Chapter 315: Chapter 303: The Death of Chester Bell
"Master, be careful! Don’t let them hit the alarm! Dozens of superpower users in the mountains will come running if they hear it!" Yan Yan’s face paled as he shouted at Flora.
"You! Yan Yan, you dare betray the Doctor!" the two figures in hazmat suits cried out, their faces draining of color.
Yan Yan said nothing, but Flora calmly called out Cynthia’s name.
Two thick vines shot up from the ground at their feet, binding them from head to toe in an instant.
"All set!"
Cynthia Grant walked in from outside the laboratory, clapping her hands triumphantly. She looked to Flora for praise. "So? Now that I’ve broken through to the Middle Level, I’m even more incredible, right?"
Flora squeezed past Cynthia, who was blocking the doorway, and walked into the laboratory on her own.
The lab wasn’t large, only about a hundred square meters in total. Various pieces of experimental equipment were arranged in the center. To the left, a huge cabinet held beakers, test tubes, and other items. To the right stood several unfamiliar machines, all plugged in and presumably holding important experimental materials.
"Who are you people! Why are you breaking into our lab! Let us go, now! Or you’ll have to face the consequences!"
"We’re government researchers! What you’re doing is illegal confinement! If you don’t release us this instant, you will face severe penalties!"
The pair tried to frighten the two seemingly harmless young women with threats, only to realize the girls weren’t listening to them at all.
Like a curious child, Cynthia Grant wandered around the lab, poking at one thing and fiddling with another, having the time of her life.
Flora scanned her surroundings, feeling that something was off, though she couldn’t put her finger on what. To be safe, she walked over to the two men in hazmat suits, placed her hands on their shoulders, and sent them into her space.
They vanished and reappeared in a flash. When they emerged, their previous tension was completely gone.
"Cynthia, you can untie them now."
Cynthia was confused. "Why? If I let them go, they’ll hit the alarm or run away!"
"They won’t. Don’t worry."
In the time Cynthia had known Flora, her trust in her had grown to be almost absolute.
"Alright, I’m releasing them. But if anything goes wrong, don’t blame me." As she spoke, Cynthia retracted the two vines, then glared warily at the two men in hazmat suits.
"Flora, these two are so weird. Why are they suddenly so obedient? They’re not even resisting. Don’t tell me they’ve been possessed or something?" Cynthia stared curiously at the two men who had been so agitated just moments before. Now they stood before Flora like loyal underlings, respectfully calling her "Master."
"Whoa, they’re calling you Master! Flora, what kind of spell did you cast on them? You have to teach me!"
Flora gave Cynthia an awkward glance. "This is one trick you really can’t learn."
Just then, the two men suddenly rushed to the side of a lab bench, their expressions grave.
For a moment, Flora thought the imprint from her space hadn’t worked and they were about to hit an alarm under the bench. But no alarm rang. Instead, they pressed a black button on a device that looked like an alarm panel twice in quick succession.
Confused, Flora asked, "What’s that? Why did you press it twice?"
"It’s our lab’s special security check-in. It has to be pressed once every five minutes. If you miss that window, you have to press it twice within the next ten minutes. If more than half an hour passes, the whole place gets blown up by explosives buried underneath."
The two men patted their chests, still shaken by the close call, and then took off their hazmat suits.
Flora took a turn about the lab before her gaze settled on the two men. "Where’s the Doctor? Where did he go?"
The men flinched. Faced with Flora’s intimidating question, they lowered their heads and said, "The Doctor has already left Morhaven."
"Where to?"
"Argent! Our laboratory in Argent is the main headquarters; all the others are just branch locations. We’re researchers who were assigned here to Morhaven from Argent."
Flora frowned. ’So this wasn’t their only laboratory.’ According to Yan Yan, their organization was massive. They had a large number of superpower users, and because the Doctor had given each of them some kind of special drug, they were all completely obedient.
Obedience was the only way to get the antidote.
"I’m asking you, is there a girl with a snake’s tail here? Where is she being held captive?"
The two men jumped. "Th-that girl... the Doctor took her to the headquarters in Argent!"
"What? Annelise was taken to Argent?" Cynthia’s face grew grim as she cried out in alarm. "Why did the Doctor take her there? What’s he planning?"
"The Doctor wants to study her Beast Type genes, but the equipment here is too limited and we don’t have enough staff. That’s why he took her to the main headquarters."
Flora took a deep breath to calm her surging impatience. She looked at the tables of lab equipment and multi-colored reagents, but what she really wanted was to burn the entire place to the ground.
But reason told her this place was still useful; she couldn’t destroy it yet. Doing so would undoubtedly put the Doctor, far away in Argent, on high alert.
"In that case, is a Spiritual Ability User named Chester Bell here?"
"He is!"
"Master, do you want to take him with you? We can lead you to him!"
Flora hesitated for a moment. Her first inclination was to bring Chester Bell into her space and take him back to the base. For one, Spiritual Ability Users were incredibly rare, and his survival would be a boon for the conflicts to come. For another, if she were to kill him here, she would feel as if she were sinking to the Doctor’s level.
Shelly didn’t have much time. So the group of five—Flora, Cynthia, Yan Yan, and the two researchers—left the lab and came to an area filled with cages.
How to describe such a place? If you’ve ever seen the ancient Roman Colosseum on TV or online, you’d recognize the cages. They were just like the bloody, sturdy cells that held the beasts before they were sent into the arena.
Each one was covered in scars, its eyes exhausted, yet it would feign a cold-blooded ferocity, all for a fleeting moment of a King’s dignity before the slaughter.
The cages here were just like that.
Except these cages didn’t just hold beasts. They held humans and zombies as well.
The scene shook Flora to her core. The laboratory was only a hundred square meters, but this area holding the cages was dozens of times larger.
Every cage held a living being, scarred and battered but not yet dead. It took the five of them a long time to find Chester Bell, who was barely breathing.
The two researchers unlocked the cage and dragged Chester Bell out.
"Chester Bell, wake up!"
There was no response...
Chester Bell wore only a pair of tattered jeans. Nearly all the visible flesh on his upper body had been carved away.
The bloody sight made her recall what Shelton Underwood had said before her death in her past life. ’Is this how they tortured Joel?’ she wondered.
While Flora was lost in her thoughts, Chester Bell managed to force his eyes open. "Kill... me."
Flora snapped back to reality. She suppressed the turmoil rising in her heart and the nausea in her stomach as a dagger appeared in her hand. A wave of pity washed over her. ’If my brother, Joel, could have died before turning into a zombie in my past life,’ she thought, ’he would have welcomed death without hesitation.’
She plunged the dagger directly into Chester Bell’s temple. This way, even if his corpse was infected after death, he wouldn’t reanimate as a zombie.
Chester Bell, at least, was able to choose his own death. But what about Joel in her past life? After becoming a zombie, even dying was a release he could not have.
And what of all the other test subjects in labs like this one? For them, death was likely an impossible luxury.
