“Good morning Morgan, today is Monday, Mar-” the alarm clock manages to say before my hand smacks the button, while the curtains automatically begin rising over the penthouse windows at my movement. I get up, stretch, and pick up my transcribe, answering Alex’s wake up call. He finished by quickly thanking me for joining him, and I grumble as I peek at some emails on my computer from some people on the Talos team before going to the suit I had been given.


    I pulled it off the hook on the door and sat back down on my bed with it in hand. I just stared blankly at it, wondering what psychopath thought it was a good idea to put a hanger inside of the literal spacesuit with a fused metal collar for a helmet. Let’s be realistic, how am I going to get it out?


    After a few minutes of grunting, shifting the hangar and suit around, I barely, just barely, manage to pull the stupid thing out, tossing it vaguely in the direction of the trash can as I sit there again, wondering how I’m going to get the suit on. I sigh, and give up and just look for instructions. I don’t find instructions, but what I did find was a seal on the back of the suit, which allowed me to both put it on and would have saved me a lot of time getting the stupid hangar out.


    I finally pulled the boots on and stepped outside my door, waving slightly at a maintenance worker working on some pipes behind a panel, who greeted me back “Morning mister Yu.” in a polite voice. I step into the elevator, selecting the top floor, tapping my foot slightly while I wait. Oddly enough, nobody got on as I went up, but that thought left my mind as I stepped toward the helicopter.


    As I moved onto the helipad, I noticed something flash in the corner of my eye. I turn and look, but all that is there is some vents across the room. Odd. I step into the helicopter, barely noting the pilot''s greeting as he takes off. I eventually forget the weird flash as he says “Nice view of the bay over there!” I look, and do note that the water is beautiful.


    We land, and he wished me good luck and, despite the thick, leather coated spacesuit gloves I am wearing, said “Mind the glass on your way out!” I just shake my head silently with a small smile on my face as I step into the building. I pause when I see one of… them. An operator. Stupid things are creepy.


    It greets me, and started describing what it was as I rushed past and into the elevator. An automated system asked me to confirm that I had a meeting in the test lab, which I confirm, before it automatically went down a couple dozen floors. I stepped out, and there he was. Alex Yu. My brother, and a bit of a strange person. Our entire family is now that I think of it.


    He talked to me, saying despite how unconventional the tests might seem, it’s fine, breaking convention is in our blood, etc. I mostly paid attention to the floor paneling near a couple seats. It almost looked… depressed? Like they put that entire part of the floor in too low. And it almost looked like the edge of the other panels was made of some white, synthetic material instead of wood.


    Alex, seemingly without noticing, then ushered me into the first room of the testing chambers. A trio of scientists was talking quietly behind the glass, before one noticed me and they all turned and faced me. The one in the middle introduced himself as Doctor Bellamy, and told me what the tests were. Just a bunch of random tasks I’m supposed to do with the first, quickest thought in mind. Simple enough.


    He then said the first test was to… get rid of the boxes in the red circle as fast as I could. He told me to just press the red button on a stand in the middle of the room once I was ready. I tensed, slammed the button, and sprinted over to the boxes, kicked two out of the circle and threw the last one behind me. The scientist seemed a bit puzzled but asked me to continue.


    In the next one, I had to… hide in a room with only a chair. He asked me to start by pressing a red button on a stand again, and I did, rolling behind the chair and glaring at an obvious camera in the corner of the room. They had another baffled conversation about me hiding behind the chair, as if they expected differently, and there was something about ‘installed exactly what Tina brought down’?


    Figuring it was an equipment error, which was partially confirmed by the scientist''s mutterings, I stepped into the last room. I was told to press the red button to start again, and that my goal was to press a blue button on the other side of the room, with a short wall in my way. He told me to start, and I did, rushing the wall, sliding cleanly over it, and slamming the button. He then said “Any synaptic register? No? That’s fine.” or something like that.


    He then finally asked me to step into one final room. Eyebrow raised. I wondered what this one would be. I entered, and knew this one was different. There was a desk with a touch screen, and a chair. I sat down and he asked one of his assistants if he could get a coffee before turning to me and saying that this was more of a personality test. I was to just pick whatever I thought seems best.


    The first question was incredibly simple. If I had to go on vacation, where? I picked new places. Familiar places are boring. The next was… darker. The Trolley Problem. There were five people on a track with a train coming at them, and I could switch the track, but someone else was also on that track. I chose the switch, as one death over five is preferable. Theoretically.


    The next one was almost the same, except instead I could push a fat guy onto the track instead of switching it. Same answer. Greater good right? Then the last one. I could leave the track alone, I could push the fat guy, or I could jump on it myself to save the five people. I sat for a good minute before choosing to jump myself. Bellamy says “Oooh, heavy stuff.” and then went on about how he would show me a picture and I was to pick what it seemed like the most to me.


    There was a flash of black, and then there was a second coffee mug on his table. I rubbed my eyes, and noticed the other person at the desk staring at it too. He then picked up the mug, looked inside, and said “Is this my coffee? It’s empty.” and then… it attacked. It suddenly turned into some sort of black monster, attacking him and sending a leg or something down his throat, sucking something out of him and probably ripping him apart from the inside.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    I rushed out of my chair, grabbed it, and was about to throw it at the window when green gas poured inside and I fell asleep.


    “Good morning Morgan, today is Monday, March fiftee-” the alarm clock manages to say before my hand smacks the button. I freeze, remembering the weird nightmare. I pick up my transcribe, and move to my bathroom. I splash my face and notice the mirror is weirdly misted up. Shrugging it off, I move to my computer, and freeze when I open my emails. All of the recent emails are titled ‘Danger. Get out now.’ sent from ‘January’ and with the content of simply ‘EOM’.


