-And finally! Here I am again with the next chapter!

Hey wait a minute: Prey? Prey is synonymous with Quarry. And The Quarry is another Supermassive Game! One that I also really enjoyed playing! If you haven't gotten it by now, be sure to get the Quarry as it plays very much in the spirit of what made Until Dawn so great as well!

P.S. Dylan is Best Boi!-


This would definitely have been easier to do if he had two free hands.

Unfortunately, Mike really wasn't in a position to ditch his now only form of light he had on his person. This flame lantern in hand and the lighter he had in his pocket were the only things left on him. Everything else was gone: his outer clothes, both the flashlight and the battery lantern, the gun he'd picked up from the cabin...

His girlfriend.

The memory of his Jessica flashed in his mind yet again. Both her young, vibrant, beautiful form he was very much accustomed to, and her recent fate he was very much unlucky enough to have seen. Both filled him with a mix of sadness, despair, anger, reinvigoration. A desire to see somebody pay!

With that, he gripped the next brick of this old, snow-covered wall with ice-cold fingers and pulled hard. Thankfully his grip completely held, and mustering what strength remained in his arm pulled himself up and over the edge of the snow-covered wall.

Immediately what greeted him was something that only be described as straight from a horror book. The sky itself was darkened at this specific point, yet somehow the building itself appeared cast in deeper shadow than that. It stood nearly a hundred feet tall from the front alone, with a central part of the roof stretching up towards the sky and making it even taller. If it weren't for the couple of lightbulbs lit here and there along the front, the entire building would've been cast in shadow and made it impossible to see in the slightest.

At that was only regarding the building itself. The entire front courtyard didn't appear any more appealing to look at. What trees that were there were little more than massive stalks, completely devoid of any sort of leaves. They somehow casted themselves as even darker silhouettes against the dark sky as well, adding to the desolate feel this place created. Combined with the broken and rundown stonework seen littering the front as well, this was really not a pleasant place one would want to find themselves. Who would want to come here anyway?

Crazy psychopaths most likely.

Speaking which, Mike suddenly caught sight of movement aside from the gusts of wind blowing in front of him. Instinctively he sunk his head back down below the stone wall, bringing his lantern down along with him. The guy was definitely out there, having somehow made it all the way up here while he had to trudge his way through thick snow himself just to get close. He didn't catch sight of him though, did he?

"That's not good..." he said to himself softly, "That's really not good..."

Very slowly, Mike peeked his head up and over the wall top again. He kept the light of the lantern held low to reduce chance of it lighting him up where he was. Movement drew his attention and Mike could see the man was maintaining his walking course towards the building.

However additional movement could be seen. His eyes widened upon realizing that this guy had some kind of animals walking alongside him! Dogs? Or were they wolves? Whatever they were, they seemed to be acting friendly to him.

"Dammit...!" Mike cursed to himself. This was just getting better and better, wasn't it? Not only would he have to try and get close to him, but now he'd also have to avoid those dogs, or wolves, as well. Who the hell was this psycho anyway? Living up here all by himself with wolves, targeting innocent kids like them? He shook his head, dismissing such speculative thoughts as irrelevant.

By now the man could be seen making his way to the building's front door and was letting himself in. The two wolves followed behind him and the door closed, cutting off the light from within and concealing the building in darkness again. No further movement could be seen in the front, which Mike took as his cue.

"Alright... Let's get a closer look..."

Mike lifted the lantern and set it atop the snow-covered wall top. With both hands free, he lifted himself up and over until his feet were both pulled directly beneath him. Once his footing was firmly established, he took hold of the lantern again and prepared to drop down over the stone wall.

Mike landed down on his two feet to the ground beneath him. This particular ground was a little deeper than the ground on the other end of the wall, but that didn't matter now. He was on the other side, and he could now get a better sense of where he stood.

With the moon casting its light at the angle that it was at, Mike found himself standing within the dark shadow of his surroundings. Were it not for the lantern he held in his hand, he'd be completely and literally in the dark at this point. From what he could see however, the entire courtyard was in no better shape up close than where he saw it before. The nearby fence was barely standing with its poor condition it was in, and any sort of trees were void of foliage.

Mike took careful steps forward, his own light and the lights from the front of the building serving as his guides. He took care when taking steps to ensure that the snow-crunching wasn't needlessly loud as it could've been. That guy may have disappeared into the building, but who knows just how truly safe he was. Aside from those two wolves, could there have been anyone else in there with him? And what sort of other stuff would he have found inside as well?

