Michael woke up.
He looked around, but saw only obscure, dim shapes. Flashlight wasn't in his pocket – turned out it had fallen on the floor. Once Michael finally reached it (after sweeping huge amounts of dust with his sleeve), he was able to analyze his surroundings: a small rectangular room, with nothing but one door and a shelf filled with cardboard boxes. Michael tried to remember why he was lying on the floor, yet this was difficult – he did recall the maze, though every detail was blurry.
Michael stood up slowly – his legs ached. He walked to the door in front of him, which was already rather confusing: wasn't the door on wrong side of the room? Then again, the spiralling staircase was gone too: behind the door was a dim hallway. Its floor was covered with large, white tiles; walls were gray, yet they contained green, horizontal stripes. There were several ceiling lamps, yet none of them was in use. A faint scent of chlorine lingered in the air.
Michael stepped in the hallway and looked to his left: there were two steel doors at the very end, with some kind of button panel next to them – presumably an elevator. On his right, the hallway ended in a distant light source. Turned out a door was placed there, with two windows embedded on it. Quite evidently Michael wasn't in the bar anymore, which was somewhat illogical – he had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there. The place did resemble a hospital of some sort, but that was all Michael could deduce.
Michael walked at the elevator and pressed the call button – doors wouldn't open, yet a small digital screen flashed above the panel. Access card required, stated the notification. There was a narrow horizontal slot below the screen, presumably for the card. Michael sighed and chose the second option: he walked to the opposite end of the corridor and peeked through the door's windows. In front of the door, another short corridor continued forward, with another similar door at its end. However, there was a wide opening in the corridor's right side, which led to another hallway with several windows. Michael saw natural light passing through them – beautiful, warm and reddish glow; as if sun was setting outside.
Michael opened the door and turned right. He entered the wide hallway, and indeed, its left side contained a row of windows, with brown benches placed underneath them. Michael stood there, staring at the glow of falling sun – it painted the whole corridor and created sleepy shadows. He looked through the windows and saw a garden bathing in the red light – there wasn't any fog or snow outside. Some ornamental bushes were placed right below the windows; calm rain drops landed on their leaves. Michael had always enjoyed such mildly contradictory weather: faint drizzle, despite sky being mostly clear.
Michael had no idea what was going on, but he felt almost relaxed – such feeling had become quite rare. He kept walking and looking around, until arriving in a large lobby. There was a reception on his right – on his left, a large map was bolted on the wall. Its upper side stated White Plains University Hospital – Michael read the name three times until accepting its message. He had been in the hospital before – that was some years ago, when Beth had gone into labor. The relaxed feeling disappeared; it was replaced by silent threat.
Michael tried to think: it did seem he wasn't in the town anymore, which was insane. Could he just leave the hospital? Not quite so, since the front door was locked. Then again, there were many windows, so Michael could have just broken one of them and climbed out. However, the place was completely empty – there should have been at least some personnel present. Therefore, two options remained: either Michael was hopelessly sick in the head, or the hospital was just like the concrete maze; something beyond his understanding. Surely a combination of these two provided an even more powerful explanation – even if it wasn't satisfying to Michael.
Michael inspected the reception's counter, noticing a small item left on it: a plastic card. There was a picture of a woman imprinted on it, with short text next to the picture:
Anne Reinhardt
Pediatrician
Michael took the card and set towards the elevator – he was getting worried. The card indeed opened the doors, and Michael stepped inside. On the interior panel, only one of the buttons was highlighted: that of the basement floor. The others did absolutely nothing, so Michael accepted the guidance.
The doors opened again; Michael stepped in a mostly pitch-black corridor. However, exactly one ceiling lamp was working in the middle – its silver glow created strong contrast. There was just one steel door along the hallway, with black plate next to it – word morgue was engraved on the plate, which caused Michael some mild anxiety. The door was locked, though, but Michael started creating grim envisions. He walked at the end of the hallway, where it turned both right and left. The turn right led to a dead-end, weirdly enough. Turn left led to a small door with vertical window and another plate next to it, this time with the following text:
Stephan Drommel
Pediatrics Department Director
Neonatology
Michael opened the door; he arrived at a rather small office. There was a brown carpet on the floor – it contained complex ornamental patterns. A brown couch with a small wooden table was placed on Michael's right. On his left was a wooden desk, with a computer and some documents on top of it. Behind the desk, a black chair and a bookshelf; completely filled with books about medicine. There was a single large window in front of Michael, which puzzled him greatly: sun wasn't shining anymore; it was dark outside. Michael could see distant city lights on the other side of a black void.
