My name is Miles Upshur. I am a reporter… I am a survivor.

Time was a strange concept when the world seemed to slow down. It allowed me a moment to half-ponder how I could have the chance to think those twelve words. Did thought really move so quickly? Or was time truly just a sluggish thing; lagging after the universe and the creatures who lived in it? Was that why Hell had taken its place in the mortal realm while Heaven had yet to grace Earth with its presence?

Or, perhaps, Heaven was out there. Past the barrels of the guns pointing my way. Past the threats and the silence and the insanity. Out in the cleansing rain? Or was it, maybe, the glowing sunset I had glimpsed? Taunting me with freedom and peace. Damned was truly a fitting word for those who walked in Hell.

A single crack rang out through the noise of the alarms blaring in the distance and, abruptly, everything was silent. I watched the bullet spin towards my shoulder in fascination. Such a tiny thing, yet so final. Bullets represented doom and death. War and blood. Everything in this horrid place was so large, so hulking. A constant shadow following you around. Something so small was almost peaceful. Perhaps this would guide me to Heaven.

I didn't move from my place. Did not toss myself out of the way as I had so many times before. I welcomed the bullet. Peace. Bring me an end.

I wanted it. Craved it. Some sort of finality. Something to shut out the lights and silence the buzz of madness and horror that had dug its way into my very bones.

But I had forgotten the creature thriving in the darkness that had seeped into my bones. In that moment that I had craved release, I had reminded the beast that we were not yet safe. Not yet done.

A scream of pure agony escaped my lips as the unnatural force tore itself from my flesh and shoved me out of the way of the release I so craved. Shouts and cries of terror echoed through the white hall and the tendril connecting me to the monstrosity of science tethered to my life-force let me taste the bitter poison known as betrayal. The son had discovered the father's true intentions.

The walls had turned red and thick with mutilated flesh and innards that I had become so desensitized to seeing. It was everywhere in this place. Death was a fact of life, now more than ever. It was a gory, inglorious thing that ended in your body falling apart in whatever way best pleased the thing that had ended it- be it monster or nature. A splatter of paper-thin blood on the wall with your bones pulverized into dust, or a greying frame six feet underground. It was the same in the end. A heart no longer beat.

A twisted twinge of pain reached me and I looked up to see the gaunt, cloudy figure that pitifully mimicked the skeletal structure that supported my own body starring me in the face with its dark, soulless eyes. But I could sense its existence. Feel its emotions.

Ah, yes. Billy was very much alive. And very much in turmoil. No, no. Not Billy Hope. Hope had died a long time ago. A fitting sentence- however different the meaning- for this asylum. No, the sentient being that had arisen from the tattered remains of Hope's soul: despair.

That twisting, black hand reached for me again and time seemed to snap forward again as though it was mocking me. I had had my moment of peace. Heaven's grace was gone.

Dear God, please no! Not again!

I pleaded nonsense in my mind, screamed it to the skies above that I could not see. Emotions were my words as I skittered backwards with a cry of fear. I would not be possessed again.

My wounded leg buckled beneath me, traitorous to my intentions. My body had reached its limit. It could not take a step further. I collapsed onto the floor, at the mercy of the creature above me- warped as it was by anger and loneliness. I could feel its intentions. It would take me and my life-force and wreak its vengeance on everything in this hospital and beyond. No one would be safe.

But, I could not resist my own sweet taste of revenge. It was this thing that had created the hell I had been forced into. If it wanted me, it would have to rip my free will from my dead body.

I forced myself to my feet, savagely ignoring the intense claw of pain that dug its way up and through my flesh. My body protested my movements. It wanted to lay down and surrender. Anything for release from this terrible agony.

My mouth opened in a cruel laugh to my own pain, broken and cracked ribs burning as the air moved through my lungs. How weak I was.

I staggered slowly away from the shadow that followed my steps closely. I could feel an almost disdainful curiosity emitting from it. I was nothing but a puppet- a tool for its own success. Broken and left with no options but death. Why, he wondered, why run from the inevitable?

He was like a master letting a slave taste freedom, waiting to snatch it away again. All for his own amusement.

But God, it seemed, had one last mercy left in store for me. A reward for my long suffering through this mortal Hell.

