A man walks down the corridor, other than the light projecting from the helmet of his hazmat suit the room is otherwise shadow black. He can hear the crackle of his gieger counter as the milliseverts of radiation increases. He is getting closer. He gets to the end of the hall and see something peculiar. It was not actually the end of the hall. A mammoth hole was now before him. Ever since the sensor malfunction yesterday unusual things were happening at the Radiological Research Facility. First the missing ID cards, now this. He peers down the hole but he is unable to see what lay at the bottom. He hears voices but he cannot tell where they are coming from, they are too distant. He wishes he was at home watching TV, playing board games or simply reading. Surprised, he sees that this massive hole goes all the way to the surface, the moon dimly illustrates but barely has any benefit. This was his first week so this building is new to him. If he interpreted the map correctly, the tripped motion sensors should be at the end of this hall. But how does he get across?
He finds his courage, walks about 15 feet away from the chasm and does a running jump. He catches himself on the edge of the current floor on the far side of the hole and pulls himself up. Ahead he sees a sign: "Warning Radiological Zone Level 5", "This area presents a serious health risk for personale not wearing proper safety gear." There is a picture of a hazmat suit similar to his own on the wall by the warning. A camera above this warning notices him confirming that he is wearing the proper protective gear and grants him entry. "Welcome, Dr. Aizen" says the computer.
Aizen is currently on the fifth floor below the surface out of a total of 200 floors. Originally the plant was intended to be a fallout shelter capable of housing a million people. It was three separate wings: North, South, East, West. The North segment was for sleeping. The South was a nuclear reactor which provided the shelter with warmth and power. The West for cooking. The East for maintaining the food supply.
In the original design the East wing was intended to grow and store food. It was found most sustainable rather than subsist on a regular diet of meat and vegetables the scientists who designed the place realized that insects were far more efficient and produced less waste per quantity compared to vegan or omnivore diets. For most people choosing this shelter over others having to be on an exclusively insect diet was a deal breaker. To solve this the board of directors along with some clever marketers and food scientists and came up with a way of making common foods out of insect parts but making them appear and taste like their non-anthropod counterparts. Fancy advertisements were designed and they were all hush hush on the fact that they were actually eating 99% bug parts with the occasional 1% artificial ingredients, colorings and preservatives.
But that was the first year. Over the next months people began acting strangely. It was as if so many days, month underground without direct sunlight had driven them mad. At first the scientists in charge thought it was something to do with a lack of nutrition. Each resident had a mandatory blood test, but this revealed no irregularities. Citizens living in the lower 50 floors reported hearing other worldly sounds resonating through the reinforced concrete walls. Some went days without sleeping. It was said that they had frightening nightmares, and visions of something most terrible and frightening that lived below the shelter.
Aizen was hired as a scientist and partially as a detective to figure out what had happened.
...
Now where were we. Aizen is on floor 50. His helmet was fogged up 30 flights back and he was maneuvering down the stairs by memorization and sense of touch alone. His legs are sore, his back aches, and he is 20 degrees warmer than he feels is comfortable. He sits down to catch his breath. The filtered ventilator constricts his breathing and simultaneously prevents moisture from escaping. He can now see a little better.
He finally becomes away of his surroundings. The floor is covered in a strange metallic liquid. It is emitting heat and if the gieger counter is to be believed highly radioactive.
