Something inside Leon’s chest ground to a halt and plummeted heavily the moment those tiny, dry fingers curled around his own. It was an agonizingly tender, heartbreaking gesture. She needed help; he had to get this little girl out of here as quickly as possible, no matter what it took.
He gave a short sniffle, his fingers gently lifting her tiny palm to keep it from dropping. Her hand felt cold, limp, and frighteningly yielding, like a rag doll in his grasp. Looking at her innocent smile through the haze of her pain, Leon felt a desperate urge to pull her into his arms and weep. Despite the agony inflicted upon her—a pain that refused to fade or let go—this little girl was smiling, so wide that the tiny fissures on her dehydrated lips began to bleed.
He urgently needed to find some water for her. Swallowing the lump in his throat, Leon forced a more confident smile in return. He slipped off his lab coat and draped it over the child, carefully checking to ensure that no rigid plastic badge or a pen in his pocket would cause her any discomfort. Gently embracing her and tucking the rustling coat around her trembling, sleeping shoulders, Leon set off with a heavy heart to search for water.
The corridor was lined with several doors; by all appearances, this laboratory was massive. There had to be a breakroom or a small conference hall somewhere nearby—places where they frequently set up coffee machines and water coolers. Even those monsters needed water from time to time. His footsteps were entirely soundless as he crept across the tiled floor, each door ahead posing no less of a thrill than opening a Jack-in-the-box. The first door led to someone's office; the second was a laboratory, or perhaps a kitchen where they concocted all those ampoules of viral strains. Right in the middle stood a hermetic door—unmistakably an operating room. Hearing approaching footsteps, he ducked into a small doorway. It was a janitor's closet. Well, it wasn’t his first time... Back in school, they used to lock him in those quite often.
Leon listened, holding his breath. It was so quiet that the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, bracing for any sound. Yet all he could hear was his own heart, bounding like a trapped rabbit against his ribs. He pressed his forehead against the door. What if the guards were standing right on the other side? What if they had spotted him on the cameras?
A minute passed, then two. In moments like these, it was impossible to tell how much time had drifted by. His watch didn't illuminate in the dark; it was just a regular, heavily worn casio, a battered piece he had practically lived in. In the darkness, time undeniably slowed its crawl, defying all logic.
Since there was no click of the doorknob, the person must have walked past without entering the corridor. Perhaps his panic had been for nothing. Or maybe he had missed the moment they slipped inside, and now they were right behind one of those doors, going about their "work." Whatever the case, Leon peeked out cautiously. The corridor was empty. It brought little relief; it felt wrong that midway through a workday, the place was entirely deserted and the little girl had been left completely unattended.
The fourth door led to a space resembling a breakroom. Inside, there was a creaky red leather sofa with a volume of Nietzsche resting on it, along with bookshelves and a water cooler. The cooler was empty, though a fresh jug stood right beside it. If he inverted the heavy bottle into place, how much noise would it make?
There wasn't a single clean mug or plastic cup in sight. Apparently, there were exactly as many people here as there were mugs. Eight. Eight tormentors. Every single one of them was directly responsible for her agony. The true villains weren't the ones pressing the doomsday button; they were the ones who turned up day after day, blindly carrying out management's orders.
Choosing the least dirty mug, he washed it out and poured the rinse water into a drying plant by the bookshelf. Almost soundlessly, he lifted the large jug into place and drew the cold water. He peeked back into the hallway to make sure the coast was clear. Reassured by the silence—no matter how suspicious it felt—he hurried back to the girl.
What would he do next? How could he save her? Was it even possible to put an end to this atrocity?
Leon let out a sigh of relief. The child lay peacefully on the cot, curled into a tight little ball under his lab coat, with only her ice-cold toes peeking out. He adjusted the coat, though he knew it would do little to help her chills.
Did this girl even have a name? Did anyone here ever address her by it?
"Shh... let's try to drink some water."
He knelt down, finding the right angle to gently lift her head and part of her upper body without disturbing her too much. Cradling the child cautiously, Leon let her sip the water, a tiny fraction at a time, to keep from triggering a bout of vomiting.
He couldn’t get her out right now—the girl’s condition was far too fragile for such a risky endeavor. But did he even have time? Very soon, the staff who worked here would return. They were likely at some inter-departmental meeting, or perhaps a presentation awaited them; either way, they would all flood back into this room at once, and it was only a matter of time. He definitely couldn’t sneak her through the main exit—the security convoy was stationed there. But there was an emergency exit, which remained locked and likely only opened if the fire alarm was triggered or something of that nature.
He could make his way across the fire escape, where open balconies stretched out on every floor. The main emergency door was locked, but the balcony on the second floor was open. He knew this for a fact because whenever he escaped the lab at night to combat his sudden spells of drowsiness, he would often retreat to that freezing balcony. He would wander the stairwell like a sleepwalker, trying to drive away the waking somnambulists that drifted through his mind as shadows in the night. Yet the more he wandered, the faster he lost to them, his head eventually slumping back against the wall.
What would he do next? Turn to the police? The FBI? Where could he go? Who could possibly hold every single one of them accountable? Who could help him save this little girl?
