I have major flashbacks when I take the elevator down to the labs with Josh, who's hidden in a large black hoodie with the McDonald's logo on the back. Tyler is outside keeping watch in case Swift makes a surprise appearance in the middle of the mission. I'm the only one that's supposed to be down there roaming around, and Josh said he was going to keep watch at the elevator even though there is a total of three security guards roaming the twenty seven upper levels.

"... Are you even listening to me?" Josh nudges my shoulder. He's holding his tablet out to me with a layout of the laboratory highlighted for certain pathways and shortcuts.

"Not really."

He rolls his eyes and tucks the device into his pocket. "Fine. I'll repeat everything. Tyler disabled the security cameras on the one level you're going to be on, so try to avoid everywhere else. There were only three guards upstairs, but people work all hours of the day down here. I think everyone is in the analysis session, but I'm not too sure. You can still run into someone."

"What do I do if somebody sees me and recognizes me? Can I clock 'em in the teeth and run? Or should I take them down with karate or some shit?"

"No," he stresses loudly, "none of those. Don't do anything like that. Why would you think that's a good idea?"

"I haven't had a good fight in months."

"Anyways," he completely ignores me, "you need to turn left directly out of the gates. Any other passage down that way will work out just fine, but the right hall is where the more dangerous symbiotes are with their temporary hosts. We also have passwords on some doors, and the code is love actually, no spaces."

"Why love actually? Isn't that a romcom movie?"

"It's her favorite movie. If you wanna ask her yourself, go open a chamber with a patient in it. She'll come running."

A wave of uneasiness hits me like a tsunami. "A chamber with an innocent person you pulled off the streets to die?"

Josh opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He closes it and takes a second before he tries again. "None of us wanted to go that far. That wasn't our fault."

"Oh, I'm sure it wasn't. Like it wasn't your fault when all those animals died under your supervision, or when the astronauts on the ships all fucking died—"

"We weren't in charge of that! Your ex-fiancé was! He was supposed to make sure they couldn't escape no matter what shape they took, and look what happened, look how many people he killed."

"He didn't kill anybody."

Josh clenches his jaw and continues to stare straight ahead at the elevator doors. The floor level I'm supposed to be on inches closer. "You aren't together anymore. Why are you defending him?"

I still love him. "He didn't do anything wrong."

"Alright, whatever," he looks at his feet while the doors slide open and he shoves me through, "just get the fuck out of here. Hurry back and don't die."

By the time I realize I have nothing to record with but my phone camera, he's gone and the elevator is a floor above me already.

The walls are pitch black but the floors are blinding white like a pathway through space and the occasional fancy wall fixture. It's nice and a little calming, but also ominous and ridiculously threatening.

I can't look away and I start wandering down a hallway. I don't know which way I went, but my phone is capturing every spec of everything on the floor, the crumbs and the dirt and the blood—

Oh, the blood. I may have gone the wrong way, but there's a light closer in front of me than behind, so I keep heading forward like a fucking moth to a street lamp.

It doesn't take long to run into the first test subject. He's in a cell with a clear front door and no obvious way to get in or out. He sits in the corner, green veins pulsing over his skin, digging through his limbs and the tile floor. There's blood everywhere, but it doesn't show up as well on my phone camera. There isn't even a name plate or an identification number.

The next one down is another guy, but he's hanging from the ceiling in a web of fiery pink. Eyes rolled back in his head, he dangles inches from the roof and twitches violently every few seconds. I decide to put the video down while I pass by, only because his leg is bent at a ridiculously unnatural angle, and it would be disgusting to rewatch later as the symbiote cracks it back into place and snaps it out again a second later. It's like a toy, and I can't look away.

Loud banging behind me almost makes me shit my pants, because I turn around and I'm inches away from a girl screaming for help in my face. Dark grey snakes over her skin in a web pattern, writhing in masses over her limbs and half her face, and blood pours from her lips like a waterfall. I still recognize her. She used to sit outside of John's stupid store to ask for spare change.

I hold my finger to my lips and try to keep her quiet. "Hey, shh, it's okay," I try to make eye contact but she refuses, "I'm going to get you out of here, just stay quiet—"

She keeps screaming at the top of her lungs, like she's being eaten alive as she keeps banging on the wall. The first set of the lock is a retinal scan, and immediately I'm fucked. Even if I tried to unlock it, my eye isn't a part of their database, and they would have definitive proof that I had broken into their facility and had seen some major shit.