He felt a pang of regret of not having his gun on him in this moment. Maybe he could've fixed it? Mike wasn't so sure; it must've jammed up completely after taking that one shot, so maybe it wouldn't have been good to have on him during this time.

After crunching through the snow a few steps, Mike felt his feet touch more solid ground in the form of what might've been concrete. He ascended the small steps of the central fountain area, where he gazed upon the fountain itself in all its run-down glory. The two lights posted on the front of the building suddenly appeared much brighter the closer Mike got to them. Within the light he could see the front door, almost inviting him.

As he began to ascend the next set of steps however, he quickly stopped himself.

"Wait, what are you doing, Mike?" he berated himself, "He just went through there, he could be on the other side for all you know...!" Glancing up one last time at the door, he stepped back down and away from the steps. This wasn't gonna do him any good if he didn't have a plan! All he had on him was this lantern! Well, that as well as...

His eyes widened as he suddenly realized: Jess' phone! It was still in his pocket! It was a long shot, but... maybe, he could reach out to someone! Maybe someone at the lodge, and tell them what all was going on!

He reached into his pocket and pulled forth the small pink phone. He then quickly typed in the four-digit passcode that he was privy too; being Jess' boyfriend did have such perks after all!

"There we go...!" he congratulated himself. The main screen lit up before him with its soft glow, but after a moment of studying it, Mike's frown returned in force upon realizing something.

"What?! No b- are you fucking kidding me...!?" he struggled to keep his voice low in spite of his frustration. Of course there had to be no service where he was! His other hand began to squeeze the lantern handle a little tighter. In addition to that hand feeling colder as a result, Mike was vaguely aware of the harder chill running up and down his back as well. Maybe he should get out of this freezing cold first. And if that meant going inside this creepy, rundown... 'sanatorium', as he read on the nearby plaque by the door, then so be it.

He glanced down at the phone to shut it off and place it in his pocket, until his eyes caught sight of something. Jess had an app on the phone still opened. His eyes narrowed in curiosity, he pressed it to bring it back to the forefront. In an instant, Michael Munroe's eyes widened upon what he saw.

It was the picture app, from when Jess and he had taken a picture together before setting out for the cabin! There they were, embracing each other within the picture's frame and making stupid faces in front of the camera. Stupid as they were though, they both had a smile on their faces. Mike had a goofy grin in hindsight, while Jess still had a beautiful smile as always. In a way it's like she was smiling directly at him. Not 'him' in the picture, but the 'him' that was looking at this picture right now!

Mike's lips were pursed harder than he'd ever done before. It was just as painful to look at her beautiful face now as it was helpful. He should've been faster! He should've gotten to her sooner! If he had, maybe she'd still be alive! A heavy weight could be felt in the pit of his stomach; Mike was just as responsible for her death as the one that killed her...

"I'm so, so sorry Jess..." he practically whispered as he pocketed her phone again, "I'm so sorry..."

He shook his head, trying to shake off both the warding chill that surrounded him as well as the ever-present guilt that. Unfortunately, it didn't feel like either would be going away anytime soon. At the very least he could do something about getting somewhere warmer.

He looked to the side of the building at where he had seen the man walk to earlier. Underneath where the lightbulb was positioned, its light almost seemed to shine directly down upon something in question. There at the very base of the building, a small layer of snow built up at the bottom, was a metallic panel that stuck out against the stony structure of the building itself.

Mike made his way down the side steps and stood before this panel, inspecting it further. What was this thing? Looking closely, he could see the corner of the panel drooped a little on the left side to reveal a cavity in the wall itself, about the size of this panel! So that's what this thing was: a small door to cover it up? Where exactly would it lead to if he decided to open it up?

"Well... probably better than the front door..." Mike said, glancing back to the right at the door, "Come on..."

Setting the lantern down beside him he gripped the panel on two handholds facing him. Upon exerting strength, he found that the panel itself was not that heavy, just that he had to push it harder against the snow that nearly buried it. Eventually, the panel was clear of the whole, and Mike was free to peer into what lay inside.

The light from outside lit up the room by just a small amount, and even when he picked the lantern up back in hand to light it up more. The most he could see were a massive set of pipes that ran horizontally along the wall opposite where he stood. Aside from that, little else could be seen besides rundown furniture, garbage, and specks of debris littering the ground. Directly beneath him the ground could be seen about a couple feet below. Mike repositioned himself on the ground he stood on, then dropped himself down completely, grunting as he hit the floor on his feet.

