Simon led the group up the stairs and over the threshold while Howard brought up the rear. Carla, Cory, Dave, Sabrina, and Charlie stayed tight between them. Every one of them bristled with fear, anger, and a maelstrom of other emotions that they couldn’t quite make out. 

The stairwell emptied, at last, into a single large chamber. It was an auditorium, with somewhere around a thousand seats gathered around a stage that was far larger than what may be seen at a theatre or school. Black curtains were whirled around their rods up above, and long-dead stage lights sat dormant in the rafters. Dust motes caked most of the nearby surfaces, save for an organic-looking pod with a round window tinted a sickly green. The pod’s flesh began to split, and bright red, semi-transparent liquid...

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