Authors note:

some events were changed from the game story line, so to know a bit more on the changed events. i suggest (you don't have to) you read the fake documents and notes. Spoilers of course.

they can be read on my deviantart page: reddog-f6 (links on my FF profile page)

thank you, and please comment. =] WARNING: gore, blood, some sexual stuff.

Escape

ch:1 isolation

*Morning of December 4th*

Waylon slowly awoke, shaking a bit from the cold. That was the only bad thing about the vents, the cold breeze that went through them. Stretching a bit and yawning, he opened his eyes but quickly closed them as the Morphogenic Engine threatened to burn across his eyes again. He kept them tightly closed until he was sure the horror flashes had vanished from his vision. He slowly opened his eyes again and sat up in the large vent, sighing. He took a pin he had kept and carved another line into the metal vent wall, adding another tally mark to all the ones scrawled across the metal. The tallies reminded him of how many days he spent in this hellhole of an asylum. He had no idea how he managed to survive through all of this madness.

The computer technician had set up a little home in the large round vent. He had gotten a thin blanket from the storage and found a guard's backpack to carry things that were necessary for his survival, but also other stuff that he deemed important. He grabbed the backpack and pulled out a small bag of jerky he had made a few days earlier and started to eat. Waylon always hated how the jerky was so plain, but he knew how lucky he was. Not everybody had access to food in the asylum. He'd be damned if he let himself turn to cannibalism, or eat his own flesh, like some of the patients were doing. Making a face, he shook his head and decided not to think about it as he was trying to eat.

After finishing, he took out a thick journal from the bag along with a pen before putting on the backpack and heading down a vent. He crawled through vent after vent until he made it to a cell block area. He sat down in front of a vent opening and watched the patients below.

"Patient 114565679, still seems to be eating himself. Arms almost completely gone from rot and being eaten.''

''Patient 113694513 … still bashing his head." Waylon thought as he watched and wrote the observations down.

"Why do I even do this? It's not like it's going to help anyone. Is it even helping me?" Waylon thought as he continued writing. After five hours had passed, he finished writing down all the patients' actions and headed off to the next cell block to do the same to the patients in that area.

After visiting all the blocks and areas to write observations on patients, he noticed that it was late afternoon already and decided to take a break and eat some more jerky.

"Andrew is not in his usual area today. I hope he's not messing with more of my vents." Waylon growled a bit to himself. The vents were the key to Waylon's survival. Without them, he'd be long dead. Andrew knows this, and being a smart man who still has some sanity and logic left, he makes sure to guard and ruin the vents he gets his hands on in hope of catching or trapping Waylon. Waylon made a face.

"Only one more observation left." he said to himself and took a deep breath. He had to observe Gluskin. Although Waylon wanted to stay on the farthest end of the asylum to avoid him, he thought it was better to actually be aware of where the crazed man was wandering, even if he didn't seem to wander far from his area. Waylon slowly navigated to the Groom's area and looked through the open vents. He couldn't see him in the first vent, nor the second, nor even through the fifth one. That worried him, he should have seen him by now.

"Did he leave? Finally snapped because of Andrew? … I can only wish ..." Waylon thought.

"He must be following the vents by now. He must have heard me!" Waylon panicked. He looked around tried to see if the man was in any shadows nearby.

"Nowhere..." he whispered. Waylon was anxious now, where could he have gone?

He went down a vent and looked out of an open spot. The vent led out to the main middle area hallway.

"Make sure neither Gluskin or Andrew are here." he thought and opened the vent. He made sure that most of the vents were open just in case of emergencies. Waylon looked out and down the long hall. Nobody but a few rotting bodies.

"I never thought I'd get used to rotting corpses, or the smell..." Waylon thought as he quietly got down into the hall. He went up to the large caged doorway.

"Still closed..." he thought.

