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It was hard to say how long her agony lasted, but now within this tormented and mutilated body life could be found again. The purple-shining peeled flesh was already accreting in places with some spongy rubbish, but more to the point, the whole body was pitted and corroded by small gnawed holes. Nu
merous creatures similar to a hybrid of a worm and an insect crawled out of these holes, crept on the dead body and disappeared inside again. They had triangular heads, articulated fore-chelas–only one pair–and soft twisted bodies. Their length did not surpass three centimeters, but on the corpse (and the more so, obviously,
in
it) there were plenty of them, and their swarming made that sound which the amnesiac heard. Unlike ants or termites, they moved slowly and clumsily, quite often slipping from the dead flesh and plopping down to the floor. Under their awful nest, a whole pile of dead creatures had already accumulated.  Those still alive were scraping and wriggling among the corpses of their companions.

The corridor was not too narrow to bypass the crucified corpse, still it was hard to imagine a more daunting obstacle to moving further. The amnesiac moved back. Some arthropodic worms fell out of the open mouth of the dead woman and, as if sensing material for a new nest, began crawling towards him as fast as their ugly constitution allowed. This became the final straw, he turned and quickly rushed away. The passionless auto
matics recognized that the light was no longer necessary and the darkness again hid the horror that was now behind him.

But for an instant before the light had gone out, he had time to see something else. On a lift door–situated just so the crucified woman could have seen it and, quite possibly, written in her own blood–was one more message, a phrase least of all cor
responding to all seen in this corridor and in this damned building in general: "NO DEATH."

He regained self-control only when he had almost lost his breath from running so quickly up the staircase. He dropped to his knees and rested his hands against the step before him, panting noisily. His heart pounded so hard it felt as though it would break through his ribs, tear through the skin and plop down on the dirty platform as a wet gob of meat, making the same sound with which the quasi-worms had slipped from a corpse and plopped to the floor.

He tried again to pull out of the sticky whirlpool of panic and to reason logically. Whatever it was that he had just seen, there was one thing quite clear: She had in no way committed suicide. And the one who had killed her–the one who enjoyed killing people IN SUCH A WAY–was, quite probably, still alive and somewhere in this building. And for that matter who is to say that he was only one.

At last, having recovered his breath (and with surprise at having understood that he didn't sweat at all), he raised his head and stumbled across the inscription "DO NOT GO THERE." Aha, here he was already. That meant that he had run again to his ini
tial level. But now this time he was not going to take these inscriptions seriously. Kill yourself now. No death. That was madness. That was it, most likely, it was simply madness. Probably, it was indeed written by the murderer, by a balmy maniac, with a screw loose. Anyway, a person who was the least bit sane could hardly do what had been done to that woman. Person or persons, he thought to himself, considering the possibilities. There would be still a chance to deal with one maniac barehanded, but if...

He looked at his hands. Oh yeah. The flashlight which was still wrapped up in a piece of paper, lay on a stair nearby, but the tablet was not there. Now he remembered, how during his run the "skirt" began to fall down, and he had mechanically seized it. Yes, of course, he thought gloomily, the civilized man in all his glory–dropping his only weapon to obey the useless conventions of decency. It would be necessary to go back down to look for the tablet. But he could not force himself. It seemed to him that the ugly worms with legs had already crawled up the staircase fol
lowing him from below. And all the same, what could he do with this pitiful tablet? It was in no way comparable even to the most unpretentious knife. It could not inflict a deep wound, and even a surface wound would be possible only if the enemy did not resist. All was hopeless–all. He will never get out of here. He felt a sudden desire to write directly on the floor, "NO EXIT.” If he had been bleeding at that very moment, he, perhaps, would do just that.

He shook his head. No, it is necessary to struggle with these attacks of despair. It is necessary... to struggle... He took the flashlight and stood up. Upwards on the staircase? Or first to in
vestigate the rest of the ring on this level, where he has regained consciousness? He had found three corpses here, yes. But now he was convinced that danger could await anywhere. And he recalled that the first corpse had been found in a bathroom on the other side of a door where he had lain insensible and helpless. Arguing in this manner, he should have been finished off already there, at the same time as the other victim. Or may it be that he was the chosen one? Perhaps he would not suffer the same fate that the others had suffered and that was why he was still alive. Even if it were so, however, he might have been chosen for something even worse?

He heaved a deep sigh. Speculating was useless. He stepped into the aperture leading into the cylinder, without any idea why he had made this particular choice. Maybe it was just because he had no desire to clamber up an abrupt staircase again. This time he bypassed the lift shaft from the other direction and moved along a corridor which he had not explored yet.

Here he saw no corpses–aside from several dead cockroaches on the floor (or spiders or whatever they actually were). Suddenly it came to him that, perhaps, in the beginning of his exploration, that he would not have discerned these tiny bodies in the twilight on the dirty floor. It was not less dirty here, but... So did it mean that the light, yet still flickering painfully, became slightly more bright and stable? Only in this corridor, or on the whole level? For some reason this discover did not make him happy at all. Perhaps, somewhere the big sections of light fixtures, or other equipment, zoned out–and at the expense of them more energy began to supplement what remained? Then all this illumination is only for a short while. But even such variant was not the worst. Maybe... maybe, this whole place was
awaking
–not as a patient recovering from a coma, but as a vampire rolling in his tomb.

He reached the end of a corridor and found himself in an external ring again. He stopped dead.

From the left the sounds of bumps arose.

