BUILDING THIRTEEN
Y was well aware of the fact that the complex of former hospital buildings that surrounded Wammy's House were often used by the children as part of an initiation process, having been a victim of such a process herself before she became vengeful and destroyed the club from the inside out.
The thirteenth building was called Forsyth and was a four-storey granite rectangle that was surrounded by a garden of long grass and weeds, an abandoned swing set creaking gently in the wind of that late evening as she trudged through the wild towards the steps which brought her to the great front entrance of carved faces and the date the former children's hospital was opened: 1889.
Y was looking for children that were treading in the dangerous buildings as part of an initiation process, or perhaps as part of their own obscure little cults, when she stepped into the open space. Almost all of the furniture had been stripped away from the building, but she could see that the cubby holes were still in use; small shoes tucked into the spaces which told her others were there.
It was a general rule that one did not wear shoes in the hospital lest you offend one of the former doctors, but with broken glass on the ground Y was not so inclined to take her shoes off. Glass crunched underneath her as she wandered past the entrance hall, past the benches and the reception area to the large stone staircase behind the entrance.
She listened closely for the sounds of children as she walked alone, her footsteps echoing in corridors as the moon illuminated the space for her, streaks of light against a navy backdrop. She could hear children giggling and, turning her light on, made to march down the corridor to investigate.
The air before her was icy, visible to her where before it was unnaturally warm for winter weather. She breathed into her gloved hands, rubbing them warm as a terrible cold took hold of her; she was only grateful she was dressed appropriately for the December night.
There was a noise and she lifted her torch up.
A bright red ball stood in the centre of the corridor. Slowly, it began to roll towards her. She did not move until it hit her toe, and even then, she hesitated in picking it up.
She drew away sharply when she saw a child's hand reach out for it. The ball was pulled away from her and there stood a small child that she had never seen before; and she knew all of the children at Wammy's House. Her first instinct was to run, but she was somehow locked in place.
Then, the child spoke.
"She's in the thirteenth room." And with that the child vanished before her very eyes.
She did not move for some time, left alone in the darkened corridor certain that she had just experienced the most disturbing hallucination, if that was what it was, in her life time. With a gulp, she continued down the corridor to the thirteenth room.
It was there that she found Amanda curled up on herself sobbing out her gentle heart; her body a convulsion of terribly shivers. Y immediately took off her coat and wrapped it around the crying girl.
"Come on, you're getting out of here. And you're telling me who did this to you."
She left no room for excuses and three days later there stood three girls in Roger's office receiving a very firm talking to, and their rooms were locked at night as punishment for poor behaviour.
It did not stop things from getting into their rooms and tormenting them. Y only knew it through their screaming, and was certain it was the haunted beasts from the hospital that had hunted them down. After hearing their wails for too long the doors were left unlocked.
Since that day, very few children went into the children's hospital on the Wammy's House property. Even she would avoid it when possible, seeing the figure of a child waving down at her from the floors above where nobody could access.
If she stared long enough she could see the child holding a red ball.
And missing half his skull.