She decided to start looking for firewood since it was getting cold. She bent down for a log and slipped on some leaves and fell down a small hill.  When she sat up, she heard a quiet staticky noise and noticed an old radio hidden under leaves. Elizabeth picked up the radio that read “Property of German Military.” She tried to turn the knobs to hear the sound, but nothing changed. She stood up, took a few steps and noticed the sounds become more clear. She kept walking in the same direction, trying to find where the sound was being broadcasted from.

Suddenly, she steps on something hard and metal. She brushes some leaves out of the way to find an old, rusty metal hatch with a dirty round handle. She turned the wheel to see what was behind the door. There was a ladder leading down a dark hole. She pulled her flashlight out and shined the light down the hole, but still couldn’t see the bottom. Elizabeth was curious about what was inside, so she decided to make her way down.

She only made it a few feet when the wind blew the hatch door shut. She climbed back up and realizes there was no handle on the inside. She tries as hard as she can to push the door open, but nothing happened, so she decides to keep climbing down and look for another way out.

She finally gets to the bottom and uses her flashlight to look around. She sees a hallway that leads to a bunch of doors and large rooms. One of the rooms looked like a science lab. There were broken glasses and papers thrown all over the floor and it was very dark and cold. She starts walking down the hall and looking into all of the rooms to try and find her way out of the bunker.  

“This is Dr. Vladimer. We have two days left until we're forced to leave the bunker. The government has declined our offer to move onto the next step of our project. They won’t let us keep any of our findings, so I'm recording this as the last bit of records of what happened here.”

The speaker on the recording had a Russian accent and sounded very serious. There were a lot of noises happening in the background, but Elizabeth couldn’t hear any other words. Elizabeth starts to worry about what happened here and what is going to happen to her if she doesn’t find a way out soon, but she decides to continue listening.

“They are forcing us to leave all of the test subjects behind. All of our hard work on these creatures and they’ll never even see daylight. No one will know about what happened in this bunker. They hope that eventually the creatures will go extinct on their own, but I’m not so sure. The spider horses are amazing creatures. They are very smart and evolve to their environments much faster than any other animal. They have night vision and survival skills and are very protective of each other. Their only weakness is a sensitivity to light.” 

Spider Horses?! Elizabeth thought, what is a spider horse?!

There is a long pause, and she starts to think that that’s the end of the recording when she hears a young woman's voice. She also has a Russian accent, but she sounds much more scared and sadder than the first person. 

“If anyone finds this, my name is Sasha Prokalov. I am 25 years old. I have been stuck in this bunker for a little over two weeks now. I am running out food and I know my family must be worried sick. The creatures terrify me.

"They are taller than me and so unnatural. They have the legs of a huge tarantula and the head of a horse. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I first saw them. They move so fast and mostly stick together. I don’t know how many of them there are, but they mostly stay in the back room behind the red door. I do everything I can to avoid them because I don't know how dangerous they are. I've looked everywhere but I still can't find my way out. The only place I haven't looked is behind the red door because I'm too scared to run into them." 

That has to be it. The way out has to be behind the red door. I have to get out of here, Elizabeth thinks to herself. 

She sits for a few minutes thinking about everything she heard in the recordings. She has mixed feelings because the doctor never describes the creatures as dangerous, but Sasha seemed so scared of them. Elizabeth thinks of all of the animals in her zoo that some people might think are dangerous, but she doesn't. She is used to being around animals and being careful and kind to them. She decides to look for the red door but stops to wonder what happened to Sasha. Maybe she found a different way out, maybe she's gone. Who knows how long ago that was recorded.  She chooses to believe that Sasha is safe and keeps looking for the red door. 

She makes her way down the hallway of the bunker but out of the corner of her eye, sees a shadow moving. She looks to her side and sees a long, hairy leg just as it moves behind a wall. She moves slowly towards the wall and peeks around. She sees exactly what Sasha described. It was taller than she thought it would be and was alone. She moves to get a better look and accidentally steps on a piece of broken glass. It makes a cracking noise, and the spider horse quickly turns around. Elizabeth freezes. The spider horse stares into her eyes and Elizabeth tries to look calm and confident, so the spider horse doesn’t think she’s trying to hurt it. She starts to take a step, but the spider horse lets out a loud noise and takes a few quick steps backward.