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Alarms blared, bathing the darkened halls in red as the intern sprinted down them.
His dirty blonde hair messily fell about his face, and he held a small stack of papers. The black rectangle glasses framing his green eyes sat crooked on his nose.
He struggled to stay upright as he ran for his life, tripping over himself multiple times. He kept looking behind him, as if he was expecting the shadows to reach out and grab him.
Reaching the room he was running for, he scrambled to get his ID card in the slot, fumbling it and dropping it twice.
Finally, the door clicked and slid open. He practically fell inside, slamming the door shut behind him.
Inside the room, multiple computer screens illuminated the faces of about a dozen people, either working on them or watching others work. The desks were arranged in rows, all facing the front of the room, which held a big screen showing multiple security cameras’ perspectives.
Everyone had a grim look, and orders were passed around in hushed tones.
The intern straightened the papers he held and presented them to a man standing in the middle of the room, watching the security footage on the big screen.
The man took them, dismissing the intern, who went and sat in a corner to catch his breath.
The man was dressed smartly, a black suit with dark sunglasses on, even indoors. He had several items strapped around his waist, including a flashlight and a handgun.
He read the papers quickly, his face twitching in frustration before resetting back to his usual impassive look as he set the papers down on a desk.
He kept watching the security footage, his eyes flicking between the screens behind his glasses. Nothing moved onscreen, only the flashing red light kept the footage from seeming like a still picture.
“Sir?” Someone behind him spoke up. “We got something.”
“Put it on.” He growled. This whole situation was nothing more than a minor setback to him. A small inconvenience in his daily routine.
The screen loaded a new image, a recording from a minute ago of a hallway that the man recognized as the opposite side of the floor he was currently on.
Similar to the footage he'd just been watching, it depicted the empty hallway, red lights and alarms filling the scene. For a moment, nothing seemed different.
Then something flashed by, moving quickly down the hallway past the camera. It looked humanoid, about as tall as the average person.
But its back was too lumpy, and it moved too fast to be human. Its eyes glinted momentarily as they caught the light from the alarms.
“Sir, it appears to be coming this way. What do we do?” A different person asked.
As if to prove his point, someone screamed down the hallway. An agonized shriek that cut off abruptly.
Everyone in the room fell silent, the fear palpable in the air.
“We stay put. They can't get in here. Shut off all access to this room, including air vents.” The man ordered.
“Sir, that was only one of them. We haven't seen the other one at all since this started.” A woman pointed out, sounding terrified.
The man swore under his breath, turning his eyes back to the security footage.
These creatures had made his day much more complicated than it needed to be. They'd been under attack for about half an hour, and they'd only ever caught one of the two on camera.
They had caught two mutants several weeks earlier. They had found them in the park, unsuspecting an attack and messing around with each other. They had talked and shoved each other like they were best friends.
The man knew that they were monsters though. And monsters weren't capable of human emotions and cognition.
Quickly incapacitating both of them, they brought them back to this research facility and ran a few tests before they woke up. Both were turtles, one appeared to be a red eared slider, the other a spiny softshell.
They were color coded, one in blue, the other in purple. The slider was carrying an odachi, the softshell a high-tech bō staff. They confiscated all of their items.
They already had a large biodome set up, so they put the two in it to see if they still had turtle instincts. They were expecting the two to separate, each claiming territory for themselves.
Instead they stuck together, using chirps instead of English to communicate and hunting together, catching both fish and small animals they put in the dome.
But over the past week, they had gotten quieter and harder to find, only the slider remaining out in the open often. The softshell was hiding most of the time, hard to find in the thick plant life.
Both turtles seemed to be less and less sane, showing more hysterical behavior, as if they were losing their minds. But the man couldn't believe that. Monsters don't have sanity.
And then at about nine this evening, one of the doors opened, and both escaped before anyone noticed.
They had caught both on camera momentarily as they escaped, but the softshell hadn't been seen again, while the slider's progress through the building could be easily tracked.
Someone had sounded the alarm, locking every door except to accepted credentials.
The man leaned forward, staring intensely at the camera footage in front of him.
Something sprinted past one of the cameras showing the hallway outside the room. The same fast humanoid figure from earlier.
The room fell completely silent again.
“Vents are shut, Sir, shall I stop the-” one of the men was cut off as every computer, screen, and light in the building died all at once. As the room plunged into pitch black silence, the people inside froze in fear.
The man swore louder, pulling a flashlight out of his pocket and flicking it on.
