“Stay low.” Lara signals me silently, apparently trying to make sure I am paying attention. Any wrong move in this facility could be my last, dim lighting made it even more difficult to navigate the labyrinth of a facility. Silence grips the building in an eerie aura, and I swear I can hear the suspenseful music playing in my head. My heartbeat is pounding in my chest to the beat.

I am, of course, keeping up with her, but not in the fashion she might be thinking. My blasted eyes cannot seem to peel off from staring at her back. If she knew, I am sure I would be branded as some common creep. Her shoulder twitches uncomfortably, I guess that means she knows I am staring. A lot. The perfect curves her body is bestowed with are rather admirable, and it is kind of like stress relief for me. Any distraction from the otherworldly ambience this film provides is greatly appreciated in my part, which would sound strange if I were watching the movie in a theater rather than living in it.

Silent as a morgue, which is an apt metaphor considering our surroundings, I tread close behind. Actually, I take that back, it is a terrible metaphor. Silent as the grave. You know what, morgue sounds less terrifying. It is not my fault for not learning more about metaphors, not that that would help me either.

I bump into Lara who comes to a sudden stop, and she gives me a chilling glare, making me gulp nervously. Death awaits for me around every corner, figuratively and literally. Around the corner of the T-intersection, three Ghouls are feasting on the remains of some dead scientist. Even though I personally did not check, having seen the movie beforehand is reason enough to avoid another churned stomach.

“What now?” I whisper with extreme delicacy.

She raises a finger angrily to her lips. A curious grunt from one of the Ghouls echoes down the hall, but they quickly get back to the crunching of bones.

She shoves me further back, putting some more space between us and those things. Once a safe distance away, she hisses at me. “Shut the hell up, unless you’re trying to get us both killed.”

“Sorry.”

Never have I seen her so on edge before, it is my mistake in thinking she has nerves of steel, she still is human after all. I contemplate on that fact. That is such a strange notion to think about, on the one hand she is just a complexion created from the imagination of some writer, but on the other, right now she appears to be no less real than me. Fear, ambition, desires, and the will to fight. Is that what makes us alive? Is that what makes us human? For a moment, there is a connection that I feel towards her, that connection makes her seem more human.

Casting the idle thought aside for the time being, I focus back to the matter at hand. “What is your plan?”

Her gaze narrows. “I am working on it. Unless you know what is going to happen next or what my plan was in the first place.”

“I can’t remember all the details right now. There was definitely lots shouting and something, I do believe we have to be chased by the Ghouls.”

She whips her head back, “Wait, what?” The question is not directed to me, rather she reasons to herself out loud. “The only reason I would choose to be chased by Ghouls while screaming would be if I were chased by a sandworm.”

As if right on queue from finishing her sentence, the ground begins to tremble lightly. Gradually intensifying from trembles, it grows to an earth shaking tremor. The Ghouls howl alarmingly loud, they now run to ambush us since we are no longer hidden.

“Oh crap!” She makes a mad dash down the hall as I follow close behind.

I stupidly sneak a glimpse behind us. A giant grotesque worm is borrowing through the whole hallway, heading straight for us, it is abnormally fast considering the unfathomable size of that thing. The Ghouls are the least of our worries with that thing chasing us. The amble creatures skid into the hallway behind us, their pursuit cut short as they give a terrifying shrill. That Sandworm ate one of them whole while crushing the rest with its massive body. Rows and rows of razor sharp teeth circle its entire orifice, clearly its sole purpose is to crush and grind everything that it sinks its teeth into.

I pick up the pace and I end up passing Lara altogether, jumping around the corner into another large dimly lit room. Lara jumps around the other side and smacks a button on the wall, sending the sliding door down on the chasing worm and chopping its head off clean. Foul smelling black fluids spew all over the place, some of it even stains my already ruined suit.

Wheezy breaths in a state of shock, my composure is finally breaking down. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”

“You’ll get used to the smell eventually.” I look up over the twitchy dead worm’s head to Lara, who is covered in the sludgy mess. She nonchalantly rubs it off herself. “Figured you’d like to know that if you really aren’t from around here.”

“Whatever.” I mutter while whipping what little I can off my hands. It is fairly certain that I will never get used to the odor, sewage is a wannabe comparison to this worm sludge. My nerves spike when a metallic clatter echos in this room, which Lara reactively whips out her pistol and aims at the source of the noise.

Two hands pop up and an exclaiming plea implores, “Please! Don’t shoot!” A head pops out from behind a flipped over table.

“Identify yourself!” Exclaims Lara.

“Doctor Cummings, I am a geneticist of this facility. I am the last survivor.”

Lara did not lower her weapon, but her finger eases off the trigger. “What happened here and to everyone else?” She says.

Cummings replies with shaking knees. “I don’t know what happened, first a bunch of Nova Tera mercenaries ambushed us and were wrangling all of us up to be taken hostage. Then it all went to hell. An unending wave after wave of Ghouls overran the place, taking most of us out. Then the sandworms started swarming.” A tear rolls off his face, he digs in his hands with shame, “My friends. They’re all dead!” He cries uncontrollably. “And all I could do was hide like a coward behind the desk, waiting for the screams to end.” He falls weakly on his knees.

I glance between Lara and this doctor, she lowers her guard and clasps her gun back in its holster. Stepping beside the defeated man, she lifts him up by the arm to give him support.

“Come on, we have to go. We’ll get you out of here safely, meanwhile, you’ll tell me everything as we get out of this hellhole.”

I become mildly envious of the man from how he lays his head on her shoulder, taking in her comforting warmth that I somewhat yearn. The plan is now to make our way to an emergency exit towards the opposite end of the facility, which I bet was some plot design to prolong the already nerve-racking suspense. Meanwhile, the man recounts his story on cue just as any filler guy would. The story is just a normal recap, he has been working on an antidote to the Virus-X, the antidote was completed at the same time as them being ambushed by everything. Typical plot design in all honesty, but I know it does not end there. Cummings finishes his story, and we silently make our escape through the currently silent hallways.

I keep a watchful eye behind, last thing I want is a blasted sandworm to ambush us again. I cannot believe that I had forgotten that scene, it should have been hard to forget something like that. For some reason, there is this feeling that there is something amiss. The pieces of a bigger picture are falling in place, but the details are starting to feel more and more off. Claw marks and trenches formed from the sandworms made my poor heart palpitate irregularly. I am again reminded that it is one thing to watch a movie, and another to live it.

Gunshots at a distance nearly make me jump out of my skin, a blood curdling shrill from one of those freaky Ghouls following suit. Retreating footsteps nearing us grow louder every second. At first I feel relief but then the alarming look in Lara’s eyes brings me back to a terrifying reality. They are not allies.