He walked up to the door and froze. There the Groom was, a little down the way from the door. Waylon stayed frozen staring at him. Gluskin was looking up through a vent, probably in an attempt to catch Waylon crawling through it. Looks like Andrew wasn't the only one who was on to him...

"He hasn't noticed me yet." Waylon thought as he started to take steps back. Before he could even set his foot down, Gluskin's attention was brought to Waylon by the small movement. Waylon froze again and his eyes went wide. He stared at him with his green eyes and Gluskin stared back with his icy blue ones.

"I have a head start, and the vents are nearby." Waylon thought, not breaking the eye contact or daring to move in the slightest. The stare lasted a couple of minutes before Gluskin's attention was grabbed by something else opposite to where Waylon was. Waylon saw his chance and bolted back into the vent and quickly closed it back up. Taking deep breaths, he tried to prevent his body from violently shaking.

The shaking became worse when a horror attack started, the images from the Morphogenic Engine flashing in his sight and causing him to panic.

"No, stop!" Waylon growled through gritted teeth and grabbed his head, trying to stop the pain in vain. The screeching, buzzing noise got louder and louder and his brain felt as if it was on fire as the noise got louder in his mind. He shut his eyes tightly as the bright images started to flashed, making him feel sick, like he was dying. He started to breath harder, afraid that he was going to suffocate soon.

The buzzing died down as the images stopped and Waylon felt like he could breath normally again. He took some deep breaths and once he was ready, he went back down the vents towards his little "home" inside the vents, where the feel of the chilling breeze on his skin would comfort him and make him feel safe, or as safe as you can be in a place like Mount Massive Asylum.

"Almost there..." he thought as he walked. He stepped onto a certain vent panel and stopped when it made an unsettling groan of bending metal.

"That never made noise before." he said to himself. Pushing on the panel to test it, he thought about what options he had and the risks of each one of them. The panel made creaking noises with each push, but it seemed like it could handle his weight.

"Maybe I should go a different way?" he thought, but quickly dismissed the option. "No, I am exhausted, it's getting late, and the vents will be way too dark to navigate through in an hour. I don't have time to go a different way." he thought and took a step forward. The panel seemed to support his weight just fine and he felt confident enough to continue. When he reached the third panel, it collapsed. Waylon landed onto the hard wooden floor with an echoing thud and soon after, he heard what sounded like pins dropping. He looked beside him and saw a perfectly good vent screw rolling next to him.

Waylon gave a confused look at it before his shirt was harshly grabbed and he was yanked off the floor. He looked in front of him and just as he saw Andrew's face, it was quickly gone from view as he received a punch in the face. He dropped to the floor and felt his skull smash on the wood. His vision was spinning and he tried to get up.

"Oh no, you're staying down." Andrew said with a kick right to Waylon's ribs. Waylon let out a gasp and cough as the wind was knocked out of him and he rolled onto his chest. As he tried to breath, he tasted something coppery. He saw blood dripping down to the floor and off his face from his nose. Waylon struggled and pushed himself to get up.

"Come on, dammit!" he cursed angrily at his uncooperative body. Andrew yanked him up by his back collar.

"I have experiments saved for you. It was just a matter of time before I caught you out of those stupid vents." Andrew said as he started to drag him away.

"No!" Waylon yelled and punched Andrew in the face. Waylon began pulling back and struggling, hoping to free himself from Andrew's firm grip so he could run. He wasn't a good fighter, but if he was released he'd be sure to escape.

"You little fuck!" Andrew cursed, throwing a punch at Waylon's face again, then his gut. Waylon's air was pushed out of him and he got knocked down to the floor. Even with his bad arm, Andrew could still coordinate it good enough for a hard punch. Waylon spat out some blood and started to hyperventilate as images from the accursed engine began to burn his eyes and mind at the worst possible time.

"No! Not now, not now!" Waylon growled. Andrew laughed and smashed his boot down his head. After his skull hit the ground, his body couldn't take another hit, and he finally blacked out.

