This was for a story competition thing. If out of some morbid curiosity you decide to read this and have some suggestions for it I'd like to hear cause I'm still not really happy with it. It's just kind of meh you know...

On a quiet Saturday afternoon, Alice watches birds in the park across the street. She enjoyed the sound of their chirps and the different colors of their feathers. This was usually enough to occupy her time, but things have gotten complicated lately. Her daughter, Sarah, was with her grandparents for the week, so she had the house to herself. 

She usually spent this alone time with her husband, but he passed away a couple of months ago, and the house has felt empty ever since. She sat there for a while watching the birds, but the thoughts of how things used to be got too much. So she decides to go for a drive to clear her mind

Out on the road, the night rolled in like unwelcome guests usually do, and Alice was not the type to enjoy driving out in the dark. She started back to the safety of her home, but first, she wanted to stop by the new gas station. 

This place had everything… well, more than a typical gas station anyway. She looked around for a few minutes enjoying the novelty of the exotic snacks, state-themed keychains and solar-powered fidgeting plants you put on your dash for when you need an extra distraction, but still settled for a simple bag of chips and a pop. She got back in her car and went home.

Pulling into the driveway, she looks at this empty house again and can’t help but feel uneasy, like a stranger lives there and she should just leave before they see her. She takes a sip of the soda, puts the cap back on and feels a pair of hands reach out to cover her face. They pull her back into the headrest. She struggles to remove these cloth-wielding hands, but it’s too late, she passes out.

She woke with a cough and a gasp for air to find herself in a strange, sterile room, wearing a hospital gown. The only thing in the room was a bed, a toilet and a camera peering at her every move. She paces the room for a while, trying to convince herself it was all just a dream. After several failed attempts to close her eyes and wake up, she finally calms down enough to look for a way out.

She walks over to the large glass window separating her room from the hall, When she sees someone, a woman with black hair walking the halls. The woman approaches Alice’s window and places one hand on the glass. She’s wearing a gown, just like Alices. Her arms are covered in scratches, but she doesn't seem to notice or care. She just stood there staring with this crazy look in her eyes. A few moments pass, and the woman smiles with sharp teeth before running off. She was strange, but something about her made Alice feel safe.

She continues her search for a way out. The door was too strong to break, same for the glass, and the only vent in the room was too small to crawl through even if she could open it. She lies in bed feeling hopeless when her stomach tenses up with a sharp pain. Lying there for maybe an hour when all of a sudden, the lights blink. The camera in the corner points to the ground, the little green light on the side turning red. Then the door locks click as it sways open loosely. She looked around for a minute, unsure of what to expect. Standing up slowly, she stumbles out of her cell, holding her stomach. “I have to get back home for Sarah.”

The cold floors of this place chilled her to the bone as she made her way through the halls. She looked in the rooms lining the halls where others were trapped in cells, looking through their windows back at her. Some stood in straight jackets; others sat rocking on the floor. One of the people was covered in cuts and filled their room with drawings. 

A few of the people noticed her walking by and begged to be let out, but she didn’t even know how she got out, let alone how to open someone else's door. The voices kept pleading for their freedom, each with their reason for why they should be let out first. Taken mothers, missing fathers. Some of them were children who simply cried, wanting to see their parents again. It was all too much for her. She ran away from them, wiping the tears from her eyes.

An intercom blares out with a distressed voice talking about an escaped patient running through the left wing. Alice looks around to make sure she’s alone and continues down the corridor. The pain in her stomach returns, and she starts to lose balance needing to lean on the walls for a moment.

In the distance, she can hear something moving and quickly hides in a janitor’s closet full of lemon-scented chemicals and paper towels. Outside, it sounds like a group of people running past the room. She pokes her head out to see four heavily armed guards running down the halls. “Why do they have all those weapons, surely they don’t think I’m that much of a threat, do they,” She says to herself as she continues down the halls.

She turns a corner to see someone in a lab coat carrying a canister. They scream, dropping it and immediately run away, still screaming for help. Alice wonders what the commotion is about as she looks down at the shattered canister. Lying in the shards of glass is what looks like a pink ball of gel, about the size of a golf ball.

Crimson threads surrounded it like roots. She looks at it for a few minutes, almost entranced by it. The headache comes back with a strange sound in the back of her skull like a deep pulsing hum. Her arms start to itch as she shakes it off, saying it’s just this place trying to get to her. “I-I have to stay strong… for m-my daughter.”

Deeper in the facility, she sees more people locked in cells. Most are asleep, and some pace the room but freak out when they see her. They bang against the glass and scream for help. More of them are covered in scratches, scribbling on the walls in red. Strange drawings of figures and the words "help" and "protect." Some are curled up, puking in toilets.

She shivers as she walks through the cold hallways. Looking down at her arms, still itching from time to time. All of a sudden, alarms start going off. Over the intercom, a voice is heard again, this time more distressed.

"ALERT! The escaped patient is still walking the halls. This is a code red; shoot on sight! Civilians must evacuate the facility." Alice passes by offices and screaming scientists. She makes it to a room full of vats filled with the same pink orbs she saw from the canister. It seemed they were growing them. Some of the lumps were bigger than others growing into what looked like meat. She got too close to one of the masses, and it opened an eye to stare at her as she passed.

