[ WP ] Teleportation is finally invented . Your friend is one of the first people to use it . After coming out on the other side , the more time you spend with him , the more you realize that this is not your friend

`` So... How was work today?'' I was relieved to see my flatmate Matthias for our regular coffee. He works in a lab facility investigating transportation, and today he was testing out their apparently functioning prototype. It was kept a governmental secret, strictly need-to-know. But he was nervous and excited and I'm his best friend, so I guess it was a need-to-tell situation. 
 `` It was fine,'' he said, coolly. 
 `` Did you not get to teleport?'' I asked, assuming his unusually unemotional demeanour was due to some disappointment with the project. He looked up from the menu at me. Right at me. Not a sign of his characteristic smirk, and instead a dark, deep stare that made me feel like I was slowly being surrounded by a boa constrictor, trapped in place and slowly being strangled. I started to frown, confused, and his facial expression changed momentarily as if he was quickly testing its muscles. He smiled a lop-sided, uncomfortable smile, as if uncertain how to do it. 
 `` I teleported. I got to Australia, and I teleported back. They did n't even let me out of the lab. I just heard a different accent, they ran some tests, and they sent me back.'' 
 `` Oh, okay. What was it like in between places?'' He was acting so different. He's always so open with me, so talkative. Why am I having to ask? 
 `` Just dark. For all I know they just knocked me out and put on different accents.'' His sense of humour, at least. But as he said it, he did n't smile at all, like he did n't know he was supposed to. 
 
 *** 
 
 Over the next week, I became more and more concerned about him. He stopped washing his clothes or bathing, stopped speaking and suddenly became very interested in technology. He bought a new iPhone just to open it up and spend hours examining it. He did n't eat, and began to faint and I think hallucinate. He would swat at the air and make horrible faces of fear and anger. 
 
 
 It was so serious I decided to contact his boss, who must be wondering why he was n't at work any more. I looked through his cupboards and finally found a number beside `` Flental Laboratories'' in a notebook. Calling just rang off so I googled the address, which, surprisingly, I found, and I visited the next day. There was something there. I mean, I did n't meet his boss. I found him, maybe. 
 I walked into the building. The door opened fine and the lights came on when I entered but nobody came to reception even though I waited for at least ten minutes. I decided to take a walk past reception, I needed to find someone to talk to about this. The further I walked, the more uncomfortable I became. I knew this was a big business, Matthias had told me so. Lots of people worked here. But there was no-one. And I could smell chlorine. Why would there be chlorine in a place like this? 
 
 Soon I found out. I guess they used chlorine for the machine somehow, to make it work. But also, it has a strong smell, so something must have poured it over all those bodies. I'm guessing Matthias's boss was somewhere among them. They were all open somehow. Skulls carefully broken through to the brain, organs or bones carefully displayed, and then each body discarded here in a pile. Did Matthias do this? 
 I needed to find the computer and I did. The log was sitting open, a new alert still flashing: `` Incoming mass 16.04'' and a bunch of details, numbers, height and other things. I looked at the previous logs. Matthias had been transported - his name and all his details were there. But below that it said: `` RECEIVER: Failed to receive mass 13.45''. This lab then shared several frantic messages with the receiving lab in Australia, and sent many to Mattias but he did not reply. Unlike him. Where did he go if he did n't go to Australia? 
 I looked at the information the computer had for Matthias' transponder. Before the transport all tests said it was working fine, that it would work perfectly anywhere on Earth, but every reading afterwards said `` unavailable''. 
 
 What happened to him? Where did he go? When I could find no more information at that horrible place, I went home. He was still acting odd, not eating, silent. I watched him all evening. He moved differently, like he was slinking along, a snake. So far removed from his boisterous, confident self of only just over a week ago. He looked at me with those suspicious eyes often, and eventually I threw off the ropes of anxiety that had bound me since that day and I grabbed him and shook hard. His eyes were dull. I shouted at him to tell me what happened, that I knew about the dead people and that he never went to Australia. His head hung low and I worried I had made him unconscious, but eerily he started to laugh, and he lifted his head to look at me again. 
 `` I did it,'' his voice so different, cracking, breaking as if he'd been screaming for hours, `` I killed them. I killed him. I split him open and crawled inside.'' 
 `` What?'' I was so astounded to hear my friend sound so broken, so nonchalant and just evil. 
 `` I'm in control,'' the voice said, `` and he wo n't come back.'' 
 I'm sure my eyes bulged as my friend Matthias's teeth bore into my neck. How can someone who has n't eaten have that much strength?