Through my blurred vision and tripping gait, I managed to recognize a decontamination chamber. This I knew. The thing holding me like a leash could not touch me there.

Spite and hate rushed through me, driving my anger to release a burst of sheer adrenaline. My leg burned as I dashed like mad to the doors. Billy let out a terrible screech of anger and sound returned to my ears. Alarms wailed and lights flashed. The building was coming apart. He had interrupted the systems too many times. Billy's endless slaughtering and unearthly wrath had finally shaken the asylum to its very foundation.

I moaned weakly in agony as Billy tossed me into a wall, inches from the doors that I wished to reach. A barrel caved under the force, sharp edges of unnaturally bent metal ripping into my side. I crawled away from it on my hands and knees and collapsed just inside the doors as they slammed shut.

The last thing I turned to see was a dark puddle leaking from the smashed barrel onto the ground and a spark from the haywire doors fly. An explosion shook the room seconds later and the indescribable sound of what was unmistakably a soul being torn apart reached me. The decontamination chamber abruptly fell silent and the lights went out as my consciousness finally gave way with the disappearance of the tendril that had clung to my soul.

I was free.

-Line Break-

When my eyes opened to what some part of my brain inevitably recognized as emergency lights, I was, to put it plainly- surprised. I had not expected to wake up alive, or rather, wake up at all.

I was convinced that blood loss or the shock from the pain or the culmination of my injuries or something would cause my heart to give out and stop beating. It wouldn't be much except another life taken by Mount Massive Asylum.

Instead, as I painfully rose to my feet, I found that my forced rest had returned a small portion of my flagging energy and that my wounds had finally stopped bleeding. The blood on my hands was dry and cracked and had finally rubbed away. It was both a relief and a concern. Now that my life was seemingly not in imminent danger- Chris and Billy dead, the twins giving up on my liver and tongue- I had a moment to worry over infection in my fingers. If I didn't get out of here and clean them soon, disease was going to take my life instead.

How odd it was; to worry over an infection rather than a limb being ripped from its socket.

Luck was again on my side. The door in front of me, heading away from where I'd run from Billy, had been smashed and pried open by a thick metal pipe. I now had a chance to run. Well, if the elevator still worked. It was dark where the emergency lights were not located, but I had four extra batteries in my pocket and my camera somehow decided it still wanted to work. It had, in fact, been recording this whole time.

So I walked. Or staggered, perhaps. Straight through the moans and wails of the confused victims of this place. The power has taken out the TVs and the face of static no longer stared at them through the black and white dots. The elevator ride- shaky and clunky from the use of the back-up power- was both short and long. I wanted out of this place so badly and where there had once been silence was now filled with the cries of confused patients. I was certain that if they saw me, not one of them would hesitate to attack me.

The search for a crowbar or a key to pry open the front doors was even longer, but my relentless ransacking was eventually fruitful and I came upon a rusted crowbar, coated in blood and mashed into a skull. No wonder I had missed it before, when I had turned my eyes from the corpses out of sickened fright. I wonder how much my camera saw that I had not.

When the doors finally- finally- burst open with a reluctant groan and a fresh wave of clean air washed away the scent of rotting organs, I could only stand and stare. I had finally reached freedom. I had gone through every level of Hell and come back victorious. The Devil himself could not take nor scar my soul further.

I'm not sure how long I stood there until I finally wandered out into the crisp air and wet grass. The sun had long since vanished, but I was grateful for the shadows. I could hide in them. I could not shake the sense that I was being watched, but not followed. As though something that had been malevolent before now simply wanted to see what I would so with my new found freedom.

And I probably did as expected: I drove. I shoved open the gate, got in my car, saved and turned off the camera out of habit, and drove. I drove and drove until my car coughed and sputtered to a stop, completely out of gas. I drove until the radio had long since come back on and my cellphone had beeped to alert me that it was reconnected to the network.

And then I gathered my things and I walked. I walked and shuffled until my wounds reopened and my vision blurred and my knees shook and my ribs burned and my ankles popped with every step. I moved until my muscles informed my brain that I was going to sit down smack in the middle of the road to rest. I walked until the rain clouds formed again.

