Élodie crept along the outer hallways of the dilapidated medical facility, careful to keep her steps light and nimble as she searched for another generator. Felix warned her about this particular place. It was much larger than it seemed at first glance; easy for the stealthier killers to sneak up on you without an exit in sight. But she could hear her other teammates making quick work of the other generators. They'd be fine.

As if her positive thought had angered the Old One, a sudden scream rang out from somewhere nearby. Élodie froze, the sound at once sickeningly familiar and strange. It wasn't the sound of someone being hit. No, this scream was somehow...worse. It was not a scream of pain. It was reckless. Uninhibited. As if their body would not allow them to hold it back. It was low and roaring, too. One of the men. She clenched her jaw, willing herself into continued silence.

Then...a twinge of nerves shot down her spine. The killer was nearby. Looking at her. Who was it this time? She hastened her steps and glanced behind her. Something was approaching. Something big. Something man-shaped that made crackling, electric whines and snaps as his footfalls became quicker.

Élodie broke out into a run, dashing into another hallway with an irritated note that she'd passed a nearly complete generator. They could be nearly done by now if someone had just popped it.

The tingle subsided. He wasn't after her. She came to a stop and gave a quick look around herself before she knelt next to the machine, working at the wires with careful fingers. She only flinched once as a more normal sounding scream broke out a few rooms over. Heartbeat pounding in her ears, she exhaled slowly. It was so close to being done. So close. She could make it. She had to. She -

The generator burst into sparks and she cursed furiously beneath her breath as she waved the obscuring smoke away. Merde, he could hear her, couldn't he? There was no time to waste now. She grasped the wires once more, praying to whatever could hear her that she could complete it, hoping, wishing -

It revved with a loud ting, and Élodie spun herself around just as the shivers traveled down her vertebrae once more. She was face to face with something that she didn't register as a human at first, his eyes wild and glowing with strange blue light, teeth exposed with a horrific device that pulled his lips and gums. The device held his eyes open too, but despite how taut it pulled his skin, he appeared to smile with his electrified weapon raised over his head. Élodie dodged right, but not quick enough - his stick blasted into her ribs, and she let out a deafening scream as the bone broke. Shocks of pain and confusing sensations scrambled her thoughts as she ran down the opposite way she had just come from.

She raced down the hallway with panting breaths, her thoughts unbalanced and fuzzy. Something in her head told her to stop, to lay down and let him fix her; he could fix her, couldn't he? She just needed to stop running, to let him help her… he was there for her, the good Doctor...

"No!" Élodie screamed to banish the thoughts and they were silent for a moment. She heard a high, taunting laugh behind her and turned to see him stalking after her, electricity crackling through the gear on his head and the horrifying, spiked metal stick he carried. He was walking steadily, not quite at a run, but a slow, self-assured pace that told her he knew he would catch her. Élodie's heartbeat quickened and she turned a corner fast, hoping to lose him. Sure enough, he walked by, laughing to himself the whole time.

As her heartbeat slowed, the ambient terror he emitted quieted as well. Élodie sighed, tears that had been threatening to drop finally letting loose and dripping from her eyes. She'd never seen this killer before, and if she never did again, it would be too soon. She hated the human-shaped ones more than the beasts that came after them with gurgling squeals and slime. The humans reminded her of how deliberate the talons of the Old One were, grasping for both innocent blood and ruthless killers alike. It knew what they were capable of and relished in watching them destroy one another. She stood up and peeked back around the corner where she'd come from. Maybe, if she was quiet, she could sneak past him?

No sooner had she thought this than her heartbeat exploded and a shrill cackle sounded from directly behind her. The Doctor had found a way to end up behind her. Élodie screamed and broke into a sprint down the hall. He was so close, if only she could find a way to evade him…

As if to answer her prayer, she turned into a thin hall containing a pallet. She desperately flung herself forward, closing the distance to it in only a second, and grabbed for the wooden structure to toss it down in her pursuer's face… only for her hand to pass through it.

Élodie stumbled back in shock. It had been there, hadn't it? It was her salvation, she was going to throw it into his face and escape, it was the only thing that would keep him back. Her mind was slow, fuzzy, like molasses dripping off a spoon. What had he…?

A cackle, high and long, and the stick hit her in the side again/ her body convulsing with the voltage. Élodie's limbs spasmed and she fell to the ground, eyes unfocused.

The scent of burning flesh and electronics stung her nostrils as he lifted her effortlessly over his shoulder. She hung limply, her thoughts expansive and empty as a dreadful feeling told her she was supposed to be doing something to get out - struggle. Struggle. She moved her arms, she thought, but they hurt to move if she was moving them at all; her vision hadn't returned and she could only make out vague shapes and colors in the dim light.

