LOG: 1

DATE: 20 December 2098

TIME: 23:25 PM

LOCATION: Some Army/Gov Research Laboratory, somewhere on Earth. (I have no idea.)

Dr. Ezra Mayur, Microbiologist & Epidemiologist. Expertise: Designer Pathogens.

I don't know if anyone will ever read this... or if I'll ever get out of here alive, so naturally, it feels foolish to capture my days. To keep a diary sort to speak. I'm not a diary-keeping girl. Shaki is, but me? I always found it awkward to write about how my day went, as if someone will read this one day and know what I was going through. No one will find this... find me... no one but these men...

But I feel compelled to today. I need to. It's December 20, if my calculations are correct. It's almost midnight, and I feel like I haven't slept in days. So long that I'm exhausted. I could drop and never wake up if it weren't for the nightmares. Funny how I thought I was done with them after Mum, but no, here I am, often waking up in a cold sweat, muffling my scream, wishing she was still here to take me in her arms and tell me all was going to be okay. I know it's not. Nothing is going to be okay. Not anymore. But I'm so lonely. So, so lonely... I need to talk... about everything and nothing... about how I feel...

Ezra wiped the tears sliding down her cheeks as she sat there in the dark room, legs folded on top of the duvet, the laptop propped upon her lap. No insects chirped or leaves rustled. She was metres down in some bunker, encased in thick concrete walls that were cold. All around her, silence roared. What she wouldn't give to feel the sun on her skin once more. What a fresh breath of air could do to her constricted chest. How she craved to rush into Dad's arms or pull Shaki into a tight embrace despite her protests, 'Watch the hair!'

At the thought of Dad's warm, safe arms, Ezra's tears rolled more vehemently. Today, her melancholy had a good reason to hang around her, to cling to her. It's Dad's birthday in two days...

She sniffled, eyeing the cursor on the screen, blinking at her to go on, write it all down, away from prying eyes, it said. But she wasn't so sure she was away from prying eyes. Was she sure they hadn't bugged her room with cameras and microphones? What about that ancient laptop she had perched on her legs? No. She wasn't sure of anything—not anymore, even if nothing had come from that risky business weeks ago when she'd set up the encrypted hidden file to test the tightness of surveillance. Perhaps they knew exactly what she was up to, but she was cooperating with them in the meantime and it was best not to spook the poor sacrificial goat in their pen, not till she'd completed her task. But tonight, she didn't care. None of that mattered. The more she thought about it, the more she realised this was where she would make her last stand. Whether that counted as a nervous little peon under someone's thumb or a rebel in disguise, was entirely up to her.

Besides, what did she care if they spied on her laptop? She needed to pour out her heart and mind onto something and feel human just for a moment. She needed to feel like she wasn't going crazy. So she continued typing...

If I'm not mistaken, it's Dad's birthday in two days. We always tried and make it a special day for him, no matter how small...

A hiccup escaped her lips, and she paused, unable to stop her crying.

For the first time since they kidnapped her, Ezra sat crying until there were no more tears to be shed and a numbness of sorts blanketed her sore heart.

I wonder if Shaki will do something nice for him, despite —

She stared at the door on the far side of her room. Was there anyone outside waiting to see what scandalous things she'd be typing on her personal device? She was sure they knew she had it. She'd had it since Rai gave it to her weeks ago, but hadn't used it until now. Could they be bearing down to slam the door open and take it away from her?

A strange sense of walls closing in on her made the room feel smaller than it was, and Ezra struggled to breathe.

There's a young private in the lab, always watching me. Millen, his name is. Occasionally, he'll talk to me, humour me by answering silly questions like, 'What's your favourite colour?' a topic that had us discussing hues of blue for a good hour the other day, but otherwise I barely have any other interactions. The work I do here feels meaningless at the moment. Shuffling through countless research papers, data, and theories Archer and his team had. I can only do so much alone, Dad...

