. He was this close. There really was no guarantee of getting out of the building alive now anyway, even if he had followed the others up the stairs.

"No going back now," he said aloud as he willed himself down the final flight of stairs.

The emergency lights were weaker in here, their faint red glow winking on and off so that every other second Kowarsky was bathed in darkness. He moved slower than he wanted, clinging tight to the railing so he could use it to guide his way. Just as he reached the bottom, the building reeled again. There was a loud creaking from the metal stairs behind him that wasn't encouraging. He ignored what may be crumbling behind him and rushed forward. Just ahead was a metal door with a bold "Q" emblazoned upon it. Right when he began to move, the building shook. Kowarsky wasn't prepared enough this time and fell forward onto his hands and knees. In the force of the quake, the door had been shaken open. It swung inwards. In the faint light, Kowarsky could barely make out the case at the opposite side of the room, the case where the Treasure would be…

A new kind of sound hit his ears now. A banging and clanking that was much louder than what he had been hearing before. It couldn't have been more than a couple floors above him. His stomach sank. He knew what was coming.

He began to crawl now in one last desperate effort. Perhaps if he could lock himself into Section Q, he could keep It out long enough to hide in some corner with the Treasure.

There was a new sound like an explosion and a great rush of air. Kowarsky stopped in his tracks, burrowing his head beneath his arms as he curled himself up like a turtle on the ground to protect himself from a small onslaught of debris. This lasted for all of seconds, though it felt like much more. The rumbling did not go away but came in a steady rhythm after that, like footsteps. With each one the floor vibrated.

Kowarsky could barely work up the courage to look up and turn around. At first he looked past It, to the destroyed remains of the stairwell that It seemed to have crushed on It's way down. "It may have a way to get back up that, but not me," were Kowarsky last thoughts.

Just then, It reached him. It created it's own red glow that washed out the emergency lights, blinding Kowarsky. He was unable to take in exactly what It was before he was crushed in Its path like a bug on the sidewalk.