Does anyone remember how common PSA’s used to be? To be honest, I haven’t seen one on TV in years but I guess I do hear them all the time at my work and I hate them. Not because I don’t want anyone to get help or to hear information, but because I know our PSA’s aren’t like everyone else’s.

I work at the Moon Mountain Research Facility and before you ask, no, we don’t have any connection to NASA’s recently named Moon Mountain on the moon's south pole. We’re a facility in an extremely remote area of Nunavut, Canada and I can’t get any more specific with that because of legal reasons. To be honest, even if I was legally allowed to say where exactly we are I wouldn’t be able to because I’m not totally sure. I’ve tried using my phone to get coordinates, looking through satellite pictures for the facility, I’ve even walked all of the roads around the facility to see if they lead to towns but no matter which one I choose I end up back at the facility. It’s kind of nice because at least I know I’ll never get lost but it’s also freaky because I have no idea how it keeps happening. These are all stories for another day though.

I remember some of the PSA’s that I heard when I was young, probably only 10 or 11 at the time, that played on my parents black and white copies of The Flinstone’s and Old Commodore Gray. They were really standard, normal PSA’s about cancer warning signs and heart disease. Just simple things really to help educate people, they were always really catchy too. Sometimes I still catch myself singing the PSA from the American’s Heart Association with the Wizard of Oz's Tin Man.

I wish our PSA’s were like that, but nope. They really scared me when I started working here, sometimes they still scare me. They come through our intercom system, which I’m sure hasn’t been changed or worked on since the day this place was created because they make these horrible screeching and crackling sounds. Some days the sound is so bad that it’s hard to even make out what’s being said. When you can hear everything though the sound sends a chill down your back, gives you full body shocks and your hair stands on end. One of the worst ones I ever experienced was a couple of years ago, the intercom came to life with it’s always startling hiss and the man who I’ve always just referred to as “Intercom Guy” started speaking.

“Sector C, I repeat Sector C is under a complete quarantine. W4H33LA has escaped containment. W4H33LA has escaped containment. Do not interact with Sector C.”

I knew I wasn’t in Sector C but when an announcement comes on you always look for the nearest marker which is never hard to find because there’s one in every room of every sector. So when I found it I felt almost relieved because although I wasn’t in Sector C, I was in Sector D and it’s not unheard of for our subjects to break out of their sectors or for the newbies to open the doors and interact with quarantine sectors in hopes of being labeled “a hero” which almost always ended in more tragedy than was really necessary in the first place.

That’s actually how I lost my best friends Marie and Tony. They died along with countless others, including the newbie who I’m still partially mad at. I can’t be too mad at him though because he suffered enough at the hands of the subject he freed, which was absolutely not a slow ending. Of course though, when I heard the screams of the workers in Sector C I walked over to make sure no one opened the door except the people who were trained to. That’s when I saw a newbie, all newbies are set apart from the more seasoned workers by being given bright neon belts instead of the standard black or tan belts given to everyone else. I felt a panic surge through me as I saw his hand grasp the handle and ready to pull it open.

“Hey! Don’t even think about it!” I’d yelled at the top of my lungs which was admittedly probably a bit too loud but at that moment I couldn’t have cared any less because he was going to get himself and probably everyone else in Sector D killed as well. He jumped probably half a foot off the ground at the startle of being yelled at that loud. He locked eyes with me as he panted trying to catch his breath.

“I apologize for yelling so loud, but don’t you even think about opening that door. Do you know what’ll happen if you do that?” He looked at me, putting a finger up to signal he needed a moment which gave me a bit of a chuckle. After he finished catching his breath he finally spoke.

“I guess maybe I didn’t get that far into the thought process, I just figured maybe I could help some people get out, open the door y’know and dash in. But yeah, I really would be putting a lot of people in danger, if I opened the door I might release it into this sector.”

“I know you think it’s noble-” I replied to him after he finished, “but really you’re right, all you’d end up doing is setting it free in here. And W4H33LA isn’t exactly something you want to mess with. I know people who have, they all ended up dead and missing their head. It's horrifying to have to look at someone’s vocal cords and sometimes chunks of their brain after that thing crunches their head between its jaws.-” I shook my head with a slightly glazed over look and a deep frown. “So really the noble thing to do is wait until control gets here to fix the problem. Maybe someday if you want to you can try and join control.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He spoke quietly looking down.

The newbie and I sat there quietly for a long time listening to the pained screams of the workers in Sector C. For a while that seemed to be all there was, just the two of us trying to make sure no one got in who wasn’t supposed to, until W4H33LA slammed against the door. That was the first time I ever saw it or really any other subject awake. It was large, the average isn’t exactly small, usually standing with a shoulder height of about 1 meter. This one though, was probably closer to 2 meters. I watched frozen in place as it slammed all of its 100 kilograms of weight against the door with a kind of fury I’ve never encountered before.

The sounds that came out of its snout were horrible, so horrible I can’t truly describe the sound and its teeth were like razor blades, perfect for ripping its prey to shreds or severing heads. It’s weird, I still can't make sense of how it was so incredibly large and how it still moved as fast as it did because it was fast. Not so fast you couldn’t track it but faster than any creature I’ve ever encountered. It didn’t take long for the newbie to bail, practically screaming his head off as he ran to god knows where. I stood frozen on the spot though watching it, anger and vengeance radiating off of it in waves.

Soon though control was there escorting me from the door so they could deal with the problem but I’ll never forget its dark eyes and foaming mouth and how white its fur was beneath all of the blood. Intercom Guy came back on at some point stating that Sector C was open again and then the casualties, which turned out to be everyone in Sector C. In my time here there’s been a lot of other PSA’s to the workers, closed sectors, loose subjects, lockdowns from exterior threats and so many others. If there’s one I’ll never forget it’ll be that one though because that was the day I met W4H33LA and almost joined Marie and Tony again.