*Hours passed*

Waylon slowly opened his eyes, trying to ignore the pain pulsing through his skull. As he tried to reach up and touch a sore spot on his face, he realized that his arms were restrained. He looked down to see what his condition was.

He was strapped tightly to a gurney in a dark room. He saw some movement out of the corner of his eye. Straining his eyes to see more clearly, he caught Andrew humming to himself in the corner with a bunch of candles nearby, with a dimly lit one right above him. He seemed to be mixing chemicals in a boiling pot. Next to the stove he was working on was a large jug-like container that had a hose going out of a cap on it. Connected to the cap was a huge needle. The jug was stained with old dry crusted blood.

Waylon took a deep breath. Andrew hadn't seen him awake and it might give him some time to plan his escape. He looked around and immediately spotted a sharp piece of metal on a table next to him. It looked like some sort of makeshift dagger, jagged metal with a weird string wrapped "handle" of sorts. Waylon shifted on the gurney a bit so his arm could hopefully reach far enough to grab it.

"Thank god." he thought when he felt the cold metal on his skin. He quickly began to try and cut the thick straps. He stopped though when he saw what little progress he as making. Cursing to himself, he tried to think of another idea. He moved the blade under the buckle latch and slowly got it up, making the strap loose. He freed his hand of the strap and started to untie the other. He pulled the other strap away a bit too quickly and caused the dagger to hit the gurney. The hit made a loud noise as well as forced the knife up a bit in Waylon's hand, having the jagged handle slice it. Waylon let out a hiss of pain and dropped the knife in reaction, creating more noise. Andrew turned and saw Waylon untie the last few straps. Andrew's formerly calm and relaxed face turned furious, and he grabbed a nearby large hypodermic needle that was as thick as a quarter and as long as a foot. It looked filled with something thick and dark. Waylon swore it was Black Tar by the way it looked.

Waylon frantically ran from the room as soon as he was free, grabbing his bag on the way out. He quickly glanced at his surroundings as he ran, working to get his bearings on wherever he was in the asylum, to find the closest vent. He spotted one further down the hall and made it his target. Andrew was getting closer looking about ready to kill Waylon when he'd catch him. Waylon made it to the vent and sighed a breath of relief when he finally managed to climb up in time.

His relief was short lived, gone after he realized what was in the vent. It was blocked with barb wire, broken glass, a dead bloody body and the smell of an extremely harsh chemical. Waylon was frozen in shock, his escape was blocked and he was cornered. Basically killed by what he thought was his safe haven.

Andrew grabbed Waylon's leg from the vent and yanked him out. Waylon grabbed onto the vents edge and struggled to break free from Andrew. He WILL get away in this vent, even if he had to beat his way through barb wire, a dead body and hold his breath through the entire way.

"Think I wouldn't block the damn vents, when I had to get my personal lab rat out of them?!" Andrew mocked and stabbed the needle deeply in Waylon's leg, injecting the thick sludge into his leg.

"Ah, fuck!" Waylon screamed. He could feel the sludge burning like fire as it slowly crawled up his legs and into his flesh. Waylon took a deep breath and yanked his bad leg forward before smashing it into Andrew's chest. It was both a good and bad idea. The needle in his leg shredded open a gaping wound from pushing against it, but at least Andrew was knocked to the floor, giving Waylon time to escape. Waylon got down from the vent, yanked the needle out, having it gush black sludge from the end, and ran for his life. His leg was killing him. It felt like being on fire or sitting in acid. The running was forcing both blood and sludge to seep from his gashed leg.

He looked around desperately for a vent. Not catching a sign of one, he decided on going through a door instead. He didn't care what was behind that door. Not anymore. He was getting away from Andrew. He ran through a door, then another, and another, feeling like it was more of a horrible maze now with no sanctuary in sight. He bolted through one more door which led to an open hall. Waylon didn't slow down until he got to a more familiar part of wherever he was.

