Page 20 of Sacrifice

“What about my birthday? 051299.”

I keyed in the numbers, and the light flashed green. “Holy shit. It actually worked,” I said, eyes widening as the door opened with a soft hiss.

It creaked as I pushed on it, slowly swinging open, and suddenly everything was flooded with bright light. For a moment, it almost felt like a religious experience, but then I realized the light was fluorescent and set up on an automated motion-detector system.

“Whatisthis place?” Rose asked, wide eyes scanning the large room we’d found ourselves in.

The natural cave walls had been meticulously smoothed and reinforced, the stone now blending with metal and glass. Sleek laboratory tables lined the room, cluttered with an array of scientific instruments, empty beakers and tubes, and complex machinery. The air was cool and sterile, a stark contrast to the wilderness outside.

“It’s a lab,” I said, looking over at Rose.

“A lab?”

“It’s short for laboratory. A place where scientists do research through tests and experiments. This must be where the alchemists work all day.”

Her brows knitted, and she stepped toward a shelf neatly stacked with liquid-filled vials and containers. “What do you think this is?” she asked, pointing to one of the vials.

“It could be drugs, like I guessed before. But I’m not sure.” When she lifted a hand to grab the vial, I snapped a finger. “Wait! Don’t touch anything yet.”

She snatched a hand back, eyebrows rising. “Why?”

“We don’t know if it’s safe,” I said. “It could be drugs, but it could also be something else. A virus, maybe. We shouldn’t touch anything until we’re sure.”

“Good point,” she murmured. Her apprehensive eyes shot across the room, where a set of steel doors stood. “Should we check through there too?”

“Definitely.” I strode toward the door, pulse still pounding with anticipation. There was another electronic lock on it, but it accepted the same code as the front door.051299.

Beyond the steel door, a narrow, dimly lit passage stretched out before us. The air grew warmer as we moved down it, and small lights in sconces switched on, automated to detect motion just like the laboratory lights.

“It’s getting quite humid,” Rose said, echoing my thoughts.

“Yeah, I’m almost sweating,” I muttered, frowning as we headed deeper into the passage.

We finally arrived in what appeared to be an enormous grow room, its interior bathed in a soft, artificial light. Inside, rows of neatly arranged trays were stacked with cultivated mushrooms, their delicate caps shimmering under the glow of specialized heat lamps. Everything was meticulously organized, with various stages of mushroom growth visible, from young sprouts to fully matured fungi.

“I fucking knew it,” I muttered.

Rose sighed, head slowly shaking. “You were right,” she said. “This cave is filled with mushrooms. Not dark spirits.”

“Yeah. Mushrooms that the Covenant has decided to grow on an industrial scale,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “But… they don’t look right.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a lot of different fungus species that you can get psilocybin from,” I said. “That’s the stuff that makes you high. But none of them look anything like this. At least not from what I’ve seen.”

“What are they meant to look like?”

“I think most of them are white, brown, or yellow. But these are—”

“Red.” Rose cut me off, staring at the crimson mushroom caps. “They’re all red.”

“Yup. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She turned her head and gestured to the passage on the edge of the room. “There’s more down there. Should we see what it is?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.” I turned away from the trays and followed her further down the passage. At the end lay another door. It was reinforced with metal, its edges sealed tightly, suggesting it led to an important storage area. A faint whirring sound could be heard from the other side, and the intense chill radiating from it was palpable, a sharp contrast to the heat of the mushroom cultivation area.

Rose tried the handle, but it didn’t budge. “Oh,” she muttered. “This one needs a code too.”

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