    I move and just pull my suit on after messing around with the hangar as fast as I can. Is this some sort of sick joke? I pull the suit on, check that it’s flashlight works, and step outside. I gasp, seeing that the lights are out or flickering, with a maintenance worker dead on the ground, frozen mid crawl, face distorted. I hear a bang in the distance and move to the dead worker’s wrench. I pick it up, holding it close, before a call on my transcribe picks up.


    It’s from this mysterious ‘January’. It answers all by itself and this ‘January’ explains that there isn’t time and that I have to get out of my apartment building. I notice with extreme confusion that there isn''t an elevator like there should be, only a blank wall, so my eyes drift to the window and the balcony beyond. ‘January’ didn’t say I had to get away from the building, right? Just outside. I step to the door and try it. It’s locked.


    This is even more odd, as I never lock my balcony window. Who’s gonna climb seventy floors just to break into my room? Seriously. Feeling something is very wrong, I step back and swing the wrench at the window. I hear a horrible buzzing sound, and the window breaks and becomes clear, broken glass, displaying a completely different scene behind it. I look at the other windows, which look normal.


    I step outside the broken window, and look through the other sides of the intact ones. I can see inside my apartment. I look around, and see a lot of office supplies. I check a nearby computer, and find an entire list of things I supposedly do on schedule, from the exact time I wake up to the time I leave my apartment. Creepy.


    I step quietly and cautiously through towards a door, my new wrench in hand. On the other side I find what appears to be the observation area from the testing area in my dreams? All the lights are off in the chambers but the second chamber, chamber B. The hiding one. I look, and something black jumps at the window, cracking it before disappearing.


    I look through the window cautiously, and almost step towards it when I freeze. Why were there two chairs? I lean a little closer, and one flashes in a cloud of black as some weird black creature with four legs, kinda like a crab jumps at me, crashing through the window. I jump slightly before swinging the wrench at it wildly.


    After hitting it about six times it explodes, leaving a small black clump behind. After poking the clump a few times with the wrench, I determine it’s dead before turning to the nearly broken science operator in the room, flying jaggedly through the air, trailing sparks. “Not much help were you…” I muttered as I moved to some stairs.


    I exit the stairs on some sort of catwalk about the entire area, and keep going. I eventually reach another flight of stairs going down, leading to an airlock of sorts. I enter it, and decontaminant mist flies out of vents, washing everything. On the other side, a man suddenly appears, screaming and banging on the glass and glancing behind him. Suddenly one of the black monsters jumps him, doing the weird sucking motion inside of his mouth.


    As I watch, he shrivels and deforms, dying before my eyes. And then the monster that January contacted me and told me was called a ‘Typhon Cacoplasmus’, or more simply, a ‘Mimic’, started pulsating, before growing extra legs and suddenly splitting into four entirely intact mimics. They disperse, disappearing into potted plants, vents, and through the only door. Knowing I had to keep going, I just snuck through the door when the airlock opened.


    I found a cushy office on the other side, and noticed a locked door and an unlocked maintenance vent in the corner. Steeling myself for death, I suddenly get up and sprint to the far side of the room, ignoring the sounds of mimics behind me as I clamber up the stacked boxes and almost tear the vent open, slamming it behind me and locking it tight. Gasping for breath, I note with relief that other than feeble pounding, none of the mimics get through.


    I then turned and crawled through the vent, eventually reaching the other side, which was apparently just on the other side of the locked door. I then noticed a room with a piano in it behind glass. I paused by the window, looking through, when a black humanoid suddenly teleported to me, watching me panic from the other side of the glass. January chimed in, telling me it was a ‘Typhon Anthrophantasmus’, or a ‘Phantom’.


    Gasping, I was almost ready to go when the lights flickered ominously and the phantom disappeared. Very creepy. I sat for another few minutes and kept going, freezing almost immediately again. There was a person in a security uniform, dead on the floor, with a strange gun in her hands and a mimic, frozen in place by this weird white foam, similar to a fire extinguishers foam, that covered the entire area in these thick, foamy blobs that were oddly solid and yet… squishy. Taking advantage of the Mimics disadvantage, I smashed it, before taking the gun.


    I quickly figured out how to reload it and then grabbed the rest of the ammo for it that the guard had. I then continued into the bigger room, with a fancy fountain in the middle, plants all around, and chairs here and there. I also saw about five mimics scatter and hide. I stepped closer and one jumped out that I hadn’t noticed. I fired the gun at it and was very temporarily confused when white goo came out, before it quickly expanded and solidified into the foam that I had seen.


    I froze the mimic completely, as one shot apparently wasn’t enough, before continuing and smashing it. January spoke up and said that I needed to get the ‘Neuromod’ in the display case on a dias, and then reach my office in the lobby. I then rushed it, freezing and cracking all the mimics that jumped at me, and knocked the glass away, pulling out the neuromod. January told me how to use it and how to pull up the list of enhancements available from it.


    I remembered now. Neuromods were weird. They somehow loosened the brain and rearranged and added to parts of it, somehow giving you pre determined skills. Like if you had the mapped brain of an expert mathematician, had a neuromod giving advanced math skills off of that brain map made, and then used it on yourself, you would get those exact skills. It was miraculous. And I had an interesting selection of combat based modifications available.


    I chose one that would just make me stronger, faster, and tougher by a little bit through mental training, which January commended me on, before putting it to my eye as needed and pulling the trigger. I felt a faint pinprick of pain as the needles pierced just past my eye and into my brain, injecting the chemicals and modifying my brain. I swear I saw neurons before it was over, and I pulled the machine away. Now empty, it was worthless, so I tossed it aside. I then turned to the airlock to the lobby and stepped through.