Lots of shelfs tightly placed next to each other, from wall to wall, with one long pathway up the middle of the room. Waylon slowly walked, catching his breath a bit. The shelfs contained things from books and files to random objects like chairs, cords, and large machines. Waylon wasn't sure, but he was dreading this place. Something was off and it made him terrified. There was no predicting what could happen, nor who would pop up at any moment. He slowly walked down the middle path, being as aware as he could of his surroundings. He looked back every so often to see if Andrew would be there. When he turned his head for the fourth time, he noticed something.

"Vents!" Waylon thought, looking up at them with pure happiness for such a plain and simple thing. His happiness turned slowly to dread as he recognized the vents and remembered exactly where he was.

"Gluskin... I am in his area." he thought, having trouble swallowing the small amount of spit he had after being so dehydrated. He slowly looked down and looked around, no movement, no sound, nothing. That's what scared him the most, Eddie Gluskin was perfectly silent.

"WAYLON!" he heard a voice roar from behind and echo through the place. His head whipped around in horror and saw Andrew charging him.

"Shut up you idiot!" is what Waylon wanted to yell so desperately at Andrew. Gluskin was now sure to know that he had visitors.

"Well, no holding back now. If I just run I can make it to the exit on the other side and get into the vent near by." Waylon's mind quickly blurted out ways to escape in fear. In a flash he was running, looking around everywhere to make sure nothing would suddenly grab him from the side.

A few feet from the door, his bad leg gave out. Waylon crashed into the door and quickly looked at his leg. Blood was pouring from the wound, looking like it was mixed with black oil. Only now did he notice the blood trail he was leaving. He yanked the door open to run out, but Andrew had caught up and grabbed the back of Waylon's collar, yanking him back and slamming him back into the cage door and closing it. Waylon turned around to fight Andrew, only managing to dodge his needle from stabbing into his side. As Andrew yanked the needle back, ready to attack again, some of the black tar sludge splattered onto Waylon's face, burning it. He hissed and grabbed Andrew's wrist to make sure that his needle wouldn't stab him again.

He was in a really tough spot. His back against a cage, which was also his only way to escape, a crazy doctor with a poisonous needle, and with poison coursing through his leg and bleeding out through a gash… and now, there was one more thing to add to the list.

Waylon's chest felt like it caved in, stopping his heart and lungs when he saw the man walk up behind Andrew. Those icy blue eyes burned into his own as he looked over Andrew's shoulder. Everything seemed to go in absolute, unbearable slow motion. He walked up close behind Andrew, lifting up his hands. He had a cable wrapped around one to the other and in a quick movement wrapped it around Andrew's neck and yanked him off of Waylon.

Andrew's attention was soon off Waylon and he went into panic as he recognized his attacker. He hastily stabbed the needle into Gluskin's arm, but the act didn't seem to affect the man much as he continued dragging him back. Andrew fought Gluskin in frenzied and panic induced attacks, punching and clawing in a desperate attempt to escape. Gluskin snapped and gave the punches back, slamming his foot down on Andrew's leg, breaking it backwards with loud sickening cracks.

"Gluskin's goal isn't to kill Andrew right away." Waylon thought, before he decided to just bolt out.

Waylon fled out the door and into a vent. Once he was safe, everything seemed to be on fast forward and that overloaded his brain. The flashing images from the Morphogenic Engine went crazy on his brain and in his eyes. He doubled over in pain and somehow managed to keep his stomach in check through it.

After the pain died down, Waylon slowly made his way back to his small little home in the vents. All during the little journey Waylon could hear Andrew's screams echo through the vents, making him feel as if he was right there, watching Andrew go through God knows what. However, he didn't feel any remorse for Andrew. Not with all the shit he put him through. After finally reaching his home, Waylon just collapsed onto the thin blanket and passed out from pain, exhaustion, and illness.

