Notes: Heads up for… uh… a bunch of stuff? Over this chapter and next. Loss of agency horror, flashbacks to mental health trauma, some graphic physical sensations. If there's anything else you think I should warn for after, let me know and I'll add warnings. It's pretty short, though.

Almost as soon as she opened her eyes and came to, Sam knew things were bad. Aside from the already horrible scenario of no shoes and wet feet while trying to complete a trial, she knew just the arena itself was a recipe for disaster. It wasn't a familiar location, but she knew there were places she hadn't been, that wasn't what made it bad. What made it bad was the off-putting familiarity of a building too imposing on the outside for the substandard clinical interior.

Growing up on the outskirts of major metropolitan areas, the exterior of the building alone wouldn't do it. Lots of buildings had that look to them: plenty of metro stations, several official buildings in University City. The aesthetic wasn't unfamiliar.

And maybe the first room might not have done it, either. Except that there was just a vibe to it. Again with the bad vibes, the bad juju. It was familiar in all the wrong ways. The ways she thought she'd blocked out of her memory for good.

The ceilings were higher here than where she'd been taken in the ambulance. That was… maybe good? And the crows perched here and there (those fucking crows, dammit) were a significant difference, as well. And there was a certain echo of classiness that remained in those few places where wooden fixtures still stood. Hers had been so sterile and institutional. Fitting, really. They didn't call it institutionalized for nothing.

Sam managed the first few steps fine. Her stomach was sinking, but she was fine. Things got harder the further in she went.

Her pulse started to pick up at the admittance desk, and it wasn't the killer heartbeat. Her breath was too fast when she started heading down a hallway. By the time she entered a bathroom whose tiles, dirty as they were, very nearly mirrored those in her buried memory, Sam felt her whole body shaking.

She shouldn't be here. She'd escaped institutional mental health care. She was outpatient only, she went to a therapist who worked out of a house, not even an office building. The hospital trappings here tugged at her, pulled her back, sent her mind places it shouldn't be. Nowhere good or useful.

And something was in her head.

It was like her brain was a Capri Sun and someone just stabbed a straw right in. If whatever was inside was going in or coming out she wasn't sure, but there was a hole there, and she couldn't hold on to anything. She was distracted, out of it. Air whistled through her skull. Fear took hold like mold spores, spreading and infecting, blooming, covering every impulse in fuzz, slowing everything down and making all of her sharp thoughts too blurry.

What had she even brought with her? Did she have skills?

Her thoughts felt like a broken record, skipping and catching and repeating themselves, all the while this openness to her mind, this constant leaking of focus and thought.

What did she have. She had. What did. Skills.

Focus please focus please please focus.

She pressed her palms against her eyes, fingers pressing at her skull like she could hold it on, hold it closed. Find that tic, that feeling, that ability to read her skills.

Unwilling Survivor.

Good. Maybe. At least she knew she had it. It was a familiar feel— feel— She knew it now. A feeling she— she knew.

Please focus, please.

If she knew she had it she could time things out. Focus on— on help— helping others off of hooks and with healing un— until she knew the place better and then she'd help— help with generators.

Oh god, is this how it will be the whole trial? Please Sam please focus, you can't keep doing this.

What else. What else. Had she been thinking at all before she was pulled away? Had she had a brain?

Fixated.

Yeah, she'd been pretty fixated on— no, no, the skill, right, she— she could do that.

Iron Will.

That was— that would— could be funny, even. To think she had that kind of control. But her— head had grabbed onto it so it was there now. Assuming it wouldn't leak out with the rest of her focus.

Self.

That wasn't—

Self-Care.

Oh. That would be useful, then.

But until it was, until her teammates needed help, she'd— be useless. Trying to hold on to that one advantage her double-edged skill gave her. She should— should move, should try to learn her way, but she— she hated hospitals with every part of her, every fiber. She fe— feared them.

Move. Move. Keep moving.

The static in her head… So much static…

And there was the heartbeat at last.

Hide. She should hide. Stay low, stay quiet, stay—

Sam shrieked as the current pulsed over the ground, a muscle spasm that, while it didn't injure her, made everything tense.

That laugh. Something in her clicked, throat tightening and a sharp jolt of hysterical panic ricocheting through at her at the sound of that laugh.

Don't hide, run. Runrunrunrunrunrunrun.

