The Desolate Guardians by Matt Dymerski Read Free Book Online

remained mysterious and deadly.
    Had I broken something by trying to leave
early? Or by fooling around with the system?
    Had someone noticed my transgressions and
purposely done this to me? Had I been left to die?
    My world would only know that I'd disappeared
without a trace… no sign of foul play…
    Dazed, I returned to the server room and sat
at my computer. There was only one hope now. I could only sit and
wait, and pray that the mysterious brunette woman had escaped. If
she showed up again somewhere, and if I could contact her again,
then maybe, just maybe, she could get me out of here… in the
meantime, I resolved to research the things she'd mentioned in the
hopes of paying her back.
    And maybe, just maybe, we could try to warn
somebody, or do something… anything to try to help the situation
out there. How many lonely souls remained after some unknown
disaster, holding down the fort of humanity at our metaphorical
dimensional walls? However many there were, I was one of them,
now.
    Chalk up one more for the cause…

Chapter Four
    Two days.
    Two days.
    I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever escape
the office. For two days, nothing changed. I spent hours wandering
around dark halls and avoiding the windows. Out there, nothing
moved except roiling fog and slimy things carrying the occasional
animal carcass. I peered over the edge of brick at one point to
watch, and thought that one of those carried carrions had been… a
bear. In some sense, that reassured me, because normal life still
existed, or had existed recently in this place - but if a bear
couldn't fight off one of those incomprehensible creatures, I
certainly couldn't.
    The fridge contained a wide array of food,
both company-owned for events, and marked with coworkers' names. I
ate, because I believed that I should, but I tasted nothing. All I
could think was: how did this food get here? If this place was in
another reality, which it clearly was, shouldn't my coworkers'
cubicles be empty? Why were their pictures, sundries, and leftovers
still around the office? Had they been here during the day
recently, and simply never returned?
    What if I wasn't in another world? What if
something terrible had happened to my world during the
night? I was one of the few people awake that late. What if that
had something to do with it? Maybe the other side of the world,
different timezones, were fine, and I just had to wait for
rescue…
    Except they'd never find me. Not in time. I
went beyond the local office network and tried to figure out where
exactly I was in relation to all these servers, mainframes, and
Internets. I couldn't even tell which network was specifically this world - there weren't any clues or indications. Who
could I contact? Nobody would believe me or be able to help me,
and… I was still afraid of drawing too much attention to
myself.
    There was a chance that my imprisonment here
hadn't happened through malice. There was a chance that I could
make my situation worse by messing around on the network.
    With all the tech at my disposal, it took me
a day and a half to think to use a phone.
    I sat in a back cubicle in darkness, worried
about what would happen. If I tried this, and it didn't work, a
little sliver of hope would be gone. On the other hand, the food in
the fridge wouldn't last forever… I reached out and lifted the
phone.
    Almost immediately, a loud, chaotic, and
high-pitched sound filled the cubicle. I dropped the phone back in
place, heart pounding, and silence resumed.
    Screaming… it was screaming.
    I steeled myself and lifted it again - the
only sound on the phone, that phone, and many others in the office,
was a large number of people screaming in terror and agony at the
top of their lungs.
    Yes, something was very wrong
here.
    It didn't take me long to map out all the
possible avenues of escape from my office building, which brought
home the realization that there was nowhere to go. I'd kind of
expected that from the beginning, but what