Andrew's screams echoed all night and Waylon knew that from constantly fading in and out of sleep, sometimes seeing nightmares of him screaming as Gluskin mutilated him. It was afternoon when Waylon had fully awaken. He stretched and immediately regretted doing so when the large gash in his leg reminded him of it's existence.

"Dammit, I need to get to the infirmary. I need antibiotics, alcohol, and gauze... and get a better look at my damn leg." he thought, trying to get a close look at the wound. The vents were dark and it was hard to see how bad the damage was, but he sure as hell could feel how bad it was.

Waylon was still wearing his pack and just had to start navigating the vents. About an hour of navigating, he later made it to the small hospital. He opened the vent and looked around.

"Nobody, great." he whispered to himself and jumped down, feeling a shock of pain in his leg and falling over when he landed. He hissed in pain and slowly stood and limped over to a table with a bright white light over it. He sat in a nearby chair and held up his leg, turning it to see the large festering gash on the back.

The wound was stained black, looked infected and already rotting with thick yellow pus.

"Fuck..." Waylon thought as he examined it. "I'll have to cut all this rot off. This better not fucking cripple me." he thought looking around. He got up again and limped over to the cabinets and started digging around in them. He found most the stuff he needed to clean the wound, alcohol, gauze, stitching wire, a needle, and some duct tape. He started cleaning the wound right away. First, he cut away all the black rotting meat, then he carefully poured some alcohol on the wound, creating a violent reaction when it touched any of the black tar left in the wound. Not to mentioned that it caused so much pain that Waylon's eyes started watering.

He let out multiple curses as he quickly cut away those bits as the tar turned into an acid-like substance in reaction to the alcohol. His fingers were burnt a bit from it, but his leg was now clean and disinfected. He sighed and started to stitch the wound, wrapping it in bandaged and later covering it with duct tape.

Once the leg was wrapped, his next goal was to find antibiotics. Who knew if even one pill still existed in the facility. Patients pretty much raided anything medicine or drug-like, even this little place seemed to have had a hurricane through it.

He looked around until he found a locked cabinet.

"Medicine in here?" he thought. He grabbed a nearby broken pipe and put it behind the rusted chain and lock. He pulled back with all of his weight until the chain snapped, almost causing Waylon to fall back and unto the floor. He opened it and found prescriptions organized in small boxes. He opened almost all of them before finding a small bottle covered in dust. He popped a pill before going back into the vent.

He paused for a moment, looking down a vent way as he realized that it was the one that led to the Groom's area.

"Should I go look?" he thought with deep and quick breaths. He wanted to go, to see what happened to that "doctor". What torture he must have went through all night. How Gluskin treated his visitors.

Waylon walked, getting both nervous and excited as he got closer and closer. He looked out the vent. "No Groom in here." he whispered to himself, slightly relieved. As he looked for Andrew's body, he caught a large blood stain on a wall, with a big puddle of blood in the same corner, Waylon went to a different vent to see it at a better angle. It was just a large mess of blood and leading to it was a large dragging blood smear. Inside the smear were hand prints that looked like someone had desperately tried to claw at the ground. Waylon's eyes followed the trail to where the cage door was.

"That blood wasn't spilled 'til after I left." he thought. The blood led outside, which meant Gluskin had gone out and could still be outside. Fortunately.

Waylon followed the vents to the hall and looking out the vent, gasping. There Andrew was, hung up from the roof, over the floor railing, with his body spread open like a dissected frog. Cords had been sown through his skin, and attached to wooden support poles to keep it stretched and spread open. His organs were hanging out or falling to the floor. Waylon didn't know what he expected to see when he decided to look for Andrew, but he certainly wasn't expecting this...

"Was he still alive when this happened?" he thought. "Probably, he was still struggling while being dragged." he thought. He was about ready to leave when he noticed something. Andrew's neck was left mainly untouched, besides some strange cuts. They looked like words. Waylon got closer to the vent and focused on the area, hoping to see what it was. No luck.