She couldn't think anything else. It was the clearest thought she had, and even that was being crawled over by static and mold.

She ran.

Slashes of red glowed in her wake, a trail that would lead the killer right to her, a trail that was always there even when she couldn't see it and now that she could it didn't help, just made her more paranoid.

She'd been so paranoid. So jumpy. Everything monitored. Couldn't trust anyone. No one believed her. No one listened.

Hell. This was more hell than ever before. She was half in this reality and half somewhere else, memories fighting for purchase in a skull that was so open she felt her mind dripping down her neck. No bones. No protection. And those prickling arcs of static stabbing their little tails into every squishy fold, shorting her synapses, frying her brain.

Was it even behind her? Was it an it? Was it a person? She couldn't look, just run, just—

She tried to stifle her scream at the sudden figure in front of her, but a whimper still shook her throat, her whole body trembling with anxiety and panic and fear and—

So scared, she'd been so scared and alone and no one would listen, no one believed her, no one trusted her word and she was trapped, so trapped, and couldn't tell anyone, couldn't— couldn't talk, couldn't speak, couldn't open her mouth, didn't belong there— here— there, didn't belong—

Tears were sliding down her cheeks and she stumbled, lost in debris, sobbing as current surged through her again.

Pathetic. Get out of there. Get out of here , run. You're not helpless.

But she was. Sam knew she was, this place made her that way, her brain made her that way and she couldn't control it, couldn't control anything.

She was at once spiraling down and ratcheting up, brain split, sliced down the middle, so raw.

The strike to her side was a relief, the relocation taking her away from the heartbeat at last.

She stumbled again, trying to calm her breathing, to stop hyperventilating.

There. Silence. She knew silence. She swiped the back of her hand across her cheek, clearing the tears. Didn't do much good, she was still crying, but she was quiet. No one would know. No one would hear. If she turned away from the door they wouldn't see her. Just her shaking back, as they counted patients, living bodies, made sure that status hadn't changed in the last hour. Constantly monitored.

Sam's eyes were darting around the room she'd ended up in, waiting out her brokenness until she could heal herself up, when she jumped and half started running again before stumbling. The figure was still. Staring at her from across the room, but no heartbeat and no light and no lunging.

She felt the tension in her body, the rapid pounding of her heart, even if she didn't hear it the way she did for the real killer. There was still static on her, it hadn't left. And now anxiety also sent occasional spasms through her, fingers twitching and jaw shut so tight it ached.

She stared at the frozen figure, trying to reason herself out of it, snap back into reality.

The illusory figure was terrifying. In a way, some part of her was comforted, though, having a better look. Terrifying, yes, but exaggerated. Fake. This wasn't like real life, she had to remind herself of that. She would never come across this man - his stretched smile and pinned-open eyes - in the real world. It wasn't like the clean-cut doctors who were doing their best. No one would ever think this man was doing his best. He looked like a torturer, he probably was one, and in its own odd way that was a relief. She wouldn't feel betrayed by a face like that; she'd never trust it to begin with.

She still kept an eye on it, though. Darting to it constantly as she tried to get her bearings. The Hag could manifest at her traps, maybe this was the same. Sam backed through an open door, rounding a corner to get out of sight of it before pausing to heal herself, fumbling. All of her was shaking. The static was pins and needles at her fingertips, and her brain stem itched like something was burrowing at the nape of her neck.

She looked around as she worked. Beds. Several of them, all bunked cots. There was a difference to grab on to. Bunked. Hers hadn't been bunked. And they'd been two to a small room, not all of these in one spot. They weren't like hers— this wasn't the same. It was a different place. A different place, a different time, a different reality.

There was a hole in her head, though. It hadn't gone away, even once she was healed.

Not a physical hole - she'd checked, her fingers nervously prodding at the back of her skull, expecting a perfectly round peephole - but even without it, that openness never stopped. A window to her brain. A nice little pipeline dripping thoughts and memories in her wake.

Move. Learn. Help.

There was an aura in her vision, even if she didn't recall hearing a scream. Someone was hooked and she should help them. It was the one thing she could do that would give her worth for this team while still keeping her ability to flee on impact. The hard part would be finding her way there.

She moved slower than she probably should, given the protection her ability offered her. She should be running. Running, not looking around. Birds cawed and static buzzed at the edges of her mind and lit signs flickered outside of rooms. Another breathing illusion in her path.

