Your name is Frederick, though you have only ever been called D8210 since you signed on for Echo’s Corporate Research Initiative. Seems sketchy, sure, but you don’t have anything else to do, seeing as your family Oofed during a vortex raid, and you had been contemplating joining them before the local Echo Agent told you this could get back at Vortex for what they had done. To start, it seemed simple, just work in an office processing battle reports for a month, get a paycheck, and be sent on your way. But the work was repetitive, even for an office job, until you realized you were just getting the same reports in a cycle. Confused, you asked your Boss how anything you had done was important, but he just told you to keep working. Irritated and concerned, you start talking with your fellow volunteers about leaving. For the most part they dismiss you, Quinn being too lazy to do anything about, Alex and Will just wanting to work, and Frank threatening to tell the Boss. John and Duality seemed interested, the former due to a similar discontent, and the latter wanting to discover the purpose of the experiment. With a plan to leave set, you split up and converge on where you entered, only when you open the door, the lights flicker out, an alarm sounds, and you fall unconscious. When you wake, nobody else is there, and you hear the Boss’s voice crackle over the intercom:
“If you want to leave so badly, go ahead and try, I was getting bored waiting. Good luck though.”
Unnerved, you thread your way through the corridors only to realize the rooms are looping in the same manner your documents were. The lights flicker again, and you duck under a desk out of instinct. Lucky for you, Checker isn’t very thorough…or should I say Alex. Startled, you stare into the twisted form of your former friend as he ravages the halls searching for you, a low growl echoing throughout the corridor that turns into a guttural scream of frustration before fading away. You cautiously emerge, and proceed further, trying new turns, searching for any sign of difference, each choice plunging you deeper into the labyrinth. You hear a slight chuckle from nearby and dart into a pile of shredded documents, peering out as Will’s disheveled form frantically shoots around the room, repeatedly checking spots just after you thought he left, thus the moniker the Repeater. Eventually proceeding into the offices once more, you spot John in a distant pocket of shadows, prompting a cry of joy to emerge from you, only for it to go unrecognized by the stumbling husk. The Checker being drawn by your noise, you move towards a closet, only for John to snap his head up in a malevolent glare. Forced to flee, the primordial cries of what was once Alex following your every step, you trip on a discarded paper and fall through the floor into what appears to be an abandoned version of what you just left, tinted orange with rust, the hole you fell through sealing itself in an instant.
Creeping through the halls, you spot Frank at the end of the hall, who returns your gaze and begins plodding towards you from the doorway he had been in front of. Ducking into a side room, you stand behind the door and watch as he tears apart the room after walking past you. Slipping by, you walk through where he had been guarding and slam the door shut on him, his task as the Guardian having been rendered obsolete. Emerging into a large office, you spot a file different from those you had encountered previously. Picking it up, you hear footsteps, darting into a locker since you assume it is Checker, not knowing as the lights are broken here in the rusted halls. Drawing a fearful breath, you watch and find… oh… Quinn’s napping nearby. May as well read the file seeing as anything else would be a Time Waste:
Project Incarceron
Outline
Due to an inability to provide for Vortex prisoners and effectively gain their information, the Echo High Council has authorized the use of the Subrooms as a workaround to the war prisoner guidelines outlined in the Gimeva Conventions. Experiment staff are to ensure the security of the containment so as to prevent a security breach that would inflame the charged political atmosphere. Subjects are to be observed for psychological degradation and physical mutation when placed in confinement, with the one in each group that takes the most initiative being delayed in exposure to the true facility, while all other subjects will be left unattended but surveilled for a period of one (1) month.
Log #1 Subjects recruited. Assimilation into experiment successful. Awaiting subject response.
Log #9 Subject D8210 has activated Phase 2 and has been sedated prior to transport in one month’s time. Other subjects have begun exposure to the facility.
Log#23Subject D8210 has been inserted. Test to ensure upgraded security of Zone 3, the “REDACTED” is underway. Permission to neutralize the Subject in event of compromised security has been approved.
Log #24 Not Entered
Letting out a soft gasp of horror at what you have walked into, you start thinking a zap to the head would have been better than this nightmare. Seeing Quinn has moved on, you step out, and fall once more. But now, you are back in the world, at least you think! Look, there’s the city sprawling out before you! The Boss’s voice crackles to life once more:
“Congrats D8210, you survived. Despite my wishes, your oofing order has been rescinded in exchange for silence. Use this chance wisely, you will not receive another.”
Crying with joy, you stumble out to the street and begin to walk home, relief flooding your mind. Only… it seems too easy. Sure it all looks real, but then again, who are you to say, you just fell through alternate dimensions. A sense of paranoia makes you turn, just in time to dodge a blow from Distorted Duality.
“You have seen they won’t let you go brother. Come, let me give you a True Rest.”
Fleeing, you duck into an alley and fall once again. Scrambling to your feet, you stare out into the void around you, a single light flickering on over a door in the distance. You hear the Boss behind you:
“Shame, thought it would work this time. Suppose it was because of the file wasn’t it? Don’t worry, the imbecile who left it behind has been…dealt with, and now it’s time for you to go with them.”
Sprinting for the door, you dodge strikes from seemingly every angle, pulling open the knob, leaping forward… falling… falling… falling into the city below. You have a fleeting moment to grim at the irony of it before your body collides with the ground with an echoing CRUNCH as your bones shatter against the pavement.