It remained unclear what Michael was supposed to do in the hospital – was Beth close by? Michael decided to check the computer, since it was left on. A text editor was opened on the screen, with the following entry written on it:
Patient: Kane, Amy
Age: 1 week
Strong abdominal distension was noticeable within 24 hours from birth. High feeding intolerance. Severe hypotension set in after 30 hours from birth; suspected early perforations in large intestine duo to blood in rectal discharge. Advanced 3rd stage necrotizing enterocolitis diagnosed 2 hours after birth.
Michael rubbed his forehead and backed away from the computer. He looked through the window for a while until sitting on the couch. Air started smelling; sweet, disgusting stench emanated from the other side of the door. Headache reappeared – Michael's hands were freezing. He stood up, took out the gun and filled its cylinder. Michael approached the door while the smell got horrifying – still, it remained somehow tolerable; it felt familiar. Michael opened the door and returned to the hallway – now covered in black, shiny plastic.
Michael turned right, on the long corridor. In the pitch-black middle of it, was standing another bulb-headed woman, caressing its horn-like appendage. A spark flashed; deeply red glow started growing, turning the hallway into a blood red midnight. The humanoid stepped towards Michael, who in turn raised his gun – he fired twice, as the creature leaped towards him. One of the bullets hit its upper body, causing it to falter: it fell and hit itself against the wall, while Michael jumped out of the way – towards the dead-end. The humanoid pressed itself against the black wrapping, twisted its body and got up. Michael couldn't comprehend what he saw: the creature stood on the wall, with its soles against the vertical surface. Michael fired again; he succeeded in breaking the light bulb. Cloud of red dust was set free and ignited; breath of red flame attached on the creature's shoulders, burning away its dark, gray skin.
Michael kept shooting until he heard a cold, clicking sound. Without thinking, he just ran and jumped past (or under) the creature, whose flames were eating the black wrapping. Michael stopped abruptly, as he noticed another such humanoid at the end of the hallway – walking in the ceiling. Michael was out of options, so he pulled open the morgue's door and slammed it behind him.
Michael fell on his knees – the sweet smell was beyond unbearable. He threw up as the painful reflex took over. After some long minutes, he was able to consider standing up – it was easier considered than done, yet nevertheless Michael pulled himself on two feet. At first it seemed he would pass out from the smell, but he managed to cling on to consciousness. He looked around, trying to examine the surroundings: apparently he had entered an extremely narrow corridor. It was made out of gray concrete, but didn't contain a visible ceiling: above Michael, there was nothing but vertical darkness, just like in the maze – however, this time it felt even deeper.
Both sides of the hallway were formed of metallic shelves – their rusty, worn structures continued upwards and disappeared in the dark. The shelves weren't empty: instead, they were filled with dead bodies, tightly wrapped in body bags. Thousands of corpses leaning against each other, stacked in piles; some of them fallen on the floor and twisted in various positions. Stale smell of the plastic got mixed with the sugary, rotten stench of human decomposition. Michael stared at the sight in pure shock, unable to move: endless vertical beds of cadavers – if they were to fall down, they would crush him instantly.
Michael pulled out the gun and loaded it with clumsy movements – his whole body was shaking. He took a step, then another – one reluctant step at a time, fighting against every natural instinct. Sometimes the smell would peak, diving into his head and activating gag reflex. Michael spat out several curses, as he passed a group of bodies lying on the floor. His understanding of time was gone – how long had he been walking? Michael stopped, and took a look behind. He turned around, trying to remember where he had come from – only two options, yet he couldn't recall. He turned around again and continued walking, almost stumbling at one of the cadavers.
Hours or minutes later, Michael heard a distant sound – like a gentle blow. He looked behind, yet saw nothing. He looked above, and saw a tiny glimmering source of light. It was deeply red, hidden far away in the darkness, twitching like candle's flame. The sound reappeared; more similar lights were born – like red stars in pitch-black night. Michael attempted walking while staring at them, which led to him falling down. One of the lights was exceptionally close to him, thus revealing their nature: a bulb-headed humanoid was walking on the bed of corpses, caressing the light bulb and burning its fingers constantly. Michael jumped on his feet and started running, as more and more lights came on above him. He saw couple humanoids falling down – a tail of blood red glow followed them, as they got crushed against the steel shelves and concrete. Michael jumped over their mangled corpses and kept running. Eventually, he saw the hallway's opposite end, with another small door – wave of hopeless relief almost made him stop, but not quite: he threw himself towards said door, and started pulling it open. One of the body bags got stuck in front of it – Michael grabbed it by the cadaver's legs and threw it aside, sensing how warmth had escaped from his fingers. In the corner of his sight, he could see hundreds of bulb-headed creatures walking downwards, some of them covered in violent red flames. Michael yanked the door open, leaped on the other side and slammed it behind him. He fell on the floor and pulled cold, clean air in his lungs. Every second was longer than the previous one, until time stopped.