Nothing pulled existential loneliness into perspective like horror movie themes.


    What could possibly be worse than being alone?


    Not being alone, that’s what.


    He sure as shit hoped that what he smelled was a dead body through the vents and not a cloud of scent left behind by a moving person. Though he supposed a person was the better alternative. It had certainly pulled his happy ass out of nonchalant meandering mode that was for sure.


    This place wasn’t big enough to miss someone just casually walking around. That meant either he was being avoided, which begged the question of why? Or something had changed and things that had previously been locked up were not anymore.


    He sure wished he had paid a lot closer attention to which doors had been closed. He had looked for traces where he had smelled whoever or whatever it was but there were no sounds he could hear and the floors and walls seemed to have some kind of coating that prevented stains. No fingerprints, no footprints, nothing. The distinct lack of fluids helped quite a bit in calming the paranoia, but he also didn’t know how the vents worked, so he would need to keep a very close eye out for rooms he didn’t recognize or things that ‘didn’t belong’, whatever that meant in an unknown bunker.


    Grabbing some blankets to act as a mark, he was just going to have to be systematic about checking places. The industrial tunnels helped act as grid lines, but it would be incredibly tedious regardless. His best bet was splitting everything into a quadrant and scanning everything quickly from the main tunnel. If he didn’t spot anything he could then go back and actually search each open room.


    If he was reluctant to open doors before, this certainly hadn’t made it more appealing.


    <hr>


    Archaeologists were masters of patience.


    It was the only thing he could think of. While his engineering brain may appreciate the occasional bit of repetitive data collection, the constant sameness of checking each and every corridor was mind numbing. The occasional bout of excitement popped up when he managed to find something useful in an open room but by and large the search was just walking up a hall and entering each room, only to leave a basically empty space behind to check the next one.


    He did manage to find a notebook and pen, which will help with a great many things, but the major conclusion he was coming to was that, this mysterious bunker had way more rooms than people. At first he thought it was simply that everyone had minimal allowance for personal affects, but as he started to find rooms that actually had personal affects he had to revise that. It seemed that very few of the rooms were actually in use. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    If personal space wasn’t taken into consideration, you could probably stuff over a hundred people here but based on the percentage of rooms that seemed lived in, there might have been less than a couple dozen. A lot of pressing questions and the only answers he had were ghosts and zombies. Both bad in their own way.


    He was more than happy to make friends, but he drew the line at getting his brains munched or possible possession. The logical part of his brain suggested an emergency evacuation of some kind, but that way lay madness. If they had to leave in such a hurry that personal things got left behind, what was it that he wasn’t aware of?


    No, best to imagine fighting zombies and not all the horrible things he couldn’t do anything about in the logical alternatives.


    At least he could punch a zombie. Still, with the automatic lights preventing long range vision, he kept his ears open as much as possible and approached corners with a lot more caution than before. Sound and smell the only real options for warnings in this place. Which sucked, since the second wasn’t exactly a precision thing and the first had to combat the echoes in the larger tunnels. Guess he would have to develop that sixth sense for if he was being watched that got hyped up in media…


    If that even worked with ghosts.


    At least once he had found the notebook, the repetitive nature of his task let him note down general locations and build a crude map. Very helpful with remembering which doors were open now that he knew to pay attention to that kind of thing.


    Honestly, he was looking forward to the rationing math he would have to do once his sweep of the halls were finished. It would be a nice break from the tedium. The day to day sameness might not have been so bad though if it wasn’t for the disappointing showers. He could handle a repetitive day’s work as well as the next guy if he got to have a nice long shower afterwards and relax with a decent book.


    Couldn’t have that here though, he had yet to find a water processor of any description, so he had to assume that water was limited. Add in that there were no books and that led to quick showers and empty nights, which led to a great deal of nothing to do outside what was currently considered work. Which was boring. Not hard to guess why math was looking appealing.


    Even with the possible lack of water though, he sure as hell wasn’t going to go out like a slob, so he was on his way to keep his consistent, if disappointing, short shower schedule. Even though food was probably going to run out before the water anyway, it still felt wrong to waste it.


    Ugh, so pessimistic lately, maybe his brain was broken…


    Like his heart would be broken if it got shot up with that much adrenaline again. Whatever the shit that was is lucky it didn’t get broken too, scaring the crap outta him that bad. Nothing like jump scares and adrenaline to get the digestive system moving.


    Good thing he was near the bathroom.