Was it breathing? It moved like it did, but she wasn't sure where the noise was coming from. Breathing. Tapping. Scratching. Warped tape.

Her head jerked to the side in a nervous tic, hands clenching into fists. She hadn't had that happen in a long time. Tics like that rarely ever happened, except when she was alone and this particular mix of distracted and anxious and paranoid.

Another tiled room put her in mind of the hospital. The… institution? The ward? She couldn't remember the name of it, couldn't remember anything beyond what she'd seen. The front, the intake, the wing she'd been trapped in. The few rooms she limited herself to, hardly speaking, avoiding contact, and attempting to perform normalcy to an adequate degree whenever staff was watching. To prove she didn't belong there. How did an attempt at behaving normally somehow signal she was unstable? Observation made everything matter, everything counted, no interaction was free from judgment and evaluation. Trying to prove you were sane only made you look worse.

Watch the ground, maybe. Watch your feet, don't step on anything sharp. Don't look around, don't remember.

Every so often she would glance up, to check the location of the aura, check her direction, but she tried to let her eyes unfocus, to not look too closely at anything.

Until she passed into that round room.

She felt their eyes even as she stumbled to its center, hesitating on the grating, gaze fixed on the light below.

She was being watched. Observed. Monitored.

She looked up and felt immediately dizzy. Her head was cracking open and every screen that hung above her, that stared down at her, was breathing into it. Wires like fingers poking and prodding and manipulating, picking the right nerves to pluck and tug and puppet. Open. So open. Malleable.

Sam was frozen. The images on the screens were just slightly out of sync - too fast or too slow, or a half second behind - for the noises that had been playing in her head for too long now. Breathing. Tapping. Scratching. Warped tape. It was mesmerizing. She needed to watch until they synced up. If they synced up it would get fixed. Whatever it was would fix itself if she stayed put long enough to slot together audio and video.

Breathing. Tapping. Scratching. Heartbeat.

Somewhere at the back of her mind it chanted, over and over again. Run. Run. Run. Run. The thud of warning, built in to the trial. But the rest of the noise was louder, more overwhelming.

Cracks and pops and feedback from channels with dead air.

Run. Run. Run. Run.

Her eyes were fixed on the screens, intent. Willing them to match up. To fit. If they fit again, she could move. It would be soon. Had to be soon.

Run-run. Run-run. Run-run.

Sam's fingers twitched. Put them together. The tapping. The scratching. Fit to the tape. Just fit to the tape already. Please fit to the tape. She needed to leave. Red light was coming from somewhere and she couldn't take her eyes off the monitors to check where. Close. So close.

Run-run run-run runrunrunrunrunrun.

Terror tightened on her throat but she couldn't move. Choking on fear. The burrowing at the nape of her neck was back, stronger, like something was gnawing through, to crawl down her spinal column and worm its way into her nervous system. Little crawling things, skittering, tiny legs of static tickling under her skin. She felt infested.

She convulsed as another surge of electricity crackled across the floor, a muffled gurgle of pain and fear unable to leave her mouth, jaw knotted shut. Eyelids fluttered but couldn't close. Couldn't look away from the screens staring down at her.

She was distantly aware of a presence. Someone close. Very close. But the breathing was the same. The tapes. The monitors. Breathing, tapping, scratching.

All things were wound tight as they could be, a whining in her head like an oscilloscope tuning its frequency higher and higher, piercing her eardrums and stabbing her joints in equal measure. Tighter. Higher. Sharper, with that buzz all around it, vibrating her skin and bones and teeth and all. Every inch of her was charged, arcing connections to whatever was hovering nearby, whatever—

Sam wanted to scream at the hand clamping down on her skull. She wanted to, but her body wouldn't cooperate. Its - his - hand was so big. Pressing every finger hard against her skin, digging in, each point of contact a ground for the charge to force its way in, coursing through her and making every muscle seize and spasm. Her eyes rolled and the charge was the only thing keeping her standing, the way it puppeted her limbs.

As soon as the shock stopped, as soon as he let go, she was gone, relocated. She collapsed on the floor of another room however far away, still twitching and jerking and shaking.

Notes: Next chapter is kind of transitional I think. Will be quite short.
Anywayyy. Thoughts? Is this just scary to me? I find loss of agency very scary, personally, but that might be just me. Gonna be another couple days before posting again, slowing on the writing.