Alchemilla Hospital was not a particularly unpleasant-looking establishment. In fact, if the circumstances had been different, Bishop thought he would have rather liked it.

The gargantuan brick building, framed about the perimeter by a chain-link fence, stretched into the troubled sky and disappeared into the clouds. He scanned its structure, noting the solidity, exits and entrances. Then he pushed on the gate.

It creaked open, like a long-forgotten echo of a corpse's last breath, and four shots were fired. Bishop stepped over the bleeding bodies of two dogs lying at his feet, courtesy of Arelia and her handgun. She slopped through their excesses of blood up to the door and opened it, leaving it ajar for Bishop to follow.

"Don't close..." It was too late. He had closed the door behind him before she even got the words out of her mouth. She sighed and shook her head at him, then inspected the lobby of the hospital. It was clean; the counters and linoleum floors sparkled with the scent and polish of PineSol. Well-lit, as well. But as all hospitals do, it had the smell that made Arelia want to bolt and never look back. She could never quite put her finger on it, but it reeked of something uncomfortable and of such disgusting nature that it could only be contained in a place of sterility. On the walls were various posters encouraging health: a food pyramid, a want-ad for blood donations, and a woman giving herself a mammogram. Arelia rolled her eyes before turning to Bishop.

"Looks safe here," she said. She sniffed, then started down the hall past the receptionist's desk. "Smells like lemons and--"

Gunshots. Two of them, in quick succession. Arelia glanced at Bishop, who drew his shotgun, then hurried into the room from which they had sounded. She opened the door without thinking to draw her weapon, and stared at the somber man sitting a few feet away on a wooden chair, a gun in his hands and a dead flying-monster at his feet. Just as she was about to back out of the doorway, he pulled his gun up at her head and lunged forward, closing the space between them.

"Woah!" Bishop yelled from behind Arelia, rushing in and pushing her out of the way. "Easy, easy! We're okay! Just put the gun down, we're not monsters!" There was a long moment of silence in which he was studied thoroughly by the man with the gun. Dark eyes traveled over his body, then shifted to Arelia. She stared back at him. Slowly, the gun was lowered.

"Thank God," he murmured. "Another human being." His eyes lifted to Bishop as he stuffed his gun into his inside jacket pocket. "I'm Dr. Michael Kaufmann, I work at this hospital." Arelia stepped forward, moving nearer to the police officer.

"I'm Arelia, and this is my friend Bishop," she greeted with a lack of warmth congruent to Kaufmann's. "What's going on here?"

"I really can't say... I was taking nap in the staff room, and when I woke up, it was like this." He nodded toward the beast on the floor, drowning in the pool of blood bubbling out of its mouth, and also gestured to the building's abandonment. "Everyone seems to have disappeared. And it's snowing out, this time of year. Something's gone seriously wrong."

"We gathered that much," Bishop said. "Still, it's nice to see a survivor."

"Did you see those monsters?" Kaufmann questioned, running his hand through dark brown hair. "Have you ever seen such aberrations? Even ever heard of such things? You and I both know creatures like that don't exist." As Arelia and Bishop shared a look of worry, the doctor spoke up again. "Sorry, I didn't mean to alarm you."

"You didn't," assured Arelia. "It's just that--"

"Well, I'd better be going," interrupted Kaufmann. He started for the door, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Bishop was standing in his way.

"Hang on a second," he growled, moving his arms to further block the exit. "You can't just go out there and leave us alone. We've got questions, and I've got a feeling you've got answers." Without interrupting his professional gait, Dr. Kaufmann pistol-whipped Bishop so hard he slammed into Arelia and out of the way. Arelia caught him before he fell and held him back from the powerful and violent older man.

"I can't just sit around here and do nothing," said the doctor with a shrug, as if it were all justifiable by that single movement of his shoulders. He opened the door and strutted out, slamming it shut behind him. A plaque fell off the wall with the force.

"I could have kept him here, you know," Bishop snarled as he pushed away from Arelia and rubbed his smarting jaw. "Maybe we could have gotten him to take us away from here."

"Unlikely," she said, stuffing her hands into her pockets. "I'm not quite certain he was all there. His mental stability looked a bit iffy to me."

"To me, as well," he reluctantly agreed. "But I still don't like the fact that you let him walk after he hit me like that."

"Well, I'm sure he's making his way through the lobby right now, so if you hurry, maybe you can catch him."

"Funny. Real amusing."

"You're the one who decided to be the mediator and get between him and the door," Arelia reminded him. "Besides, we've got more important things to worry about."

"Like?"

"Like getting a map for this place," she said. "And then getting out." She stepped through a door to the left of the one she had come in through, and passed through a relatively empty room. The next door led her to the receptionist's desk, where she found a health kit on the counter.

"Well, you've got one problem solved," Bishop said, handing Arelia a map of the hospital that had been hanging on a corkboard. She looked through its floor plans half-heartedly before putting it inside her jacket.

"One down, a million to go," she murmured.