At this point, I'm so stressed out, I feel like I'm going to puke. My fingers twist in my hair and I can feel my cheeks heating up as her body starts shaking. I try to break through the wall with my shoulder, but it just hurts and vibrates through every bone in my arm.

Then she stops moving, stops screaming, stops crying for help. I watch the alien in her body retract into her skin and she stands still inches away from the perimeter in eerie silence.

Before I can say a word, it shoots huge black fists from her relaxed hands, raises them over her head, and breaks a hole the wall in seconds.

The thick glass settles in seconds. The mass shrinks back into her body, but before I can rush to help her, she rushes forward and tackles me to the ground as the red alarms near the ceiling start blaring.

I'm fairly strong and I took martial arts lessons, but she's possessed by an alien and can therefore easily destroy me, but she doesn't. She snaps down at my arms that hold her up and scrapes her legs across the floor while she tries to gain an advantage over me.

"What the fuck! I tried to help you!" The other subjects in the hall start screaming as they gather around to watch, like they're cheering her on.

Footsteps echo across the walls, and my heart almost stops. I don't notice her stop clawing at me and roll off to the floor, but I do look over at her just in time to see traces of black absorb into my skin.

But I don't have time to think about that shit right now, I have to fucking book it out of the building or else I'm a dead man.

I leave her behind and I race back down the hall at full speed, and instead of using the elevator, I take a hard right and head for the stairs. I don't even notice I'd sprinted up to the ground floor until I'm in the lobby with three guards all playing Uno on the circle of couches.

"Hey guys," I wave and try to catch my breath inconspicuously, "just heading home. Got any room for another player?" I walk closer and none of them move.

The one woman in the group speaks up first. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Okay, first of all, language. Second of all, I'm... Swift's husband. She wanted me to pick up..." I fumble in my pockets and I pull out a goddamn pen I found at goodwill that gives you one of six fortunes when you click it, "her favorite pen. You know how finicky she is. Couldn't work without it."

I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot.

They turn to each other with similar stares and all nod after holding a short meeting with their eyes. "Alright, we'll deal you in. Just don't rat us out to her, yeah? We've made our rounds and everything, but y'know? Love her and all, but damn, she's a power freak."

I'm the luckiest fucking idiot in the world. "Hey, don't worry about it. Anger at work translates to anger at home, and next thing you know I'm on the bottom." I shrug and take a seat on the end of the cushion. Oh, I shouldn't be speaking. I shouldn't say anything else, I should leave before I say something I'll regret even more.

The one in the middle chuckles. "You're an alright guy. I wouldn't take you for Swift's type at all, but she doesn't talk about her love life much so I wouldn't know. Don't know her outside of the public eye."

"Thank you. I do balance out the wifey pretty well, don't I? Seven years later and she's still as stubborn as ever. She thinks if she doesn't mention me, people won't ask to meet me, and she can still be tough as nails. I'm her soft spot."

Oh my god, I really do need to stop talking immediately.

Thankfully, I don't need to say much more, because the people originally following me for breaking and entering all unanimously shoot through the stairwell door like a cartoon character crashes through a brick wall, and they single me out of the group.

"Well, I guess that's my cue," I stand and pat the guy next to me on the shoulder, "and I have a few confessions. I'm not Swift's husband and I've certainly never gotten her in bed with me. Have a good night, fellas." I take off and they only get up as I run through the doors and into the forest.

And I'm immediately reminded that the forest is absolutely terrifying. I keep running though, because they somehow acquired a pack of dogs.  I like dogs, don't get me wrong, but they're barking and it's scary.

It hits me a couple hundred meters in that I'm going in the wrong direction. I was supposed to head out the back entrance, sprint a bit to Josh and Tyler's car, and we'd discuss so they'd know I wasn't killed on the spot.

"Keep running."

"I'm going in the wrong direction, Dallon. You've fucked up." Now I'm talking to myself, and my mind is talking back to me.

"Run." My mind bites back and I shut up because the depths of my subconscious should know what it's going on about.

I'm only running for a few minutes more and I'm not really putting too much effort into it, but I can't see the lights from the building anymore, and in fact I can't see any lights at all.

I don't even know how far I ran, but I'm not an athlete so it couldn't have been too far. Actually, I can't hear anything other than the search dogs losing their shit, which is very faint. They have to be miles away.

I don't even know where I am.