“At least the doors are locked?” Someone tried hopefully.
“No, the locks are all electronic. Whoever designed them that way will be fired. And whoever made the power for the whole darn building so easy to shut off is going to be fired as well!” The man hissed, his frustration rising.
“Um, Sir, the power isn't that easy to shut off. There are several firewalls and security checkpoints in the way before you even get close to the code and backup code running it.” A nervous-sounding woman spoke up.
“Well then someone needs to make it harder to break into.” The man huffed.
“We have to move. It's not safe here anymore.” The man grabbed his gun, loading it as he strode to the door.
All of the people in the room moved at once, gathering behind him as he silently slid the door open.
He quickly checked both ways with his flashlight before stepping out into the hallway. Beckoning everyone else out, he started down the hall to the left. Several others with flashlights flicked theirs on and watched behind the group.
Everyone crowded close, the clicking of guns being loaded could be heard throughout the group.
They crept down the hallway, barely making any noise as they walked. It was dead silent and pitch black without the alarms.
The man stayed on high alert the whole time, listening for any hint of where the monsters could be in the building.
He heard faint clicking in the vents, like clawed feet padding across the metal. It was further away, but still close enough to be heard.
“Sir?” Someone's trembling voice asked.
“What?” He snapped. He needed to focus on other things than his people's anxieties.
“I, uh, think something's following us…” the voice whispered.
“No kidding, Sherlock.” But the man stopped, as did everyone else.
There was a faint echo effect after they stopped. A momentary click as something behind them stopped too.
The man, along with everyone else with a flashlight turned the beam to the hall behind them.
Standing completely still behind them was the red eared slider mutant. He was slightly crouched, frozen mid stride. He glared at them, heterochromatic eyes reflecting the light of their flashlights. He had a slight smirk on his face.
Everyone in the group was frozen in fear, no one even breathed. For a moment, neither group moved.
The man's eyes flicked up and down the monster. He noticed with a hint of horror the red stains on its hands and the red smear across its mouth.
“Run.” The slider giggled maniacally.
He burst forward, faster than they could think and took down one of the guys at the back holding a flashlight.
The guy screamed, the sound coupled by the turtle's hysterical laughter.
Everyone else took off down the hallway, the man leading them, as soon as they all could react.
“Sir! Where do we g-” someone yelled as they ran, but he was cut off as the slider tackled him to the ground.
“To the main exit! Just around this corner!” The man ordered.
Another person fell to the slider with a shriek. A gun went off as they did, and several other people yelped and ducked.
Someone sprinted past the man around the corner, putting his hands on the door handles of the main exit.
Something dropped off the ceiling, taking the person down. The man stopped short, several people running into him from the sudden stop.
His flashlight fell to the ground, flickering on and off before turning off completely.
In the flickering light, the man could see the other turtle, the softshell, standing over the guy by the doors. He wasn't standing up straight, instead hunched over the guy, his back to the group.
He had the metal shell that they had found him with, the one they had confiscated. His purple bandana was tied around his neck, as if he had put it on in haste. His wrappings had been put back on as well.
Strapped to his shell was the odachi the slider had been carrying, as well as his blue mask and wrappings.
In the last flickers of the fallen flashlight, the man could see a glint of something in the softshell's hand, something sharp. A scalpel from one of their labs.
The light flickered once more, the man saw the glint of the turtle's eyes as he turned ever so slightly to look at them, and the light went out. Something metallic squeaked, like it was under intense strain.
He picked up the flashlight, smacking it several times with his hand before it turned back on.
The softshell was gone. Only the person lay on the ground in front of the doors. The vertical bar handles on the doors had been twisted together, preventing escape.
The man flicked the light towards the ceiling, but nothing was there.
“Sir…?” The intern asked, gulping in fear.
“What now?” The man snapped, turning his light back behind the group.
The slider was standing there again, his face twitching between blank and slightly annoyed.
Their group numbers had shrunk to five.
The man sneered at the turtle, pointing his gun in its direction.
“Surrender, turtle. I'm not afraid to shoot.” He stepped forward.
He really didn't care if they were dead or alive. If they died, it would enable them to explore their anatomy more thoroughly.
“You should be.” The turtle grinned, an eerie smile that slightly unsettled the man.
The man put his finger on the trigger.
A heavy weight dropped from the ceiling, landing on him and bringing him to the ground. His gun fired at the ceiling before it was knocked out of his hand. His flashlight rolled away, yet the light ended up facing him.
