I think I’m going to die, they came by again today. I don’t know what I’m going to do! I should never have started this narrative! Never, they're coming for me! They are going to kill me; there’s nothing I can do. Stacy, I’ll see you again real soon. I promise you that! 

I am hiding in a warehouse at the edge of town. They are not going to get me! I will make sure of that. So, I did an interview with the newspaper. I tried to tell them what happened, I tried to tell them the truth about everything. That's when I first realized I was running out of time. They refused to cover my story and closed all the windows and doors the moment I came in. They told me that they didn’t want anyone to overhear us. I told them everything, but they said I was crazy. Then I got an email from Michael telling me that they were coming. So, I started to panic. I don’t want to die, but at the same time, I want to. I want to be far far away from here. I want to run until I can’t run anymore. I want to be far away from Dogolos, Ohio. However, I can’t, no one ever leaves. They will always get you if you try. They have too much power. They will rip you, crush you and tear you into pieces and blast you to smithereens. I will never be able to leave. After I got the warning from Michael, I tried to ask Michael if he could disable the border security for a few hours. However, he told me not to do anything stupid. For the rest of the day, they were following me. They tried to get me while I was having lunch at a restaurant. They tried to get me when I was going home for the day. Then, I got home, and I barricaded myself in. I locked all the windows and drew the blinds. I turned off all the power in the house and set up tripwires in the corridors. Then I fled to my bedroom and barricaded the door. Soon enough, they came, two of them, they came with their guns and everything else they use to kill a man! They tried to break in, but I wasn’t going to let that happen. I threw my lamp down at them, taking one out. I grabbed everything I would need, my Laptop, Car Keys, and the USB drive with Operation Starglow on it. The other then broke down the door and charged up the stairs. I heard him fall over the tripwire and I opened the window. I climbed onto the roof and slid into the garage. From there I got into my car and drove and drove. I drove out of town and stopped. I’d never make it to the border by night. So, I hid in this warehouse. I’ll wait till morning when curfew lifts, then I’ll cross the border and be home free. For now, I’ll continue my narrative.

Last I left, we had escaped the Gorgon and were making our plan to escape through the plumbing. The three of us left the kitchen and tried to make our way back to the plumbing room. As we walked, we ran through the plan a couple more times. “Remember, we crawl through the pipes past the huge pit, then we follow the pipes out of the laboratory!” Stacy reminded us. I nodded, Michael sighed and said, “I’m ready.” The three of us rounded the corner and suddenly came face to face with a Cockatrice. A cockatrice is a large velociraptor eagle hybrid thing with a deathly stare, like that of a basilisk (The huge snake we encountered). I didn’t know its name when I saw it, however, in the past week, I researched all the creatures I saw so that I had great evidence when I presented my case to the papers. However, it never mattered in the end. They are all corrupt, all of them, they got paid off by the corporations. Anyway, back to the narrative. The Cockatrice turned, blood dripped from its horrible beak. It had been eating the Siren that the gorgon killed. Michael threw his arm out to block me and Stacy. “Stay back!” He called to us; we backed away slowly. “This one isn’t human, and it's small. Just back away slowly and we’ll be fine!” Michael said to us. Michael was the animal expert among us, so we trusted his judgment. The Cockatrice stepped gingerly towards us, we continued to back away as it slowly approached, making loud chirping sounds as it did. “If we get out of here, I’m going to sue everything!” Stacy muttered. The Cockatrice made a sudden loud squawk. Michael recoiled and the eagle raptor pounced. It was waiting for a sign of weakness to strike. “BACK TO PLAN A! RUN!” Michael yelled. We turned tail and sprinted away from the Cockatrice. Turning corners and sprinting down hallways. However, we soon came to a dead end. The Cockatrice pounced on Michael and bit him on the leg. “HELP!” He yelled to us, I turned, frantically searching for something, anything that I could use to beat back the Cockatrice. A fire extinguisher was hanging on the wall. I punched my fist through the glass and grabbed it. Michael had grabbed Cockatrice's head and was shoving it away from his body. The dinosaur eagle broke free and went for Michael’s neck. With all my might, I swung the fire extinguisher down on the animal's head. I heard a crack, and the Cockatrice fell to the ground. Michael breathed a sigh of relief as the animal fell down on top of him. “Thanks Steven,” he said, numbly. I held the fire extinguisher aloft and smirked. “I like this thing!” Stacy smiled, happy that Michael and I were making up. We looked around. “Where are we?” She asked. “Good question,” I replied. We had gotten ourselves completely lost while we had been on the run from the Cockatrice. “Perfect!” Michael groaned, “We had everything figured out! And a random animal comes along and messes everything up!” Stacy, Michael and I looked around to try to find an exit. 

