Date:
24/12/XX |
Interviewer: Jessica Andes
Interviewees: Sam Verdant
Transcriber: Harvey Inkson |
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Andes: You've been quiet ever since you were admitted into our wards. If this is about your escape from that level, we do have on-board psychologists you can speak to on the matt-
Verdant: It's - It's not that. Well, I mean it's about the level but not the escape.
Andes: Your fellow escapee did mention you seemed lost in thought as you both left. What seems to be on your mind?
Verdant: I'll probably be put somewhere if I bring it up. It's a weird train of thought.
Andes: Only if it deems you a threat to your own safety.
Verdant: Wow, you people really are the same cross dimensions, huh? Ever since that moment we escaped the danger, there's been this feeling bubbling in my chest that something wasn't right in there. Outside of the obvious things, of course. When it all got quiet it felt… probably not the right word, but… lonely?
Andes: With all due respect, I doubt a level would be sapient enough to feel, Sam.
Verdant: You'd think that, and yet we have places like - Oh, I'm going off track now. The point is… I think it may be too soon to simply label it a death trap.
Andes: A bold statement, considering its current death tally.
Verdant: I know, but I just… The question is itching my brain.
Andes: Sounds like you plan to go back in.
Verdant: Stars above, no! I'm in no state to go back in! I won't be going back in! I just… think some more testing needs to be done somehow, someway. It's looking for something, I feel, outside of all the bloodshed.
Andes: … I think I will end this here. While your thoughts are out of line, you at least have the mind to not immediately go back to that place. Someone else will check in with you later this week, and if you're recovering well enough, the wards will discharge you.
Verdant: … better than being padded somewhere, I suppose.
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Not even five weeks later, the level has called his heart back into its domain. He stands once more at the entryway, an object glimmering in his hands.
One step.
Another step.
He holds his clenched hand out into the darkness, and squeezes tighter on the sharpened knife until red seeps between his fingers. He tilts the hand so that the blood begins to cascade and drip slowly from the handle.
One drip.
Another drip.
All is still quiet. He steps further inside, creating a trail he can follow back home. Nothing stirs. Nothing sputters to life. His blood draws no response from the walls surrounding him. He pushes down the nauseated longing.
The sound of metal sliding against metal.
He turns a corner to find a small obelisk rising out of the ground, a small scalpel extending itself from within. An offering. A question. His heart lurches at the sight, but his footsteps draw him closer. His bloodied hand is reaching out before he can stop himself, the knife clattering on the ground beneath him.
The blade retracts.
A moment of clarity, taking back his hand as if burned. He should leave. He should have left. He should have never came back in the first place.
He lifts his clean hand.
The scalpel inches closer.
The overwhelming feeling of fulfillment grows to be too much to handle. He runs - runs away from the scalpel, away from the factory, away from his heart.
He doesn't think of how easily it let him leave until he's home, left to wallow in the silence and lack of pain. He doesn't think about how easily he found his way there, as he lays desperately trying to think of anything but the weight on his chest.
He has to go back.
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:Survival Difficulty:Class deadzone
Sentient Level • Active Threats • Mind-altering Coercion
WARNING
If you have previously entered this level, it is heavily advised to never enter again. It will alter your mind and force you to spill blood against your own volition. We shall consider you a lost cause if you choose not to heed this warning.
— — —
M.E.G. - Bettering Humanity
Level 554 is a sentient, living deathtrap that seeks out the flesh and blood of all those who wander within it. It presents itself as an abandoned factory, completely silent and 'dead' when one first steps inside of it. The moment one is to somehow shed blood, is when it comes to life with a horrifying whir of mechanisms and gears and steam.
Your path out twists and bends as it tries to siphon your blood through whatever means it can: sawblades, spikes, artillery, pistons - if it can make you bleed, it will try and use it against you. The few who had made it out alive have not done so unchanged.
Eventually, it grows bored of your ability to escape its hunger, and the door out will appear before you. All of its machinations will disappear back into the walls, floors and ceiling, and it will leave you in silence. Leave swiftly after: it is unknown whether it simply bides its time.
One may be tempted to re-enter after barely escaping with their lives: only one has so far. It knows your blood and it knows you, and it will begin to tempt you to spill your blood on its many blades. You cannot shed your own - its sick sense of gratification calls for the blood to be spilled by its own hands.
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NOTICE
Sam Verdant was found moments before entering Level 554 and detained by a collective of M.E.G. members tasked with his protection and well-being. He has since been detained in one of Level 2's wards for his own safety, and will be watched over for the foreseeable future. Doctors are advised to sedate him if he succumbs to a bout of madness and delirium.
— — —
M.E.G. - Bettering Humanity
He knows what the feeling is now.
As he stares up at the blinding lights of the hospital ward, looking anywhere but at the doctor who believes him delusional, he finally understands it - all of it. Why he could feel its loneliness after his first visit, why he felt so comfortable bleeding himself just to awaken it again, why it felt so crushing to run away right at the precipice of everything.
And now he's lost his chance.
He cries - silent but harrowing, too tired to break out of the bindings that keep him trapped. Years of uncertainty of himself and of others in his life, and his answer laid in a level that knew nothing but violence. He pleads quietly under his breath, pleads to be back there again, pleads to be free, and shuts his eyes.
The groaning of metal.
The panicked shouts of the doctor.
A sudden lurch in his stomach.
He thinks he's gone under again. If he focuses hard enough, he can perfectly picture the cold, unfeeling metal beneath his body and the smell of industrial machinery at rest.
Almost too perfectly.
His plea falls from his lips as easy as blood.
Armaments used to kill and maim aid him to his feet and usher him through the light - right into the core of the level; its heart. His breath grows heavy as his heart begins to thunder away.
It opens up to him.
And he will open up just as easily.
You… you're so beautiful.
He openly accepts the feeling in his heart, now.
He tried to deny it. He tried to run from it. He laid in his home in fear of it. But now? There's nothing else he needs. There's nothing else he wants. There's nothing else he desires, other than to be cradled in its embrace.
ba-bump
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:Survival Difficulty:Class 1E
Secured • Minor Hazards • No Hostility
Level 554, in its current state, is an abandoned metal factory that no longer seeks the taste of blood. No machinery stirs, no blades reach to tears visitors asunder - all that remains is an unlit factory with a slow, steady heartbeat that echoes throughout its metallic walls.
The whereabouts of Sam Verdant remain unknown, M.E.G. operatives having lost contact with him after a sudden no-clip from within Level 2's wards, but it is to be assumed that he is dead somewhere within.
Do not find him.
Do not search for answers.
Leave the machine alone.
