CHAPTER 2: THE BLEEDING WALLS
900 Words
POV: CAPTAIN ELIAS VANCE
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The air was no longer just cold; it was thick. It felt like walking through invisible cobwebs that stuck to our tactical gear and skin. My weapon light flickered, struggling to penetrate the unnatural darkness of the second-floor hallway.
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[ Jace: Cap, my scanners are glitching. The floor plan... it’s changing. According to the blueprints, this hallway should be twenty meters long. We’ve been walking for five minutes. ]
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I stopped. I looked back, but the staircase we had just climbed was gone. In its place was an endless, stretching corridor of rotting doors and flickering fluorescent lights that shouldn't have any power.
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"Stack up," I ordered, my voice sounding muffled even to my own ears. "Bravo, check the first door on the left. Jace, stay on the tablet. Kael, if you can hear me, give me a signal."
[ ... ]
Nothing but the sound of rhythmic, heavy breathing in the comms. But it wasn't Kael’s breathing. It was too wet. Too deep.
Bravo approached the door, his shotgun leveled. He kicked it open with a practiced, heavy thud. The room was a former surgery ward. Rusted scalpels lay scattered on the floor, and an old iron operating table sat in the center.
"Room clear," Bravo muttered, but his light was shaking. "Wait... Cap, look at the walls."
I stepped inside and aimed my light at the peeling wallpaper. A dark, viscous liquid was oozing from the cracks. It wasn't water. It was deep, crimson blood, and it was warm enough to produce a faint steam in the freezing air.
"It’s fresh," Jace said, dipping a gloved finger into the ooze. He checked his portable lab kit. "DNA results are... inconclusive. It’s human, but the markers are ancient. Cap, this blood belongs to someone who died fifty years ago."
Suddenly, the door slammed shut behind us.
BANG.
Bravo threw his shoulder against it, but it didn't budge. It felt like he was pushing against a mountain of solid lead.
"We’re boxed in!" Bravo grunted. "Jace, blow the hinges!"
"Negative," I said, pointing my light at the operating table. "Look."
The rusted table was no longer empty. A figure lay there, draped in a stained white sheet. The shape underneath was moving—writhing as if something was trying to stitch itself together.
A low, guttural whisper filled the room. It didn't come from the figure, but from the blood-soaked walls themselves.
“The doctor is in... please state your symptoms...”
"My symptom is a lead allergy, and I'm about to give you a heavy dose!" Bravo yelled, firing a salt-shell at the table.
BOOM.
The salt shredded the sheet, but there was no body underneath. Only a swarm of black, oversized moths erupted from the fabric, their wings sounding like clapping hands. They filled the room, clogging our vision and clogging the filters of our masks.
"Maintain formation!" I shouted, firing my rifle into the swarm. The Mercury rounds sizzled as they struck the moths, turning them into puffs of grey ash.
Through the chaos, I saw a pair of pale, surgical-gloved hands reach out from the shadows behind Jace.
"Jace, behind you!"
But it was too late. The hands grabbed Jace’s tactical vest and yanked him backward into the wall. Not into a hole, but through the solid brick as if it were water.
"CAP!" Jace’s scream was cut short as he vanished into the masonry.
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"NO!" Bravo roared, lunging toward the wall, but his hands only hit cold, hard brick. Jace was gone. The blood on the walls began to flow faster, forming words on the surface: PATIENT ZERO.
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I felt a surge of cold fury. This wasn't a haunt; it was a hunting ground.
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"Bravo, back to back! Use the UV-Flare!"
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Bravo pulled a purple-tinted cylinder from his belt and twisted the cap. A brilliant, ultraviolet light flooded the surgery ward. The shadows hissed and retreated, revealing a hidden crawlspace beneath the operating table.
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"He’s down there," I said, my heart pounding against my ribs. "The Entity is moving him through the structure. We go down."
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"Cap, that’s a trap. You know that’s a trap," Bravo said, though he was already reloading his shotgun.
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"I know," I replied, checking my remaining Mercury magazines. "But we don't leave a Breacher behind. Not again."
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I dropped into the crawlspace first. The air down here smelled like formaldehyde and old copper. I crawled through the narrow, concrete tunnel, my flashlight beam dancing over scratched-in messages on the ceiling: HELP US. HE’S STILL CUTTING. THE DOCTOR NEVER SLEEPS.
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I reached a small opening that led into a basement. I dropped down, landing in two inches of stagnant, cold water.
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"Bravo, come down. Slow and steady," I whispered into the radio.
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[ ..Elias.. ]
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The feminine voice was back. It sounded closer now, like she was standing right behind my ear.
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[ ..the doctor says your heart is very healthy... he wants to see it for himself.. ]
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I spun around, my rifle raised, but there was only the dark, rippling water and the distant, rhythmic sound of a heart beating somewhere deep in the foundation of the asylum.
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"I'm coming for you, Doc," I whispered to the dark. "And I'm bringing enough mercury to bury you."
- Writer