Ezra stared at the screen. At the word 'Dad' staring back at her. Her heart ached again. Happy birthday, old man... if I don't see you...

Dad. She deleted the word one letter at a time... then retyped it, feeling a strange sense of calm flicker in her heart. Dad. The one man she could trust to be there for her all hours of all day. She wondered, was he sitting at that kitchen counter, pouring over data with a fine comb like she was, only he wasn't gathering information on the chimera Archer built to rebuild it better — but breadcrumbs as to where she was? She hoped he was. That he, of all people, was looking for her. Always looking for her. What that would do to him, she couldn't fathom, only that, after they'd lost Mum, he'd shattered to pieces for months, months that Ezra meticulously put him back together again. If he's broken... I hope Shaki puts him together again... they both will...

She wiped her tears, deciding that she was no longer writing a diary, but a letter to her father, a letter in all honesty that would never leave the compound in any shape or form, but it gave her some sliver of hope. Sort of communicating with them beyond her early grave...

Millen watches me all the time in the lab. Archer's lab, Dad. You might be surprised, but Archer was alive, until a few weeks ago, working on this horrible, horrible plan. One I inspired apparently. Anyway, he's dead, Dad. He's dead, along with all the scientists who were working for him, whether by choice or like me... They died at the hands of the thing they created, and now, I'm here, wherever here is — in some concrete bunker — forced to back-engineer the pathogen for mass distribution. You don't want to know what I've gotten myself into, Dad. I don't even know what it is. I wish I could end it... but then I think of you, and Shaki... and all those people. And I can't. I'm a coward. And I'm still here.

Ezra touched her trembling lips and stared at a corner of the ceiling. No one had burst through her door yet. Or maybe they are waiting for me to blurt out more...

It's a monster, Dad. Archer's monster. My monster.

The cursor blinked at her, daring her to go on. Today wasn't just a day Ezra missed Dad. It was a day she'd also learned the horror they tasked her with recreating. Archer's monster... her monster.

For a minute, she waited, staring at the door. Expecting it to burst open any minute now. Perhaps it would be Rai, a pistol pointed squarely at her face that he'd likely never miss. She suspected he was an expert marksman. She'd heard enough rumble about him and his prowess in the canteen where she sat often by herself, at a large table. Captain Rai was a special-op-trained soldier. Many didn't even know his whole story themselves. It had not surprised her. But perhaps, it would also be Millen, aiming a gun at her with steady hands despite her having come to some sort of understanding that they were friends. An odd sort.

But a minute stretched into two, three. Nothing happened. Her door remained locked. She remained lonely.

Ezra returned to her cursor and typed.

After weeks of pouring through the research, cross-checking, and rechecking, I've found his monster, Daddy. I found the monster. And it's something far worse than I'd ever imagined. That something like this is no longer hypothetical, but was actually created, albeit briefly in a lab, by humans... with a 100% mortality rate? It's terrifying. Had the scientists known what it was they were making, I'd dare say none of them would have agreed to it. That's how clever Archer was. He'd compartmentalised its synthesis. The final monster was his own doing...

And they want me to remake it. They've given me a year to do it. A year. The world is not ready for this, Daddy.

The world is not ready. No one is. No one... And I don't know what to do... I don't know what I should do. I wish you were here to tell me what to do...

"Someone tell me what to do!" Ezra's spooked voice trembled in the laptop's light, surrounded by darkness. "Someone tell me what to do..."

Her hands shook as she threw the laptop aside and stared at the notebook that lay open beside her on the bed. A list stared back at her, a terrifying list of viruses that were spliced to form a new species. The Chimera, the most virulent thing she'd ever come across in her life. Her Chimera, the one she'd theoretically cooked up more than a decade ago. How was it possible?

Ezra stared at it like the grim reaper it was. Thousands, if not millions—even billions—would be erased by it. That thought alone seized her heart. What should I do?