A searing pain through her collar caused an unconscious shriek to rip through her throat. Had he hooked her in the basement? It felt different, somehow, as if the Devil himself were trying to pull her into the ground with the hook. Blinking once, then twice, her vision came back, confirming what she'd thought. Red light danced behind the walls of the decrepit room as eerie noises taunted from every angle. If there were a Hell, Élodie thought, this might be it.

In a moment of quiet, pained fear, she wished Felix were in the trial with her. But she hadn't seen him at all, and the scream she had heard earlier didn't belong to him. It was unlikely the last one of them was him. Out of all potential teammates, at least he had some understanding of how her fear functioned, at least...he…

Was that him in the corner, in the dark? "F-Felix?"

He tilted his head to the side and walked a few steps forward into the scarlet beams.

"Felix," she whimpered. "Help m-"

Another scream left her mouth. A device had spread her childhood friend's lips wide across his face, exposing his jaws painfully. He seemed to stare into her, beyond her.

She struggled against the hook, clutching at the burning metal. "No! No!"

"Quit movin', y'dumb bird," another voice hissed. A voice close. So close it could've been in front of her.

Her eyes fluttered to see one of the men from the campfire reaching up to lift her off the hook, his brows lowered in frustration even as a panicked light flickered in his eyes. How hadn't she seen him come down before? And where was - ?

Felix wasn't in the corner anymore.

"What… where is Felix?" she mumbled, head still spinning.

The gruff man gave her a curious look before shaking his head. "I don't know what the hell yer talkin' about, he didn't end up here with us. Good thing, too; the bastard with the gear on 'is head woulda done a number on him." He looked her over, noting how shaken she appeared, before continuing "Seems he already did one on you, eh?" With a surprisingly gentle touch for such a rough man, he placed his hand on her back as he looked her injuries over, carefully applying alcohol soaked gauze to the lacerations on her side and bandaged the gash in her chest. "Should be good to go in just...a sec…"

Élodie trembled as she looked at the corner, then the stairwell. No, she had seen Felix, surely? Or had the pain been so great that she had seen things? "H-how many more do we have left," she managed softly, breathing through the stinging.

"Mmm," he hummed, finishing up the bandage and tearing it off with a snap of his wrist. "Well, me an' the nurse - not the floating one, the young one, Lisa - finished one ourselves, an' I think Ash - man with the metal arm - got one done himself. Leaves three to finish, I reckon."

Élodie shook her head. "I finished two. One left."

The man nodded, a small smile playing on his lips. "Good work. Makes our jobs easier. I don't think we've been properly introduced yet, by the way." He stuck his hand out, and Élodie took it slowly as she realized he wanted to shake. "David King. And you're Ella… Ellie…?"

"Élodie Rakoto," she couldn't help but smile, herself, as she shook his hand. He was more polite than she'd have guessed from his rough exterior. She felt a little guilty only now learning his name when she had seen him so often at the large campfire. She really hadn't taken the time to get to know most of them outside of a select few. She had seen him talk to Felix, though, and even play a few games of football together. If Felix was fine with him, she was, too. "Thank you."

He shrugged. "S'nothin'. Uh...and sorry, about that," he muttered, looking up at the hook and scratching his head. "Shouldn't struggle on these things. One of us will get you."

Élodie pursed her lips, knowing that wasn't entirely true, but she could tell he genuinely believed it. "Are you sure Felix isn't here? I...I thought I saw him back there."

He looked back where she was, only seeing an already emptied chest, and shook his head with a frown. "You might've seen one of us. I dunno. But right now we ought ter go back up. Lisa won't keep 'im off us for much longer." He touched his own shoulder with an annoyed look. "The shithead got me twice already, so...if I'm out, I'm out for good. I'll find one in the outer halls. Find one of the others and get on a gen. Got it?"

She nodded and followed him up the stairs, a strange pressure in her temples beginning to throb. "David," she whispered, "does this...thing...do something to your -"

A hissing laugh in her ear, and suddenly the creature was right in front of her. Élodie shrieked, grabbing onto David's arm.

"What?!" He shouted, whirling around to look where she had been looking. Nothing but the seemingly endless halls.

"He-he was right there, he… appeared…"

David hushed her and shook his head. "There was nobody there. That's something his… static does. Makes you hear things, see things."

Élodie's heartbeat was still racing, but she nodded to confirm she understood. So...it wasn't him, tortured and trapped in the basement. That, at least, was a small mercy she could accept.

A chill ran down from the base of her neck to her tailbone. "Fuck's sake," David hissed. "He heard us. Go. Go!" He ushered her to go down one of the halls leading deeper into the facility as he ran past her, clinging to the very edges of the building's halls.

