UNDER THE STONE STAIRS.
The faculty is composed of a series of industrial buildings, six in total, joined on the ground floor by a long corridor that crosses the inner courtyards and crosses them in a straight line, establishing an uninterrupted and perfect cut in the middle of its architecture. This, in turn, reveals a network of intricate corridors and interconnected rooms. Like all ancient construction and historical weight (adding being occupied daily by young people influenced by movies, alcohol and drugs), hosts a myriad of myths, stories and rumors.
That night we stayed studying late in the lobby next to the library, several had already left and only Daniel, Martin and I were left. One of the last stories we had heard from Aidan (a senior Irishman, half crazy about the indiscriminate consumption of LSD, an avid accountant of curious stories) was that during the night strange noises were heard coming from the subway, as if some animal would run under the slats of the courtyards, and sometimes even beat the small, massive door located under the stone staircase that connected the second building with the third. It occurred to me to mention it as if by chance, hoping that it would break a bit with my boredom and the atmosphere of general tedium.
- That did not used to be the old laboratory? Even I know they closed it because the bioterium got out of control and somebody accused the professors of doing more and more unusual investigations. The rats must be sneaking in to make their nests there now, "Martin said, without even taking his eyes off the photocopies on the table.
-Verdad that was the bioterio! If just a couple of years ago before entering here they set up a new laboratory, it must have been gloomy to be underground with all that, "Daniel joined in, much more interested.
The dialogue continued well for a while, I tried to do my best so that it would not dissolve and I could convince them to investigate a little more. Martín suggested giving us a break to go to the bathroom and buy some coffees. I could not miss such a great opportunity.
Leaving the lobby, I grabbed Daniel by the arm and dragged him to the side of the door. Knowing that it is quite influential, I put on my best smile, and said, "You are going to help me." It is not hard to realize that she got upset immediately, as she was taking him by force to the stone stairs she was trying to tell me that she was crazy, that we were another day, with Aidan finally, that she knew better the recesses of the whole faculty and would know better what to do. Finally he fell silent behind me as I examined the lock on the door that led to the subway. It looked somewhat rusted and damaged by time and use, and the surrounding wood was splintered, as if someone had tried to subdue it.
I took a hairpin from my hair and introduced it, moving it slightly. Obviously it could not be that easy and it got stuck, I had to pull it out, but I tried again until I got fed up. Then I put a card as they do in the movies between the door and the frame, until I felt a light touch with the bolt and decided to force it a little more. Daniel watched.
-And you do not think to help me? Come and let's open the door! -I yelled. We pushed a little and it seemed to surrender surprisingly, a little more force and a golpazo we managed to open it completely. It squeaked, letting out a whiff of heavy and somewhat foul-smelling air, and at that hour it was not possible to know if at any moment the light would seep through the cracks. Almost instinctively, I looked for a switch at the sides, and when I activated it, a small light bulb was suspended in a corner by just a couple of wires. In front of us, an iron staircase with individual steps and a single railing with worn paint. The room was a rectangle with peeling walls, which ended on the right side of the stairs with some lockers. The explanation of why it took us so little to open the door lay right in that corner, where the dust seemed to have been removed unlike the rest of the place, and there were some crushed beer cans, cigarette butts and what was left of some cigarettes of marijuana. Of course, how could it be otherwise?
We go down At the other end of the space, to the left of the end of the stairs, was a semi-closed door with a plaque that read "Laboratories. Caution: Reactive materials. Make sure you have the proper protection and the necessary instrument handling. "
- Are you really doing this? Ali, we have to study, "Martin's voice said in the small space, from the top of the stairs. I let out an exclamation of surprise as Daniel jumped back. Something seemed to sound from the other side of the door, probably a rat sneaking around some forgotten shelf.
-It's now or never, Martin! I exclaimed almost in a whisper.
I loaded my weight against the door abruptly one, two, and three times, until I felt something stuck in its position. I struggled until Daniel pushed it open. On the other side you could hardly see anything, and the smell was terrible, a mixture between wet, enclosed and perhaps what was impregnated with the existence of animals; but in spite of that I turned on the flash of the mobile phone and went in, trusting that Martin and Daniel would follow me closely.
The corridor continued to the right, giving an L-shaped detour, and from the top of the wall protruded metal plates painted next to the door indicating the laboratories. «Lab3» was ajar, with the bolt markedly defeated. I went in, some stools had been overturned and there was instrumental scattered everywhere, the remains of glass creaked under my steps. Apart from the mess and some old papers with notes, I found nothing else.