We were completely lost until Stacy found a door labeled, Observation room D-07. Stacy pushed open the door and we entered the room. Michael let out an audible gasp. We were in a large room, control panels lined the walls to our left and right. The front wall was a huge semicircular window with tough looking reinforcements. From the window we got a much better view of the pit the Basilisk had fallen into. The pit was enormous, probably the size of our entire town. About 100 other observation rooms lined the enormous pit. Pipes ran along the ceiling and up and down the walls. “Which pipe leads out of here?” I asked Stacy, who had the best memory of the three of us. “The big gray one!” She pointed it out, several other pipes fed into that one as it went up at a 45 degree angle. Sure enough, it was easily large enough for a person to fit in. “How do we get to it?” I asked curiously. Stacy scanned the room. “There’s another door there!” Michael examined it, then took another look out the window. That door leads to a catwalk. We could get to the pipe from the catwalk.” “great!” I said, “Let's go!” “One problem!” Stacy muttered in annoyance. “The door is locked!” We scanned the room for some way to unlock it, a keycard, or something that could be used as a lockpick. “Hey come and look at this!” Michael called us. I jogged over to him and found a control panel. “I’ll bet this has door lock overrides!” Michael exclaimed excitedly. I slid into the seat and pressed the power button. Nothing happened, I thumbed the button again, this time, the monitor flickered to life. “GREAT!” I whooped with glee. A list of different folders came on screen. One grabbed my attention, I clicked on a file labeled Operation Starglow. A long list of data reports and experimentation files came up. “We’ve got to download this, use it as evidence!” I said definitively. Michael and Stacy looked around for a while before finding a USB drive. I plugged it in and downloaded as much as I could. As I did, I skimmed over a few of the files. “You were right Stacy! Malum Genetics was genetically engineering fantasy creatures to sell them to zoo’s all over the world. This report says that they used Horse DNA spliced with Narwhal DNA to make a Unicorn.” I felt triumphant, we were going to get out of here and expose Malum Genetics. I navigated over to security in hopes of disarming the door locks. This glee left my body as a password bar appeared on the screen. I slammed my fist down on the table. We tried everything we could think of, but nothing worked. I finished entering a final password when an alert popped up. Locked out of the system. Rage was building in me, without thinking I swung the fire extinguisher down on the control panel. Michael jumped back, sparks and metal flew everywhere. “WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR!” Michael yelled at me. The two of us got into another shouting match. “You guys, it's open!” Stacy called us. We turned; Stacy pushed the door to the catwalks wide open.

An alarm suddenly rang out across the pit. “UNAUTHORIZED LIFEFORM DETECTED, UNAUTHORIZED LIFEFORM DETECTED, UNAUTHORIZED LIFEFORM DETECTED, UNAUTHORIZED LIFEFORM DETECTED.” We ran out onto the catwalk and sprinted towards the pipes. I was dragging the fire extinguisher behind me. “Steven, you break the pipe’s open!” Michael told us. I began swinging at the pipes, making loud banging sounds. However, those weren’t the only banging sounds we were hearing. I stopped suddenly, the banging sounds continued. “It's coming from over there!” Stacy whispered. An enormous reinforced steel door stood at the other end of the pit. In front of it was a perch. The banging grew louder and louder. With an enormous crash, the doors flew off their hinges. I covered Stacy’s mouth to prevent her from screaming. A dragon, an actual dragon, walked out of the doorway. The size of an elephant, it had two legs and two arms. Massive leathery black wings. Its scales were black and molten gold. It looked around the massive pit, licking its jaws. In its eyes, I saw no remorse, no happiness. This was a creature that wanted to kill. All I saw in its eyes was rage. It stepped out and saw the dead Basilisk at the foot of the pit. It dove down, Stacy turned away. Michael and I watched as the Dragon began to devour the enormous snake. Then, it looked up. I was the one who screamed. Me and the dragon made eye contact. It spread its wings and flew up towards us. I swung at the pipe faster. The bolts came loose, it started to come out of its position. The