Alone again, Élodie clenched her fists. It wasn't real, then. Just illusions and tricks. That, at least, she was familiar with. You couldn't be a proper occultist without expecting both.

All she had to do was find a generator, maybe one of the others, and complete it. Just as she steeled herself to move forward, another scream rang through the hall.

She froze. It's not real.

She crouched, moving towards the large room in the centre of the building. It's not real.

A shout, low, husky. David.
Élodie scrambled towards his aura, seeing him lifted into the air. If she could only just make it to him, maybe she could distract him long enough that David could struggle out. Her feet pounding the floor as she ran, her heartbeat pounding in her ears as she got closer, closer, closer to the psychotic Doctor…

A gurgling yell, and a deep hum, and Élodie sensed the claws of the Entity closing to take David away.

She shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut and open again, numb disbelief permeating her body. She had to find the others now, or at the very least try to find a gen and hope the killer would go after someone else.

But for now, she had to get away from him. Élodie crept into one of the offices and spotted a locker next to a broken office window she could hurdle over. She looked over her shoulder to see if he was too close, and quickly opened the locker door and snapped it shut before she quietly moved out the window and dashed down the hallway. She sincerely hoped she was going the right way; everything looked the same to her, and the pressure at her temples was getting worse, and the ground beneath her felt strange and unsteady -

She looked down. Her feet were still planted on the dirty carpet of the office, and when she looked back up, she could only see the closed door of the locker. "N-no," she whispered. She ran. She ran, didn't she? Although, why would she run? Something was wrong with her. Something terribly, terribly wrong. She needed to be fixed. To be healed. She could just wait to be healed.

Élodie's heartbeat quickened suddenly. Too suddenly. All at once the noise of her heart and the ambient terror of the Doctor pulsed in her ear, and she whirled around. Was he really there, stalking down the hallway toward her, or was this another illusion? She didn't have time to figure out which before he smashed her over the head with the crackling stick he carried, rattling her brain and sending her running out of the office, unsteadily lurching forward in a sick posture.

As she ran, visions appeared to her. The Doctor, standing there and smacking the stick against his palm. Felix, beckoning her to his side. Her mother, sternly warning her and the rest of the Pariahs against going back to Dyer Island, lest they find themselves in more trouble than they understood. Her father, enveloped by dark, black smoke. Too much to handle, Élodie stumbled, nearly crashing into a generator, but she kept moving. The Doctor was right behind her, she knew he was, if she stopped for even a second he'd hit her again, and her brain would be shaken, shocked.

It hurt so badly, but Élodie wondered if… just maybe… maybe it would be okay? Maybe it would fix her instead, make her feel better. He was a doctor, after all. He knew best, surely?

Her foot caught on something beneath her, and she crashed into the linoleum beneath with a resonating thud as her chin split open. She sluggishly turned her head to see what she tripped on, only to release another scream. One of the girls from the campfire, but she could only tell based on her strange, old-fashioned uniform and not the charred remains of her face. Black smoke stains obscured the sockets of her eyes where her retinas melted, sooty mouth open in a silent, permanent scream.

The cackling. The cackling didn't stop.

Élodie struggled to her feet, head swimming. She couldn't go on anymore. It was all too much. Chest heaving, she sobbed and hung her head as she tried, desperately, to snap out of it. The image of the poor young girl's melted eyes didn't go away when she closed her own.
David was dead, too. There was one other person left alive, if the Doctor hadn't gotten to them already. Élodie's normally good aura senses failed her, though, and she couldn't seem to tell.

Her legs gave out beneath her and twisted into a pile as she wept. Despair clawed at her nerves, wrecking her senses even as a buzzing static sound overwhelmed her ears. "Get out of my head," she cried, squeezing her eyes shut. "Get out! You aren't welcome here!"

Heavy footfalls approached, and Élodie knew what was coming next.

The sound of static and a low chuckle. She felt two hands to either side of her head. They held her in a tight, vice grip, threatening to crack her skull like an egg before a searing pain shot through her. Élodie saw nothing but flashes of light, smelled something like bacon cooking. She heard nothing, her eardrums burst and ears melted into her head. She knew her body was convulsing, but felt nearly none of it.

The last thought Élodie had was almost like a dream. She and Felix, young teens again, standing on the shore of Dyer Island as the sun set. He smiled at her and took her hand.

"See, Élodie?"

It wasn't his voice. It wasn't Felix. There was a low, staticky hum to his tone. He was smiling too wide, lips curled back to bare his teeth.

"I'll make it all better. Just trust me."

Élodie was conscious of one final scream.