This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/devinkanal on 2024-11-15 13:27:14+00:00.

I work maintenance. It’s not glamorous, but it pays the bills. Usually, my jobs are at office buildings, warehouses, maybe a shopping mall. But three months ago, I was hired for a government contract in the middle of nowhere. No address—just coordinates.

When I got there, it looked like a military bunker built into the side of a mountain. The entrance was a massive steel door, unmarked except for a tiny keypad. A man in a black suit greeted me. No name, no smile, just a clipboard and a pen.

“Sign here. No phones, no questions. Follow orders.”

I signed. The pay was insane, and I figured it was just some secret government R&D lab. How bad could it be?

I regret everything.

Inside, the facility was pristine and sterile, lit by an endless stretch of fluorescent lights. I was given a uniform, a small ID badge that only said “Tier 1 Maintenance,” and a list of protocols longer than the U.S. Constitution.

Most of my tasks were mundane. Replace broken air filters, tighten bolts on high-pressure pipes, sweep up debris in the lower levels. But the deeper I went, the weirder it got. Sublevels 1 through 3 were straightforward: labs, living quarters, storage. But Sublevel 4… that’s when the rules started showing up.

The first rule I noticed was posted at the door: “Do not speak to the staff on this floor unless they speak to you first.”

The scientists on Sublevel 4 were pale, jittery, and avoided eye contact. They whispered to each other in quick, frantic bursts and moved like they were afraid of being watched. There was a room I had to clean there—Room 401. The rule for that one was specific: “Never turn off the lights while inside.”

Room 401 was empty, just white walls and a metal table. Easy enough to clean, but the moment I stepped in, I felt like I was being watched. There was nothing in the room—no cameras, no vents, no windows. But the feeling was undeniable.

And then the lights flickered.

Just for a second. But in that split second, I swear I saw a shadow standing in the corner. When the lights stabilized, it was gone. I finished my work in record time and didn’t look back.

By my second month, I noticed the air was heavier the deeper you went. Sublevel 6 felt like breathing underwater. The signs outside the doors were increasingly ominous: “Emergency Protocol Alpha Only”, “Extreme Hazard: Class D Entities”, and my personal favorite, “Do Not Enter Without Clearance or Armed Escort.”

One night, I was called to fix a coolant leak on Sublevel 7. I didn’t even know there was a Sublevel 7 until that moment. My escort—a pair of armed guards with rifles I didn’t recognize—didn’t say a word to me as we descended in the elevator.

When the doors opened, I instantly wanted to leave. The hallway was freezing, and the walls were covered in frost despite the humming of industrial heaters. The lights were dimmer here, casting long, flickering shadows.

We stopped at a door marked “The Atrium.”

“Stay inside the yellow lines,” one of the guards said. It was the first time anyone had spoken to me that day.

Inside, the room was massive, like a stadium flipped upside-down. At the center was a huge glass enclosure filled with a glowing blue mist. Pipes and wires snaked around it like veins. I couldn’t see what was inside the mist, but I could hear it—low, rhythmic thuds, like a heartbeat.

My job was simple: replace a cracked coolant pipe attached to the enclosure. I tried not to think about the fact that the pipe was pumping something into the glass, not out of it.

While I worked, the mist began to shift. Something massive was moving inside. I saw an outline, like a figure pressed against frosted glass. At first, it looked human—two arms, two legs, a head. But then it moved again, and I realized it was far too tall, its limbs too long, its proportions all wrong.

The guards tensed, gripping their rifles. One of them muttered, “It’s awake.”

That’s when the alarms went off.

The room flooded with red light, and a deafening klaxon echoed off the walls. The mist inside the glass spun violently, and the figure slammed against the enclosure. The glass cracked—not a little, but a long, jagged fissure that stretched across its surface.

“Fix the pipe, now!” one of the guards shouted.

I froze, watching as the thing inside the mist pressed its head—or what I thought was its head—against the glass. It had no face, just a smooth, featureless surface. But I could feel it looking at me.

The glass cracked again, and a low, guttural moan filled the room. It wasn’t coming from the alarm or the guards. It was coming from inside my head. Words formed, not spoken but injected directly into my mind: “Let me out. I will make you more than human.”

I stumbled back, clutching my ears. The guards opened fire, their bullets tearing through the mist but doing nothing to the thing inside. The glass shattered, and the mist poured out, filling the room.

The last thing I saw before blacking out was the figure stepping free of the enclosure. Its limbs twisted unnaturally, like it was trying to decide what shape to take.

I woke up in the infirmary two days later. My contract was terminated on the spot, and I was escorted out of the facility by men in hazmat suits. They didn’t answer my questions, just handed me an envelope with a check and a warning: “Speak about this, and we’ll find you.”

That was three weeks ago. Since then, I’ve been having… episodes. Sometimes, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, standing in my backyard with no memory of how I got there. Other times, I’ll hear whispers in the back of my mind, promising things—power, knowledge, immortality.

Two nights ago, I found frost on my bedroom window. It was 80 degrees outside.

Last night, I woke up to find my reflection staring at me from the mirror, even though I wasn’t moving. It smiled.

I don’t know what they’re doing at that facility, but I know one thing: they didn’t contain it. The Atrium is open now. And it’s looking for me.

And if you hear a voice in your head that isn’t yours, don’t listen. It doesn’t want to help you. It just wants to get out.