He stood still, again with a sharp regret that he remained without a weapon (the flashlight did not suit this role in any way). But now he wanted to go back for the tablet even less. Thinking a little, he came to the conclusion that there was a barrier between him and the source of these sounds. Otherwise the blows would have been heard more clearly. Having put a hand on an internal wall of the ring corridor, he felt how it shuddered slightly in time with the blows. However, the vibration obviously came from elsewhere. It was hardly probable that someone would be beating his own head against the wall, though now he would not be sur
prised even by this. More likely someone or something was breaking to the outside through a closed door. But what would happen when it escaped?

Nevertheless the man went to the left, towards to sounds. Any direct danger would be better than uncertainty. If another victim was breaking to freedom, as was he, he would help. If, on the contrary, it was the murderer who had gotten himself into a trap... or any other creature, for example, the next mutant, but far from insect size already, then he would try to strengthen the door or whatever contained this thing. But how would he understand it? Talking through a door? And what if the murderer, however mad he was, could convincingly pretend to be a victim?

Meanwhile the blows grew closer and closer. He took some more steps and saw a door.  It did not differ from the one which he had gone out not so long ago, except for the mutilated and, probably, tightly jammed lock. Obviously, someone had tried successfully to jam it because he concluded that this door should not be opened. And that someone had probably tried for a good reason?

However, he had apparently overestimated the durability of the door which shuddered and caved in under blows from with
in. It was not simply hit with fists and feet but was apparently rushed all over. It even seemed to the amnesiac that it was already possible to distinguish on the surface of the door a rough convex resemblance to a human silhouette, and he didn't feel himself assured at all that he wanted to meet whoever was so fiercely breaking out.

While he stood in indecision, however (there was abso
lutely nothing to prop up against the door other than his own shoulder), one more desperate blow moved the door outward from the door jamb several centimeters, and the following one threw it to the floor. And then something dreadful fell out into the corridor.

A suitable word had escaped from the dark depths of am
nesia: mummy. And specification: from old horror films. The figure was, almost from head to foot, in some sort of dirty bandages. Here and there they had been torn and bloody. There were no other clothes, or footwear. From under bandages on the head in several places long ugly strands of black hair rose up.

The amnesiac involuntarily recoiled.

"Who are you?" he hoarsely exhaled, throwing up again the useless flashlight, as if it were a sword.

The figure, which had found balance, sharply turned to
ward him. It seemed to be as frightened as he was.

"And you?" she asked. The voice was female. And the body outlines, actually, also female.

"I would like to know it myself," he muttered and then had a subsequent thought that, probably, he had better pretend to be more informed–or at least try to stay in control of the order of questions and answers.

"You don't remember anything?" she understood, her voice disappointedly going down. "Me too. For how long are you here?"

"Thirty, forty minutes," he shrugged his shoulders, "or maybe hours. I am not sure that I correctly perceive time here. And that's from the moment when I came to my senses. But before..." he again shrugged his shoulders.

"Like me. I regained consciousness in a closed room, in bandages. For some time I waited for someone to come and ex
plain. Then I began to shout and call out. Then I understood that nobody would come. I began to bang on the door. That's all. And you? You were outside, weren't you?"

"My door was open."

"But what is there? I mean, around?"

"Nothing good." He grew dark. "I don't know where the exit is, if you speak about it."

"It is after all not a hospital?"

"Yes, in hell there might be such hospitals."

"But also not a prison? I mean..." She looked around. "It is too dirty here, even for a prison. And I have beaten out a cell door. Where are the jailers? Where is the alarm? It looks like there was no one alive for many years here."

"We are."

"Yes. Listen, we have to name each other somehow."

"Just ‘Hey!’ won't be enough?"

"Personally I don't want to be called just ‘Hey!’ And then, maybe we will find someone else."

Or it will find us, the man gloomy thought, but answered aloud : "Well, considering circumstances, you can call me Adam," and adjusted his only clothing.

"Then I am Eve," she easily agreed, "considering circumstances." Apparently she only now recognized that she did not even such clothing. However, she also did not look naked under all those bandages. Whether she was confused, under bandages, also remained unclear.

He remembered about the piece of paper which he still held in his hand.

"Listen, does a surname ‘Poplavska’ tell you anything? Professor Poplavska. Think."

"No." She shook her head. "And who is it?"

"Then, maybe Lebrun? Hart? Or lastly, Kovaleva?" ("No, this place is absolutely not similar to a monastery,” he added to himself.)

"You, after all, know something? Who are all these people?"

Without a word he gave her the sheet. For some time she studied the list.

"You think we are some of these scientists?" She re
turned the paper.

"Or victims of their experiments. I do not know. I know nothing."

"Where did you find it?"

"Eve, in your bath... by chance... was there a dead body?" he asked instead of answering her.

"Dead body? In a bath?" She wonderingly stared from under her bandages, then got it: "You mean there was one in yours?"

He silently nodded.

"And are there a lot of them here?"

"I've seen five yet. But I have not visited everywhere."

"And all in baths?"

"No."

"And how have they died?"

"A way we had better not," Adam muttered. Before his eyes a vision of the crucified woman appeared again, and he shuddered. However, Eve, apparently, had encountered a lot of trouble, too. "Painful?" he asked compassionately, nodding to
ward her blood-stained bandages.

"A little. I was probably wounded when I rammed the door. Oh no, I just noticed!"

"And old wounds?"

"No, probably, all healed. I even tried to remove the bandages, but..."