Laboratory 311, home of the Waller-Lobue Particle Accelerator.

It was the perfect day for a high school field trip. The sun was shining, birds were singing, and the staff was… well, dead. All of them. Dead.

“Welcome to Laboratory 311”, the tour guide had said, but when she went to check on the screams coming from the particle accelerator viewing chamber, she never came back.

To the best of our teacher’s understanding, some sort of accident caused the emergency protocols to kick in. That meant a complete lock-down and containment of any breach. Now I’m trapped in the complex with the other students and our teacher, Mr. Panacharian, waiting for a rescue team.

~

“Kids, please stay together,” Mr. Pan said gruffly. Pan was a big man. He wasn’t fat, but he wasn’t muscle-bound either. He was powerful looking, with huge hands and an overly expressive unibrow that looked like two caterpillars practicing the Kama Sutra on his forehead. Picture a Greco-Roman wrestler, but shorter. Probably just a higher concentration of Neanderthal DNA. I mean, give the man a cigar and mutton chops, and he would have been the perfect guy to play a comic book accurate Wolverine.

“Mr. Pan, I have to go to the restroom,” Becky Anderson whined. “Really bad.”

Pan’s shoulders drooped, and he sighed like a man whose job it was to tell the world that humanity was on the brink of extinction. “Becky, we’re supposed to remain in this room until someone comes to let us out. I don’t think anyone will hold an accident against you. To be honest, I have to go too.”

Brad Wilson, team quarterback, snickered. “Don’t be too sure of that. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of judging.”

Pan swiveled his head on the tree stump serving as his neck and glared at Brad. “Don’t be a dick, Brad,” he said, clearly unafraid of potential repercussions. “You’ve been doing the pee-pee dance for the last twenty minutes.”

The rest of the class, including Becky, laughed as Brad’s face flushed a deep, warm crimson.

It took a moment to register amidst the laughter, but a hush rolled through the room as we all recognized the sound of what could best be described as a guttural, primal roar. The roar echoed through the room like a train passing through an underground terminal, and Becky began to cry. I put my arm around her, hoping to provide a little comfort, but I wasn’t feeling all that comfortable myself.

A series of shrieks and screams rang out in the halls, followed by a high-pitched squeal that sounded like the mating call of a cyborg dolphin. Becky, voice shaking like a Yahtzee cup, whispered, “Brad just peed himself.”

~

We stood in the closest thing to silence we could muster. I mean, there were whimpers, whispers, and outright crying, and of course Mr. Pan was busy hushing all of the above, but it wasn’t as bad as the pandemonium going on in the hall and particle accelerator chamber.

Suddenly, the door from the adjoining viewing room flew open and a tall Japanese man wearing a lab coat and yellow safety glasses stumbled through. He quickly closed the door behind him and cursed when he remembered there wasn’t a lock on our side. He turned to look at us, seeming surprised for a moment, and then wheezed, “The field trip! Thank God. Are you all accounted for?” He looked to Mr. Pan for an answer, his eyes desperate.

“Everyone’s here, except Jodi, our tour guide,” Mr. Pan replied. He looked just as shaken as the man standing in front of us. His name tag identified him as Fuun Shishido – Senior Controls Engineer. “Can you tell us what’s happening here?”

Fuun shook his head. “Classified,” he muttered.

Mr. Pan wasn’t a fan of the engineer’s...