A shady organisation

“Yes sir, I can assure you that I'm making progress.” My break was interrupted by the voice of a woman walking in the distance. The woman was walking along the path, a phone in her hand, but she frowned when she noticed me. "What are you doing here, kid?"

"Oh, I... was just taking a night walk." I answered, surprised.

She snickered. "It's dangerous to wander in the forest at night, boy. Get back home." She put her hand back on her ear and resumed her conversation. "Oh, nothing important, sir. Just a lost kid I met on the way."

I observed her, noticing her lab coat. That's not an outfit suited for a hike...

"Alright, sir." She hung up and looked back at me. “Didn't you hear me? Get back to town, boy."

"S-sorry..."

She smirked and shooed me away. "Good boy."

She left, going deeper into the forest. She's shady… I thought, observing her walk away.

I still had some frustration left in me, and didn't think of a better way to clear my mind than to follow her, my curiosity getting the better of me. The woman went to the old abandoned castle that was deep within the forest. No one had been there in a while, and a lot of scary rumours surrounded the place. I hid behind a wall as I saw her talking to a classy-looking man.

"You're late." The man said, smoking a cigar.

"My apologies, sir, but I had to make sure that the boy left before getting here.”

Not making sure enough, though...

"It might be troublesome if people are starting to snoop around." This man seemed to be the boss around here, considering his imposing stance. After taking a puff of his cigar, he spoke again. “"I'll have to discuss with Liliana about how to make sure no one approaches."

The shady woman had a sadistic grin on her face. "We could always use them as test subjects."

Test subjects?

"After all, we will never know if our experiments are working without testing them. That's why it's hard for me to know if I'm making any progress.” The woman said that in a serious tone, meaning that she most likely wasn't joking.

The man caressed his chin, visibly considering what the woman said. "That's a possibility indeed, but we would need to do so without Liliana being aware of it."

The woman chuckled. "With her preaching about ‘protecting humanity’, she would obviously be opposed to the idea."

A light rain started to fall, making the woman sigh. "Of course it had to rain tonight..."

Crushing his cigar under his expensive shoes, the man spoke. "Come now, we have work to do."

I saw them pass the castle’s main gates and disappearing behind the massive stone walls.

What are they doing in here? I carefully looked around, spotting a strange building further away. This building looks like a warehouse.

I wanted to find what these guys were hiding. I gave another glance, to see if anyone was around to see me. Let's be careful.

I quickly ran towards the building, making sure that the coast was clear. I opened the door and stealthily walked inside. When I entered, I glanced around, and only spotted a single guard in the distance, seemingly sleeping while sitting on a chair, a military cap covering his face. I went to look at what they had stored and decided to grab a few things as evidence. Whatever these guys were doing was most likely not legal, and I wanted to report it to the police. I took a few bottles of weird chemicals, as well as a strange-looking book, and carefully packed everything in my backpack.

These look dangerous…

I glanced behind me to make sure that the guard wasn't waking up. Alright, almost done... Once my bag was fully stuffed, I slowly moved back towards the entrance of the warehouse. Now, to get out of here...

After being assured that the coast was clear, I ran towards the hills farther away. The bag, being fairly heavy, **** me to stop once I was near the top. I took a break under a tree to protect myself from the rain.

"Damn... That castle was... pretty well protected... for something supposedly abandoned..."

I put down the bag and caught my breath. Let's see what I got from that bag.

Since the tree I was hiding under had a pretty thick foilage, it was fairly dry.

"Hmm? What kind of book is that?” I took out the book and quickly glanced at what was written in it. "A book about demons? Why would they have something like this? Are they part of a weird cult or something?"

I shoved the book back in my bag and grabbed the chemicals to examine their contents more closely. "It looks pretty weird…" Despite my fairly good grades in Chemistry, I couldn't recognise the content of these vials at all.

An alarm from the castle suddenly rang, distracted me and causing me to drop them.

"Ah, fuck!"

As soon as they hit the ground, the vials broke and exploded, enveloping me with their contents. It was as if my skin was melting, but it was so damn painful I couldn’t even scream.

It hurts! It burns!

Soon after, I lost consciousness, the pain becoming unbearable…

I didn't know how long it took for me to wake up, but I immediately felt that something was wrong...

W-what happened? I couldn't feel my body anymore, and when I tried to look down, I could only see a puddle of goo. What the hell?

I thought of moving, and found myself sliding on the ground.

I-It's... real? It's not a dream? Did I really become some sort of goo? The rain was falling right into me, as if I was absorbing it, but it wasn't what was bothering me. What the fuck am I supposed to do...?

For some reason, I felt so weak and ****...

"The explosion was over there!" A man’s voice came from towards the castle.

As I was lamenting my condition, I heard footsteps coming, and knew I had to flee. It's probably those guys from the castle...

"I think I saw something moving away!"

I hurried out of the forest, but didn't know what I should do… I could try to run far away, or find a way to contact Jane and Sophie.