"If only my fucking camera worked. … I'll have to get out." he thought. He slowly opened the vent and carefully looked down the halls. Nobody. At least, he was sure there was nobody. He took a deep breath and jumped down, holding in a hiss of pain as his leg ached. He looked towards Gluskin's door. Andrew was hanged right in front of it. Waylon took quiet breaths and quietly peaked in past the door.

"No movement or sound..." Waylon thought. He walked up to the body, trying to keep an eye on the door behind him. He looked up at the body and saw what was carved deeply into Andrew's neck.

Just above his collar bone, ''Waylon'' was carved across his neck.

Waylon's stomach dropped and he felt sick.

"An image of future events if I am caught?" he thought. Then another thought crossed his mind. "Andrew's shouting was probably the first time Gluskin heard my name..." he thought before going back to the vent. He went back to his home and quickly fell asleep.

*Late night*

Waylon was awoken by the distant sound of rapid gun fire. His curiosity and paranoia took the best of him and he decided to get up and find out what was going on.

"Is Murkoff really going to try and get a grip on the asylum again?" Waylon thought.

"They really can't be that desperate and insane to keep this place running after two breakouts..." he thought. Deciding that it was best to leave his back pack in the vents, he headed out on his way. He went through the vents and made it to the hall, next to Gluskin's door. The whole floor was buzzing with panic. Patients were running everywhere looking for a place to hide.

"What's going on?" Waylon thought. His attention was soon turned down the hall as he heard the shooting noises again and could see the small flashes out the large windows at the end of the hall.

A bright flash of fire appeared, filling up the window with light, making the sound of a loud explosion, like a firework going off. The whole hall turned a red/orange hue. Another little explosion was heard and seen from the window. Waylon heard a few more go off in different directions around the asylum.

"Setting the place on fire?!" Waylon thought in panic. He did not last this long to just burn alive. He hopped down to the floor, not minding most of the patients as they were too busy panicking. He ran as fast as his injured leg allowed him to and went out a window to climb up a drain pipe. It was a bit difficult with his injured leg, but he had to see. Finally managing to get himself up, he stood and watched as a very distressing image played out in front of him

A wall of fire surrounding the entire grounds of the asylum. Behind it were Murkoff soldiers, shooting at anyone trying to flee past the fire. Ashes were coating the building and the grounds like snow, some hot ashes burned Waylon's face as he watched the scene. The night sky was dyed a grayish red as the bright blazing fire flashed.

"What's happening..?" Waylon thought, an empty feeling forming inside him, like he was trapped and slowly dying. "... No escape..." he whispered, the feeling of dread overpowering his body. This feeling had once again triggered the Engines image and the bright flashing of swirling fire made it worse. Waylon screamed in agony and held his head as the screaming/ buzzing noise assaulted his brain and the flashing images burning his eyes. He couldn't hold it in and continued to cry out in agony.

The noises and images suddenly ended as a new, stronger sensation hit him. Real pain and the feeling of warm blood. Waylon grabbed his left side and pulled his hand away, he was shot, and could see blood dripping off his hand.

He looked around, shocked, and took a step back, accidentally tripping, falling, and smashing through the tired roof. He fell until he hit a hard wooden floor. He let out screams of pain, too exhausted to do anything. He stayed still on the floor, feeling it cool his skin from being out and letting the heat of fire burn on him. He stared up at the roof, looking at the open hole in it now. His vision began to slowly blur and grow dark. Waylon growled, shaking his head a few times, trying to regain control of his eyesight or at least sit up, but his body was losing too much blood, and he was in an unbelievable amount of pain.

He tried to focus on the broken roof again but a silhouette of someone blocked it. He glared at the silhouette, unable to determine who it was, before he finally blacked out.

thanks to WinnieTheFatPooh for making grammar and other fixes. =]