dragon flew above us and landed on the catwalks with a crash. The chains holding up the bridges shook violently. “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!” I yelled. We all took different routes along the catwalks. The dragon pursued Michael. Easily outpacing him, the dragon grabbed Michael in his claws. Holding Michael up to his jaws, I could see it smiling. It then breathed out a torrent of air. No, not air, hydrogen. I knew what would happen a second before it did. The hydrogen ignited in a stream of fire. Michael screamed louder than I had ever heard anything scream. The dragon dropped him and stepped on him. Smothering the flames. Michael slowly staggered back up, his face was burned and scarred horribly, it was a miracle he was alive. The dragon took a swipe at him but sliced through the chains. The catwalk Michael and the dragon were standing on fell sideways, hanging from the remaining chains. Michael grabbed the catwalk and pulled himself on top of it. The dragon fell and its tail got caught on the chains. I rushed over and pulled Michael onto a safe catwalk. Seeing the dragon untangle itself from the chains gave me an idea. I handed the fire extinguisher to Michael, “BREAK THE PIPES!” I yelled at him. Michael spirited away, I turned to the dragon and waved my arms around to get its attention. “COME AND GET ME YOU BIG FIRE BREATHING BRUTE!” It raised its head to lock eyes with me. It lunged forward with its powerful legs. I sprinted away, the dragon hit the chains hard, it struggled to break free but only tightened the chains around its legs. It trashed around but only got a third chain tied around its wings. The dragon used its firebreath to try and break free. However, it broke the connections to the catwalk. The catwalk fell out from under the dragon and it became completely tangled. “YES!” I yelled, I ran over to where Michael and Stacy were. Slamming the pipe hard. With a final swing, the pipe broke free, just large enough to hold a human being. Water came gushing out of the pipe, Michael stood back but Stacy and I weren’t so lucky. I was thrown on my back, Stacy fell backwards over the edge of the catwalk. Water gushed from the pipes, forcing the hole in the pipe wider. Water seeped through the holes in the catwalks and began to flood the pit. “WHY DIDN’T THAT VALVE WORK?” I yelled! It seemed we had been the straw that broke the camel's back. The pressure in the pipes was getting too strong. More pipes burst, and the ceiling around us was becoming unstable. I turned over and grabbed Stacy’s hand, I began to pull her up as I heard cracking sounds above us. A chunk of stone fell past us, then another. The ceiling was caving in. A huge chunk of rock detached, it was the piece of ceiling the chains were attached to. Realizing the chains had come loose, the Dragon broke free and flew towards us. “STACY, I GOT YOU!” I yelled… I’m sorry, but what happened next still haunts me, I can’t… but I have too. I’m sorry… I’ll just get this off my chest. Stacy was hanging from my left hand, but the dragon flew past us, grabbing Stacy by the legs, it yanked her out of my grasp. “STACY!” I yelled, tears streaming down my face. Stacy pounded on the dragon’s skull, but it was no use. The horrible creature bit down, and Stacy went limp. I jumped off the catwalk after the dragon, but Michael grabbed me by the shirt. He pulled me back. “INTO THE PIPE, NOW, THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO!” He yelled, but his voice cracked as he did. I climbed into a narrow pipe and began to squeeze my way up. The ceiling around us was falling apart. I heard crashing and rumbling and the dragon roared. Michael and I climbed faster and faster. Eventually we came out into the gray pipe. This was bigger so we could move faster. Every inch I moved I wanted to go back, but Michael was behind me and kept me moving. “KEEP GOING, WERE ALMOST…” The pipe was in free fall, it came away, falling, down, down, down towards the floor, I was falling too, but I felt Michael grab my hand. I heard a wail of pain from the dragon. Then everything went black.  I awoke a little while later. Michael was shaking me awake. I looked around, and then I remembered Stacy. Michael put his hand on me, “I’m so sorry Steven…” I broke down crying. The entire laboratory had fallen in. It had been built into the mountain. Which had completely collapsed. Michael had dragged me to safety, away from the hollow mountain that contained the lab. There was no sign of the dragon or Stacy. All I could see was