User:Diana Lowe

The Beginning of the End

South Blythville: The Preston Building (NecroTech), 4:15 AM

It started out as a routine day. Nothing special. I showed up for work on time, not a difficult task seeing as I was being temporarily housed within the main research facility for an undetermined amount of time. The sterile, far-too-clean environment was ideal for the studies we were involed in, but it left me with an uneasy feeling; it felt like a hospital. I had never been comfortable in hospitals.

Jay had been very immersed in his work for months, rarely leaving his personal laboratory other than for meals, and sometimes not even then. His former research partner, Donnie, was worried about his collegue. I don't blame him. I was getting worried, too. Donnie and I had gone to see Jay and coax him out of the lab long enough to get him outside for a breath of fresh air when all hell broke loose...

We should have foreseen an event like that. Hell, I should have seen it coming a mile away, what with my involvement with the research and all, but I didn't. We didn't. No one did.

That was our biggest mistake. Our sin.

Lack of foresight could not keep my superiors from trying desperately to cover up the incident. On the contrary, it only spurred them into quick action, placing the blame on various other chemical and medicinal-based corporations and research facilities. Anything to keep the general public for pointing fingers in the direction of NecroTech.

My heart in my throat, Donnie and I frantically searched for Jay; he had not been in his laboratory, which we found very unnerving. We stayed together as people began evacuating through the underground tunnels that connected the NecroTech buildings in each sector. I didn't want to admit it to Donnie, but I was terrified. People were screaming and clawing at me, crawling over people who had stumbled and fallen onto the floors in the hallways. Some had suffocated to death while others lie prone, grasping at their chests in either cardiac arrest or severe asthma attack. They were dying.

They didn't stay dead.