Walking through another corridor, she hears the humming sound again, this time louder. It’s coming from a room at the end of the hallway. She walks into the room, almost hypnotized by the sound when the humming stops. Now all she hears is a slithering sound, dripping and something knocking on a door. Then a voice on the other side. The voice started begging her to open the door. She frantically looks around for a light switch. The voice tells her not to turn on the lights. They are too bright.

Alice refuses, saying she needs to see. The voice begins to scream, telling her to stop as she turns the lights on, revealing the source of the voice. A giant mass of writhing flesh and bone behind a large window. Alice's eyes shoot open as she backs away, falling over herself as she scrambles for the door. The screams slowly turn into the deep humming sound from before. Loud enough now to shake the walls of the facility.

She doesn’t stop running until the sounds of screaming and gunfire ring out in the distance. Hiding in another room, she notices security monitors that reveal the reason for the screaming. A thing resembling a human with claws. Jumping from person to person, ripping them apart. It looks like the girl from before. She feels the pain in her stomach and starts to puke in a bin. She wipes off her mouth and stumbles back to her feet.

Looking over more of the cameras and a map on the wall. She finds a path to avoid all the fighting and the creature, going through what looks like a lab. Running through the halls, she makes it to a lab seeing desks knocked over and papers scattered all over the place. “Everyone must have left in a hurry.” The screaming is getting closer than she expected. That thing must have changed course. She crawls under a desk, and before long, a group of soldiers runs in, trying to escape. The savage patient follows close behind. Running towards them, unfazed by the bullets, it rips them to pieces.

The screaming stops, but Alice is breathing too heavy to hide. The beast crawls over and drags her out from under the desk. It goes for her throat but stops suddenly with wide eyes and smells her. The black-haired patient blinks, and more gunshots are heard from the halls. The patient screeches, her mouth splitting at the edges to reveal razor-sharp teeth, then takes off through the halls.

Alice gets up to leave but notices blackboards lining the walls with writing on them going over tests and lab results. One of them outlines something called Experiment-186B. Listing various symptoms, sickness, itching, psychosis. It looked like there used to be more, but the rest of the board was wiped clean in the shootout. She looks back at her arms, covered in cuts but no blood. She began looking around. “This is bad. I’ve got to get out, for… for w–what was I thinking about.” She hears the hum again, paired with another stomach pain, this time much worse. The pain is so bad she falls over and passes out.

When she wakes up, the bodies around her have been ravaged; bits and pieces are all that remain. She was covered in blood. "Was it hers?" She thought. "No... no, it's not mine, is it?” She shakes her head, “Have to leave, have to get out.” On her way again through this nightmare. There wasn't any more screaming, just distant alarms and her footsteps. It's not cold anymore. Passing by bodies lying left and right. She is still running, but not because of the fear of what’s to come, as she did before. No, it's something different now. A burning sensation, a voice in the back of her head that tells her to push on.

Alice's ears start ringing with the sound of gunshots and the screeching of the monster. “I have to go there. I need to help her.” Alice didn’t know what brought on these thoughts but she couldn’t shake them. She takes off down the halls running faster than before, upstairs and around corners until she sees it. A light, off in the distance and in that light, the silhouettes of more soldiers and the black–haired girl lying on the ground riddled with bullet holes

They noticed Alice and began to fire. The bullets pierced her legs and chest, but she couldn’t stop, the voice wouldn’t let her. She killed the first two, seamlessly cutting their throats like paper. She overpowered two of them, turning their weapons against each other. Leaving only one who was so shocked by having his whole squad killed in front of him, he merely stood there as she plunged her teeth into his neck. 

Then the voice stopped, and she was left there all alone. Running to the door, she could taste the outside air again, but the voice spoke again.

“Do you really think you can just leave?” Alice stopped at the door.

“What are you talking about?”

“You killed those people. You’re a monster. You think others won’t come for you. And that daughter of yours, what if you hurt her?” Alice looked down at herself; she was covered in blood. Everything finally sunk in. Those people were just trying to survive like her. Falling to her knees, she began to cry.

The voice came back, though this time it felt comforting. 

“Don’t cry. Everything will be ok.”

“How, you said it yourself, others will come, I'll never be safe. I–I don’t want to hurt anymore.”

“Not entirely true. I can help you. All you have to do is let me out. …” Alice looked down at the bodies and, in her lucid state, decided to do as the voice said. 

Everything was quiet for the most part until the walls started humming. It was a song from her childhood that made her eyes feel heavy. By the time she got to the door, it felt like she had been walking for days. Staring at this massive hunk of metal, she wondered if she was making the right choice, but no backing out now. She pressed the button, and the door made the screeching sound of metal grinding against rust. 

The creature made a joyous sound and began to twist and turn, stretching out of its cell like a bunch of eels wrapped around each other. It grabbed Alice and pulled her into the room. She didn’t care anymore and just hoped it would be quick, but the creature didn’t kill her. It just held her and hummed beautiful melodies. Everything started to move slower, and Alice fell asleep. She couldn’t leave for fear of hurting people, but the creature allowed her to stay in that dark place, feeding her dreams of a life she always wanted but could never have, a life with Sarah and Brian. 

The creature spread through the facility and parts of the forest around it. It was not an evil thing. It simply wanted to enjoy the fresh air, but the ones that locked it up will never know peace again once it finds them.

I especially hate the ending, it hits about as hard as a wet noodle. The thing is I don't want the "big monster kills everyone" ending. I just haven't found a better alternative yet.