Eeeee! Eeeeeee! Eeeeeee!

Men and women in white hazmat suits rushed through the usually empty hallways. The floor shook with the weight off all the feet and frantic screams echoed off the walls. Andre fell in the crowd, everything was chaos, yet he didn't know what was going on. Andre was new, so he hadn't learned what all the alarm systems meant yet. All he knew was that there was trouble. He stumbled to his feet, pulling himself up by multiple people's long lab coats.

"What's happening!?" he shouted aloud to no one in particular. An African-American woman turned to him.

"Code L3!" she yelled back, then disappeared into the crown of people.

'What does all this mean?' Andre thought to himself, falling down again. At this point, the halls were pure chaos, everyone trying to escape the compound. This time, a man helped him up. Andre grabbed his hand and looked up, still sprawled out on the ground. This man was different from the other people. He wore athletic looking clothes, with boots that his tight pants were tucked into. On his head, he wore a helmet with a clear visor. Multiple symbols and words flickered on and off of the screen of it, none of them lasting for more then a second.

"Thanks," Andre grunted, pulling himself up, and dusting off his pants, "Can you tell me what the heck is happening right now?" The officer turned away, but then turned back to him.

"Are you willing to help us?" He asked in a deep voice. Andre didn't even think before answering. He just wanted to know what was going on.

"Sure," he replied to the officer. The man turned around, and Andre had to jog to keep up with him. "Hey, can you tell me what's going on? You said you would." The man turned to him.

"It's a code L3, which means there was a leak in a very bad place," The man said, then continued walking.

"Where, and what can the waste do?" Andre pressed on. The man stopped this time and turned to Andre.

"The waste can genetically mutate things to grow larger or turn savage,"

"So? Where did it go?" Andre asked. The man replied in one sentence that sent terror down Andre's spine.

"The Hippo enclosure."

André's blood ran cold. He hadn't even known there had been live animals in this place. They were a radioactivity research facility for goodness sake, and a pioneering force in the advancement of green energy at that! Live animal test subjects seemed entirely out of the question, and hippos, too. Not even rats, or mice or guinea pigs.

"Why hippos?" André turned to the woman who had yelled out the code -- Sarah Greene -- and she finally slowed down beside him.

"The Rico facility was a concern for conservationists. We took in hippos, and we were experimenting with gene mutation in order to preserve their DNA. Protect them from extinction. It helped us get more funding, look greener."

André swallowed hard. "And you succeeded?"

Sarah nodded, breathless. "We cloned five, females, and bred them with the one male left. Twenty-six adult hippopotamuses are out."

With that, there was a crash from behind them, as a large, grey-pink creature burst through the end of the hallway. Sarah grabbed André by the arm and pulled him sharply into a side room. The creature’s massive silhouette filled the far end of the hallway, rounded ears twitching, tiny eyes blinking through the haze of dust and flickering emergency lights. Even from a distance, André could feel the vibration of its steps through the floor.

Sarah slammed the door shut behind them and locked it. The room was small and the two of them pressed their backs against the wall as the thudding footsteps grew louder.

“What do we do?” André whispered, trying to keep his voice steady.

Sarah tapped her badge against a panel on the wall. A soft blue light scanned her face, then the panel slid open to reveal a narrow metal case. Inside were two sleek wristbands, each with a glowing strip of green light.

“Put this on,” she said, tossing one to André.

He fumbled with it. “What is it?”

“Bio‑ID suppressor. If the hippos are mutated, they’re tracking heat and scent. This masks both.”

André snapped the band onto his wrist. The green light pulsed once, then dimmed.

Outside, the hallway shook again. Something heavy scraped along the wall.

Sarah took a slow breath. “Okay. We need to get to the central lab. If we can activate the neutralizer, we can calm them down long enough for evacuation.”

“And if we can’t?” André asked.

Sarah didn’t answer.

A deep, rumbling grunt echoed through the metal.

André’s heart jumped into his throat. “They can smell us even with these things?”

“No,” Sarah said, eyes widening. “That wasn’t a hippo.”

The door dented inward, then burst open. Standing in the doorway was the officer André had met earlier, visor cracked, armor scratched, breathing hard.

“You two,” he said, pointing at them. “With me. Now.”

Sarah blinked. “What happened to your squad?”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. We don’t have long. The mutation spread.”

André felt his stomach drop. “What else?”

“Every single scientist out there.”