I thought I heard something at the end of the hall, so I went straight there. On the plaque, this time it read "Biot2." I turned the dusty knob and the door opened almost without having to move it; inside, the same disorder, but a putrid smell like organic waste seemed to have impregnated itself in the walls, and the grid outside could hardly have helped at the time. Against the wall, batteries of cages and some smaller ones on some shelves, some racks still kept substances inside on one of the tables. Something seemed to have messed up recently.
I moved to the other end of the room, accidentally kicking a test tube that rolled noisily under a table outside my visual range, enough to make me a little nervous. I decided to move on, at the other end of the room there was a door that led to a space with several metal stretchers separated by PVC curtains. There were bumps that looked like excrement, but bigger than those of a rat, much more. Something similar to food cans and broken polystyrene containers was scattered on the floor, and as he went along, pieces of cloth and strands of hair tangled in various objects appeared.
Advancing to the bottom, I thought I saw a bundle covered in dirty fabrics under a stretcher. As I approached, I noticed that it trembled slightly and breathed agitatedly. His skin was free of all pigmentation and full of scars and sores, and his vertebrae and some other bones were marked. I could not keep moving forward.
I realized that I had been stepping on something similar to dirty, bloody rags, and what appeared to be recently used pads, some wrinkled with plastic wrappers. It was not just the smell of excrement and urine, it was the smell of a living, bleeding and dirty being.
The creature tried to crawl into another darker corner, but seemed to carry something that made it difficult, then stood there, raising a tiny head from which just a few strands of long, dead hair hung. He looked at me directly with large round eyes sunken in their sockets, the nose was barely a partition and a couple of holes, which together with the thinness of his face and lips retracted, he remembered the appearance of the patients of porphyria. It was not until he tried to move again, that he collapsed and I could see that he was a small being, visibly undernourished and that he was a human being. But maybe that was not what impressed me the most. He let out a shrill, childish shriek, and as he reached for a smaller bundle wrapped in a blanket he had dropped on the floor, he discovered part of it and saw something that was definitely not human, but a kind of deformed face full of thin, dark hair, and from various places on his body came catheters that must have been connected to something else, along with a series of scars. He began to complain, it was not a cry, but a weak moan that was neither so human nor so animal, while what I guess was his mother tried to protect him with his skeletal arms while looking at me.
I felt an indescribable horror. I wanted to back away but my feet did not listen to me. That creature, lacking any human contact for who knows how long, reacted quickly and began to throw what I found on the ground while screaming and trying to hide; the hairy bundle writhed and complained wrapped up in one of his arms. I thought that at any moment I would dump a stretcher to take it to myself or take refuge behind it.
-Do not! -It was the only thing that occurred to me to scream while receiving disgusting projectiles and trying to cover me with my hands.
Fortunately, Martin had followed me closely. I felt how he grabbed me from the back and pulled me out of the room. The creature was still screaming, which now looked more like a cry, and Daniel was motionless on the other side of the door. One of us closed it when leaving, I do not remember who, although I was sure that the horrible creature would not come out of its corner. It is impossible to know if she or I was more scared. I felt something similar to pity.
I could see that in all the mess there were notebooks, pencils and syringes in good condition. It disgusted me and a chill ran down my back. Martin dragged the two of us quickly out of the hall, forcing us up the stairs and closing the subway door behind us.
-What the fuck just happened down there !? He exclaimed as he collapsed on one of the armchairs in the hall, running his hands over his face. Can someone answer me? Is that what you were looking for, Ali? Look at yourself, you can not deny that something has happened down there!
It was undeniable. I watched him covered in stinking debris, Daniel looked at his hands. We could not explain it, there was no way. It did not even concern us to get in there.
I decided to take my things, I asked Martin if he could accompany me on my way home. When I arrived I took a shower and did what I could to sleep. What kind of horrors were carried out in those laboratories without anyone's knowledge? How to rationally explain what was down there?
Weeks later, we were walking down the large corridor across the courtyard, when suddenly Professor Rotts (renowned geneticist and author of a number of documents related to human genetic research and advances in animal experimentation) seemed to come in with a tray of food and some Water bottles by the door under the stone staircase. Some say they have seen him watching the grilles that give the subway, and sometimes even cleaning the trapped waste between these.