I never did get to feel the cleansing rain. About an hour later, the sirens of an ambulance broke through the quiet and an army truck, like the ones outside the Asylum, pulled up.

A few people crouched around me, talking in hushed voices. I got the impression that they had tried to speak to me, but by the time I had managed to focus enough to possibly reply they had simply begun to speak of me. I was fine with that. I just wanted to focus on the weight of the air and the sound of the wind; the sensation of firm, unbloodied ground. Eventually, the sirens were turned off a blockade was set up and a group had settled around me. They looked at me patiently, as though preparing to speak to a young child. Oddly enough, this did not bother me so much as made me envious of them. They had not lived through the horrors I had. Even if they looked through the camera footage, it would not be the same.

Sir, can you tell us your name?

My name? I gripped the camera tighter, bringing it close to my middle where I had all of the papers tucked into my jacket.

"Miles… Miles Upshur." I answered after a moment and they did not looked surprised so much as worried. My departure for the asylum must have gotten around. Things seemed so disconnected right now. Somehow, this world, their questions, my freedom. It didn't click. So ask away, I thought. But how much could I remember. What had happened to me anyway?

Mr. Upshur, you're covered in blood. How much of it is yours?

I was covered in blood? I glanced down. What do you know? I was. Small fragments came spinning back. I shrugged. There had been so much of it, it was no wonder my clothes were more red than blue or brown, as they had been before. That much I could remember. Red painting walls everywhere. The floors, the ceilings, the water.

Alright, then your hands. What happened to your hands?

Was this the bit where they tried to find out what happened while keeping you calm? I thought that came after the check-ups and hospitals.

"Shears. Doctor. Blood. Bowl." I answered in snippets. Or was that a sentence? It seemed like one.

A doctor? Who? And what was the bowl?

"Fake. Fake Doctor. Fake." I paused. The doctor? Who? "Trager. Richard."

Richard Trager? A fake doctor?

I nodded, clutching the camera again. He was on it. Everything is on the camera.

And the bowl?

"Bones and fingers. Like chips. Fingers of bone." They could hear the buzzing right? Where was that coming from? Oh right… bones.

Were you chased?

Now that was a strange question. Wasn't everyone chased? By Death? And why so specific? Although, I couldn't see any hulking figures now. Maybe my Death was actually many. Did I beat the chase?

"Variants. Variants. Dead. Dead. Everywhere. Heads like books. Chris. Chris. Chris. Chris Walker. Variants… patients."

Why did my head say that was right and wrong? What a strange way to speak.

Was there anything else?

"Wernicke. Billy Hope. Billy. Billy. Hope is dead. Billy lives. Billy died. Billy chase. Fire. Billy… son of not-father."

Billy and Hope? Who are they?

I shook my head quickly, turning my wrist to cradle both the camera and the thick stack of documents I'd grabbed. I saw eyes widen at the pile as it slipped partially from my jacket, but I growled when a man reached for it.

"Billy Hope. Same, same. Hope dead. Billy… Billy…"

I searched for words.

"Billy live and die. Life support, soul moves. Soul kill. Everyone. Everyone dead. Insides are outside."

I blinked in confusion as the men in front of me and around me paled until they looked like paper. What was wrong with them?

You're in shock, son, we'll… we'll take care of you.

Kind hands picked me up and place me on a stretcher. I relaxed some in the warmth of the ambulance. My mind cleared some and my eyes closed.

Sir, stay awake.

I blinked and thirdly hummed in curiosity. What did they need now?

Let him sleep. He's stable, just in shock.

I know, but… what happened before you got out? When you were leaving?

I stayed quiet for a minute, thinking. I couldn't quite remember, but… oh. I paled, feeling my stomach churn and my pulse increase. A machine beeped along quickly with my racing heart and my breathing sped up, but my mind had cleared.

"I was… running. I killed Billy. Turned off his life-support. I ended project Walrider. But Billy… the Walrider used me as a host. Men with guns… there to kill me. Explosion… decontamination chamber… Walrider died. Burned. But… the buzzing is still there."

Silence filled the ambulance as the men and women outside and inside stared at me in fright. I could only meet their gaze back as clearly as I could, fighting off my exhaustion.

My name is Miles Upshur. I am a reporter… I am a survivor.

The rain began to fall.