The softshell was pinning him to the ground, hissing, eyes narrowed to slivers. His claws dug into the man's arms and he kept a foot firmly planted in his chest.
The slider approached, the other four people backing away as he did. He smirked before snapping at them playfully. They screamed and ran away into the dark hallway.
He stopped at the man's head, crouching down and looking into his eyes upside down.
“Hello, Agent Bishop.” His voice sounded calm and hospitable, not like he was holding the man captive.
“What are you going to do now?” Bishop spat.
“Oh, we were going to let you decide.” The slider reached over and took his things from the softshell's back. He took the time to carefully retie his mask around his head, as well as redo all of his wrappings.
“You have two options.” The slider said when he finished. “One, the easy way, you let us walk out of here, erase all records of our existence, and never look for us or any of our kind again.”
Bishop took a shaky breath, it was hard to breathe under the softshell's weight.
“Or two, the hard way, you run. And we chase you.” The slider stated simply.
“That's it?” Bishop asked incredulously.
“Yup. That's it. Oh, did I mention what would happen if, sorry, when we caught you?” The slider's eyes lit up madly. He went on without waiting for an answer. “Donnie? Show the nice man what would happen.”
The softshell grinned in a similar way to the slider. His hand flashed away from Bishop's arm momentarily and reappeared holding the scalpel Bishop had seen earlier.
The scalpel was no longer gleaming silver, however. It was stained red, and still somewhat wet.
Bishop's breath caught in horror and his eyes flicked over to the man who lay still by the blocked exit doors.
The slider looked with him, smirking the whole time.
The softshell put the scalpel to Bishop's neck, pressing just hard enough to draw a drop of blood.
Bishop gulped nervously. The slider didn't say anything, just crouched and watched them.
“Okay, I think he gets the idea, Donnie.” The slider grinned, and the softshell looked slightly disappointed as he put the small blade away wherever he had got it from.
“You're going to kill me?” Bishop asked seriously.
“Well, I didn't say I was going to kill you.” The slider said dismissively.
“It sure sounded like it.”
The slider stood up, pacing away from the other two. He didn't address the last statement, instead lightly switching topics.
“You know, spiny softshelled turtles have an excellent sense of smell.” He ventured. “And, they're incredible ambush predators.”
Bishop knew this already. Yet he couldn't help but feel a new spark of terror towards the turtle currently pinning him down.
“They have a bite force of up to about eight hundred pounds of pressure, their jaws are razor sharp, and they don't let go that easily.” The slider continued, counting the facts on his hand.
As if to emphasize his point, the softshell grinned at Bishop, flashing his sharp teeth.
“All of that on a normal turtle. Now think about a genetically modified, mutant turtle. How much more power do you think he has?” The slider leaned in closer to Bishop's face. “Shall we test it?”
“All you have to do is pick option two, which, in my opinion, is the more fun way.” The slider whispered.
Bishop just glared at him, assessing his options.
“Either way, you will lose both of us. And all files containing us will be ‘mysteriously lost' or ‘corrupt’ somehow.” The slider turned his back to the two on the ground, inspecting his red-stained hand.
“In that case, I'll choose option three!” He moved quickly, pulling out the hand taser he kept hidden on his belt and zapping the softshell.
It screeched, tensing as the electricity caused its muscles to contract painfully. It fell off of him, paralyzed on the ground from the shock.
He got up quickly, throwing down a smoke grenade from one of his bags and sprinting down the hallway as fast as he could.
Last he saw in the light of the flashlight was the irate features of the slider, who was crouching over the prone softshell and glaring at Bishop.
Then the smoke covered all the light and prevented him from seeing more.
He ran as fast as he could, navigating the halls from memory. His breath gasped in and out of his lungs, burning his throat as he pushed himself to run faster still.
Dread filled his chest as he heard clicking sounds fast approaching behind him. A furious hiss accompanied the noise, getting closer and closer.
He drew his electric baton and turned to meet the infuriated slider.
The slider tackled him, and he struggled to find the turtle in the dark. He swung, but the turtle was always out of range dodging in and out.
He made contact with something, hearing the electricity spit as it hit the turtle, but it got knocked out of his hand with the same swing. Nothing more than a sharp inhale of pain accompanied the shock.
Now alone and unarmed in the dark, Bishop felt complete fear as the hissing noise seemed to completely surround him.
He screamed.