Light Switch-a prologue or a chapter one

Stephen’s eyes flitted about the empty hallway very suddenly. He whistling stopped just as quick. The boy seamed afraid. But what else could be expected? The light was dim, as it always was. The dull, flickering lamps that lined the corridor, one outside each door, seamed terribly inefficient. They glowed with an unhealthy yellow and buzzed quietly through the silence broken only by the electric hum of a moving walkway and a lad’s whistling. But now all was quiet. Stephen eyed a door, the light outside of which had just short-circuited and gone out. The old steel door stood in a shadow now, and a rusting plaque nailed to it read “CC56-P Atramentum”. His eyes lingered on the name for a moment, as if struggling with it, and he dropped them back to his work.

Stephen then shrugged and grinned weakly into the bucket full of dirty water before plunging a mop into it. The whistling began again, so up-beat that the contrast would seam eerie in itself, and in doing so he sloped a generous amount of water onto the walkway and began to mop.

If everything was going as planned, Stephen would not see another human being for hours; not even a cockroach scurried among the halls to keep him company. Even so, he spoke into the dead air as if discussing the possibility of rain. His voice was calm and casual as he took up a conversation with no one at all.

“A centaur would be a fine step toward progress,” Stephen told the air with a grin as he worked, “perhaps, then, they could find a way to make me grow feathers.” His voice resonated faintly off the walls and seamed distant. When nothing spoke back he continued.

“I believe I could do wonders for the world of maintenance,” Stephen stopped the mop for a moment and looked thoughtful, before completing his sentence, “with feathers.” He blinked, and then squeezed excess water into the bucket.

Now, Felix, the sentinel of the maintenance group, saw Stephen striding towards him with purpose, bucket and mop in hand, and inquired, “finished, Stephen?” but Stephen only gave Felix a shocked look and walked past the man, turning around unreasonably angry and snapped that the first ‘e’ in his name should be pronounced ‘eh’.

“For the last line!” Stephen growled and then continued walking. Felix furrowed his brow and took a bite from an apple. He considered going after the boy but could not think of anything to say to him. He should be done cleaning that corridor, he had been working on it for twice as long as it should have taken him to finish. Felix merely shrugged, yawned, and wondered where Stephen had gone off to in such a rush.

Stephen never paused for a moment, and after a short while found himself in the familiar offices of the Penna sector. Acting almost too cautiously for someone who knew not the reason for being in the vicinity, Stephen peered around the wall and scanned the room with great sensitivity. The light here was better, though most of them had been shut off when the receptionist had left the room hours ago.

Rectangular fluorescent lights lit the far section where there was a room closed off to the rest of the office. Stephen identified it as the security room for the Penna sectors. He paused for a minuet or two, even after he decided that the room was empty, and then deposited his objects on the floor beside him. Another minuet passed, and Stephen waited, almost expecting something to happen, but when nothing did he gave a sigh of relief and stepped out from behind the wall.

Stephen obviously knew what he was up too then, for he shuffled soundlessly across the room, eyes wide and frightened, until he reached the security room. The door was opened, just a sliver, but Stephen did not go in. Peering through the crack, he spotted an old grey tabby-cat sitting on a vacated seat. He held the cat’s gaze. Neither organism would look away, which seamed to upset the cat. With a hiss the tabby grew furled. Stephen in turn bared his teeth menacingly and the cat jumped off the chair with a meow and a hiss interlocked in its throat. A man appeared inside the room out of nowhere.

“What’s that there, Puddles?”

Stephen had just enough time to jump behind another wall before the man swung the door open and the cat went running out, it turned a corner and disappeared.
“You old cat! Get back here and don’t you run off!” but the tabby did not obey, and the security guard ran after it.

Stephen did not grin, but looked rather sick, -what’s in there?- His curiosity asked him. -The cat ran away-, it explained, -you have to go in, you have to know.- “The cat ran away,” Stephen whispered in the direction the act so happened, as if it made any bit of sense. Suddenly, as if he had just made up his mind, Stephen dashed into the security room and scanned the tiny screens impatiently, and with a mix of eagerness and urgency on his face. Row after row of screens, the surveillance showed that nearly every corridor of the Penna sector was vacated, save for a few maintenance personnel toiling with mops and buckets. But then, one by one, the screens changed, and began to show the insides of the containment chambers. Stephen watched as each one changed, fear shown brighter and brighter in his eyes, until he saw it. Stephen’s face lost its color, and he read the glowing red number at the bottom of the screen, “CC185-P”.

Stephen crashed through the door of the security room. The door slammed into the wall and bounced back on noisy hunges. He darted down a hallway, passing a startled security guard holding a cat that made a swipe at Stephen as he ran past. He made a right, then a left, and caught the handle to an unmarked door and flung it opened. The room was a storage closet, capable of holding several couches, but it was now being used somewhat as a bedroom. There was a cot to the right of the door, and shelves climbed the walls on all sides. Stephen leapt over the cot and removed a pocket knife from a shelf, sitting atop a pile of neatly folded towels.

Stephen dashed down a different hallway from whence he came, and pummeled the elevator button with his fist. He didn’t even wait to see if it would open, rather, he ran over to a wall on the right sporting what looked to be a garage door and inserted his finder into a niche in the wall. The door coiled itself up into the ceiling but Stephen was already running across a massive, uncovered platform, circular in shape as was the tall shaft that indicated that there where two more floors above by flashing red lights. Stephen pressed a large button that read ‘CC100-P t CC200-P” on a podium near the now-closing garage door. Moments later the elevator platform jerked and Stephen’s stomach dropped as he seamed to be free falling. But just as suddenly it began to slow, and then came to a halt beside a garage door that read “Penna Containment Chambers 100 – 200”.

Stephen darted under the door before it had a chance to even open half-way, his breathing dangerously audible, and a look of utter worry and possible despair was on his face. Far to long, you could have done better. He made a right at the far wall without needing to read the sign. He stopped himself short. The moving walkway in front of him lumbered on, making a slow humming sound, and out of a door off to the right of it Stephen could hear laughter. He seamed to be plastered to the spot. The voices died away and a moment later the door was wrenched opened.

As if knowing it would happen, Stephen threw himself into an open storeroom closest to him and pressed his back against the wall. No sooner had he done so, did two men walk past the room. They both turned the corner and headed towards the elevator in utter silence, and when the click of there heals died away, the corridor too fell to an eerie hush. Stephen did not need to see the bloody knife they were holding, he had already dissolved into tears. He slid down the wall, the white-knuckled grip on his useless knife loosened and he let it fall to the ground. He muffled his sound with his fist, until he was sure that the two men were gone. Then he sobbed quietly there on the course cement floor. He did not need to look into the room where the two men had just departed, he already knew that the light outside of it had flickered and gone out.