Hailey’s heart beat so rapidly she thought it might burst. In all her twenty-two years, she’d never been face to face with a situation quite like this. Specimen 999 was very much alive, and very much on a major killing spree. The question she was yearning to figure out, was why now? 999–_Trevor—_could have chosen any time to suddenly spring into the horrrfiying monster he was, so why now? There had to be some sort of reason. Of course, she couldn’t simply prance up to the thing and ask it. Not that she’d considered it in the first place.

To make matters worse, Alexander Boff was acting as though everything was quite normal. He was far too comfortable with Trevor running a bloody muck in his fathers organization of more than sixty years.

“I suggest you take my hand, Mrs Bell.” He moved infront of a bookshelf propped up against a white wall. From outside the room, she could hear things being broken, people screaming. Suddenly, red lights began flashing everywhere.

“_Miss _Bell,” she corrected before accepting his hand.

“Ah, apologies…” He pulled her to the side of the shelf with a very noticeable smirk.

She paused for a moment, realizing what he just did. He didn’t even try to hide the fact he was trying to figure out if she had a husband.

Alexander knocked five times, waited two seconds, then knocked again. For a moment, Hailey thought he must’ve been going crazy. Now was not the time to be making beats. But then a part of the shelf opened on the side, to reveal a keypad. He pressed the numbers in so fast she almost didn’t see the code.

5

6

6

9

0

She made herself repeat it over, three times so she had it memorized. Hailey Bell liked to be prepared for anything.

The bookshelf moved aside, and inside the wall, two, metal doors parted. There were hidden elevators here?

Mr Boff pulled her inside, and pressed a button to close the doors, but it didn’t work. Another keypad appeared.

“Damn!” He cursed, trying to remember the passcode. He kept getting it wrong, though. God, who forgets their _own _passcode? Perhaps he wasn’t so amazing as he obviously thought he was.

A crashing sound came from the entrance of the office. Then the most horrific scream they’d ever heard. It sounded like someone taking a pin, and scraping it against metal and wood. It looked as though Trevor had decided to barge in at the most inconvenient time. How’d he know they were in there? Could he have heard them, or maybe his sense of smell surpassed any other animal. But, then again, he wasn’t an animal. To be perfectly truthful, Hailey handn’t the slightest clue to what he was. That was what her team and her were trying to figure out. Of course, that was before Trevor decided to make a rather startling statement.

Hailey’s hands began to shake. She didn’t even know if her team was still alive. Were they in the room when he went wild? If so, who escaped? She didn’t want to even think about it, but there was a strong possibility that they could all be dead.

“What are you waiting for! Put the code in!” She yelled.

“I—I don’t remember it!”

“What in Gods name do you mean?”

“I don’t work well under sufficient amounts of pressure!”

_Could’ve fooled me, _she thought, absentmindedly.

“Move!” She pushed Alexander to the side. She put in the _correct_ code, and the doors began to close.

Two hands appeared out of nowhere. They pulled the doors open, slowly. The elevator screeched in protest. These were no human hands. They were long, claw-like nails, attached to lengthy fingers. And they dripped with fresh blood. No amount of words could even begin to describe the forcity of such an unholy creature. It was almost unsightly.

They both looked up, at the same time, to see two, hollow-sunkin eyes. It was like staring at a living corpse, decaying. The smell was rancid—something that was not there before, when Hailey was working with Specimen 999 hours ago. It smelled of…death. Crimson terror streamed down the sides of its mouth. Broken teeth, sharp and sure smiled down at them.

Then it screamed. So did Hailey.

“OH MY GODD!!!!” Alexander screamed along with them, so girlishly Hailey couln’t help but shoot him a surprised glance. She grabbed a fire extinguisher from the side of the elevator wall. She sprayed it into the monsters eyes. It let out a sickening wail, before letting go of the doors. They began closing again. Trevor fell backwards, breaking the window towards the back of the room and falling out. For a moment, they thought he’d surely plunged to his death. But when a hand shot up, and sunk its claws into the floor, they realized their relief had been more than misled. Trevor pulled himself back up, and rushed toward the two, more than prepared to strike for the kill.

“Do these doors close any faster?” Hailey cried, desperately.

“You didn’t press the _turbo shut!” _

“What the fuck is the _turbo sh—“_

“What grotesque speech for someone as decent as yourself, Miss Bell,” he marveled, sarcastically.

Hailey ignored him.

He slammed a fist on the side of the wall, punching a yellow button. The doors suddenly shot closed.

That wasn’t before they caught a glimpse of the monsters tail. That’s right, a tail. A bony tail with a hand attached to the end. However, Trevor wasn’t smart enough to retaliate said hand, before the doors fully shut. With a sound that prompted them to make a face similar to when someone presses on a fresh bruise, it’s hand came off and went down the elevator with them. Blood spurred onto Hailey and Alexader’s faces.

Hailey’s chest moved up and down, rapidly, as she attempted to catch her breath. She heard a rather large groan to her right. Mr Boff was covered in blood, his pearly white shirt far from the point of ever being so white again. His hair stuck up on his head. “Revolting,” he cringed, wipping spittle from his face. Hailey seethed.

She sat down, trying not to pay any mind to the severed hand just infront of her. “God, why did I ever sign up here?” She mumbled to herself. “This was a mistake—this whole thing was a mistake—“

“Yes, why did you sign up here, Miss Bell,” Alexander commented, inquisitively.

She was too busy muttering to herself to shoot him any sort of black look, though.

“Uh—Miss Bell!”

The hand suddenly moved, and began crawling toward her. She gasped, almost accepting her fate. She was going to be shredded into little pieces by a severed hand bigger than Alexanders head!

“Look out!”

She sprang behind him. He picked up the fire extinguisher and brought it down on the hand. Hailey covered her face and ears, wanting for the sound of bones breaking and blood splattering to be over with. Her whole body shook, uncontrollably. She felt two palms rest on her shoulders, a moment later, and screamed.

“Open your eyes. It’s me!”

But she wasn’t responding.

“_Hailey!” _He spoke her name loud enough so she could hear it over the stress of her mind.

Alexander shook her to her senses and she opened her eyes. The elevator finally stopped moving. The girl stared in horror at Mr Boff, who, only moments ago, was clean and well-kept—sort of. “It’s me,” he repeats slowly. She nodded, and let go of his shirt that she hadn’t realized she’d grabbed hold of in the first place. He sat up, still knelt. “We have to go.”

“No—No, we can’t. It’ll get us—“

“He’ll get us if we _stay_ here_._”

“We can call the police. They’ll take care of it.”

“Hailey, you saw what that thing did to those scientists—what it almost did to us. They can’t help us. And even if we wanted to, I don’t have a phone—do you?”

She blinked.

“The closest communication device is in the the secretaries lounge, and that’s where all the hallways in the building meet up. He _will_ catch us.” He says the last part slowly, enunciating every word.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Hailey, if you won’t come, I have no choice but to leave you here. It would really suck, but I’d rather take my chances on trying to escape with my life,” he stated bluntly. “What about you?”

The ceiling shook just above their heads. Paint rained down on their heads. Trevor was on the second floor, just above them. How was that possible, though? They were so far up only minutes ago…

“Hailey, _please,” _Alexander pleaded. He searched her eyes, not exactly knowing what to find.

She nodded, finally.

Alexander sighed, and pulled her up, before they stepped out onto the first floor, not fully prepared to take part in possibly the most dangerous chase scene known to man.