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A Sealed Fate
By Alejandro Anievas

Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Harvard University Cambridge, MA 5:59 A.M.
Prominent microbiologist Edward Thibodeau tottered through the heavy reinforced glass door of his laboratory’s air-locked storage unit. He pulled the secured door of the low temperature storage chamber shut as quickly as it would allow. With the weighty door fully closed, the distressed fifty-seven-year-old man impatiently waited for the door to self-lock.

As he had expected, three small beeps resonated from the lock, signaling the airlock’s fortification. Thibodeau’s hands started to tremble, as he knew he would soon come face-to-face with his attacker. He had always regretted his involvement with the classified project and knew it would eventually come back to haunt him.
The scientist briefly paused in his panic, attempting to catch his breath. Scrutinizing his situation, he thought, He can’t get me in here. He began to survey the storage area where only biological samples were kept. Scanning his environment, he searched for anything that could be construed as a weapon.
A whisper emanated from a disturbing proximity. "Open it." The biologist slowly turned around to face his assailant. Now only one meter away, on the opposite side of the safety glass, the intense and truculent eyes of his attacker pierced through the see-through barrier. He was built, muscular with a military-style haircut that made his short blond hair blend into his somewhat pale scalp, giving him a near bald appearance. His eyes were ice-cold blue and his jaw line was quite prominent. The man reached back for his gun, but instead of drawing it, he simply laughed and gently tapped on the glass with his right hand. "Only one reason someone would purposely run himself into a corner." His voice was very deep and raspy. "You think you’re safe in there? Who have you told?"
"I won’t help you anymore, just leave me alone," the biologist whimpered, taking yet another step back from the glass and his aggressor.
"Tell me who you told and I’ll let you live.” The man accusingly glared at him through the glass and awaited his response.
The prominent doctor then realized he had forgotten to breathe over the past few seconds. He forced himself to inhale the thick, stale air of the chamber. Thibodeau knew this day would come.
"Come now doctor, which one of your colleagues have you confided in?” The attacker’s eyes journeyed off to the chamber’s attached tubing, following it carefully. At the chamber’s source: a series of metal dewars with N2—an abbreviation for liquid nitrogen, stenciled on each of the tanks. The dewars were close, only steps away from the assailant, who now walked toward the tanks located directly behind the back wall of the air-lock. "Are you prepared to die?" he shouted at Thibodeau.
As the man now paced over to the nitrogen tanks, the scientist knew he had just sealed his own tomb.
In a disparate attempt to save his own life Thibodeau pleaded with his assailant. In a momentary lapse of character, the doctor blubbered "No, I’ve told no one. There’s no need for this!"
When Thibodeau finished uttering his last words, his attacker brazenly made eye contact with him. "I was hoping you would say that.” The attacker smirked. “Don’t worry, you won’t be alone. Your doctor friends are already waiting."
The microbiologist could not hide his expression of confusion and shock from the see-through box that presently contained him. Who has he killed? Who else could have possibly known as much as I? The information the doctor possessed was classified at the highest level. Until now, he had believed that he was the only civilian to have this knowledge.
The attacker turned the handles on the pressure-release valves of the slender metallic canisters containing the frigid gas in liquid form. "No one can ever know."
The gas loudly hissed out of the tanks and into the tubing, and the noted microbiologist immediately felt its effects as he began to get dizzy. His exposed skin tightened, as he grew drowsy. Before the doctor could feel any associated pain, he noticed he was suffocating. He now knew that no amount of pleading would relieve him from this situation. He now knew he could not escape, for even if he somehow managed to flee his Plexiglas prison, he would easily be subdued. His petite frail body would be no match for the large assassin’s combat skills, and the attacker would need only to draw his gun to quickly end their bout.
Thibodeau dropped to his knees as disbelief flooded his thoughts. The circumstances finally dawned on him. He’s going to kill me to stop the truth from surfacing. He never planned on letting me live. Someone needs to find out! I must find a way.
The physical effects of the gas were becoming apparent. The large attacker was quickly growing disgusted as his victim’s skin began to bubble. Sickened, the aggressor tried to look at Thibodeau as little as possible as he made his way from the dewars to the airlock’s only exit. The doctor looked to the door, and noted that the man had now blocked it with his body, leaning his back against the exit. A fog began to encompass the glass of the chamber as the temperature continued to drop.
Someone must find out. With no oxygen running through his veins, the kneeled doctor began pressing at his only exit, making traces with his finger tips on the fog filled Plexiglas. As the doctor struggled to make marks on the foggy door of the airlock, frostbite began to deteriorate his skin. The revolted assassin continued to look away but maintained his positioning to obstruct the doctor’s only exit. For close to five minutes, Thibodeau suffered from a lack of oxygen. Eventually, his actions were reduced to involuntary spasms.
The attacker continued to watch the seizing doctor’s ghastly and elaborate death until Thibodeau’s skin began to scorch from the extreme effects of frostbite. Lacerations materialized across the doctor’s face, covering his visage with horrid tracks of blood.
With nitrogen being the only thing passing through the doctor’s brain, the murderer walked back to the canisters that held the wretched gas. As he fiddled with the knob to stop the nitrogen, he took one last look through the fog filled chamber at the sickening site of his victim’s face, noticing that the doctor had stopped seizing and flailing about. While taking his final look, the attacker saw the grisly site of the doctor’s left eye pop out from its socket completely, just before it singed from exposure and boiled from the corroding conditions of the gas. Disgusted, the murderer turned away to leave, never noticing the marks left on the steamy glass door.