Nate DuFort

I keep seeing her, even though it's impossible.

Never close up or in plain view.

She appears at the edge of my vision, just before I round a corner or in that blurry space, just before I close my eyes.

It's always the same, though.

That long, raven-black hair and her emaciated body in the dirty hospital gown.

It's just guilt and trauma manifesting in visual hallucinations because the alternative would be impossible.

I try to go about my day at my new job, hoping that I can have a normal day, until I check my emails.

I find out another old co-worker is dead.

The details were all the same as the last four, with their doors locked and no signs of breaking or entering, and nothing on external security cameras.

Then there was the state of the bodies, which wasn't described in this email other than the statement that he died in the same fashion as the others.

I know from my other sources, they died slowly and brutally.

I popped an antacid.

My stomach had been prone to stress ulcers ever since I got the job at the lab, and since its closure, I thought they'd go away, but with this, they've been getting worse.

I couldn't focus on my work.

I stared at the computer screen, not processing anything at all, only the implications of what these deaths could mean.

Once the last wall went up in the veil spread, the directors considered it too dangerous to commute to the labs within Lambda Sector, so they just abandoned everything and made us all sign NDAs.

The directors knew that if anyone talked, it would raise all sorts of ethical concerns.

They even hired Reavers to go in and destroy the specimens and any documents left in the labs.

Reavers weren't trustworthy.

They could have easily sold that data to the highest bidder rather than destroy it.