The harsh chill of snowy air was greatly reduced, but Mike's unease still remained. Where he stood now didn't make him feel any easier. This had to be some kind of basement or boiler room, some ass-end of a building that no sane person would ever want to come down into. No doubt the kind of place that some maniac would go through. Small, almost unnoticed squeaks and skittering filled the confining space of this room. Unfortunately, no other movement could be seen to pinpoint these rats, rodents or whatever, no matter where Mike held the lantern's light to show him. Rather than relief at what he could see, Mike could only feel growing dread at the fact that he was still in some creepy basement of some kind. Why wouldn't he end up in the creepiest place on planet Earth?

The bigger question was, how was he to get out of here?

Even from where he stood, Mike could see a set of dual doors that would lead out of this room, sadly caved in by some kind of collapse. So much for just walking out of here then. But that couldn't be the only way out of here, could it?

"Wait, what... is that...?"

His eyes glanced up and to the right from the doors themselves to look at something else. There, from a break in the ceiling above him, was an actual hole! A small amount of light was pouring through, just enough to give Mike a clear idea of what he could do now! If he could get up to that hole, he could pull himself up and into the building's floor above where he was! Sounded simple enough; as for getting up there...

Mike noted the additional long, thick row of pipes running horizontally along the wall close to him. They ran all the way past until converging at a turn around a corner, where they seemed to drop off straight down. He made his way around the corner to inspect closer, holding the lantern's light up before him. Sure enough, what turned out to be a catwalk above him fed all the way to the opening in the ceiling. As for getting up to there, it was unfortunately a little too high to reach up and climb up onto.

"There's gotta be something here I can..." Mike said to himself, before looking around and behind him, "Ah! Here we go...!" His answer came in the form of a nearby red drum barrel. Actually, it was more rusted and losing its red color as a result. He didn't care; this would more than be enough to climb up on top of.

First, he set the lantern down on top of the drum, then placed both his hands on the edge. He then started with a gentle push, quickly finding that the drum itself was completely empty and slid across the ground almost effortlessly. The sounds of metal scrapping against stone filled the space and Mike was momentarily worried that the sound would be heard by the man, wherever he was. Before he knew it however, the drum was backed up close enough to where he needed it to be.

He then took the lantern handle in one hand, and with the other hand held the drum steady and in place as he ascended. The barrel shuffled only once with Mike quickly holding it in place underneath his feet, before his balance was fully maintained.

Slowly but carefully, Mike lifted his gaze up over the ledge before him to find that it was in fact made of wood. The wooden catwalk seemed to stretch out along the wall as far as he could see, which wasn't very far given how dark it was. He then lifted the lantern up to reaffirm what he could see with the light illuminating a little more of the walkway before setting it down on the wood. With two free hands Mike grunted as he pulled himself up and over the wood's edge before finally climbing to his feet.

Almost immediately Mike noted how closely the roof was much closer to his head, causing him to instinctively pull his head down slightly. To his side lay a separate set of pipes running up vertically along the wall before disappearing through the ceiling. Directly in front of him he had a clearer sight of the walkway that stretched forward and would lead to the hole in the wall. He'd come this far, time to get out of this creepy place.

After traversing the wood of the platform, he then carefully walked across the much narrower metallic wire walkway. His hands held out to his side to keep himself balanced, though he found little difficulty walking across it otherwise. Eventually he cleared it completely, finally making it to the end of the walkway, and the ceiling's hole.

Thankfully Mike would not need to look for anything to get him up to there as a piece of stony debris had fallen through. The large chunk of rock was nearly waist-level in size as he easily climbed atop and stood up. He carefully peeked his head up through the hole to behold what lay above him.

"Whoa..." he said to himself, "That's different."

The room he took in was massive in size, nearly as big as the Washington's lodge itself! Everywhere he could see was stone, whether they were tall pillars, waist-size railings or doorway thresholds. Everything was made of stone and looked like they were carved out of some old medieval castle-looking place. However, whereas the lodge was in relatively good shape and cool to look at, this place was definitely falling apart with all rundown glory. Large chunks of broken rock and stone littered the ground, having previously served as pieces of the surrounding walls and even the ceiling. As for lighting, in addition to his own lit lantern, the entire room itself was illuminated by natural light of the moon, shining in through the holes up above.

Mike again set the lantern down on the ground to give himself free hands. He then pulled himself hard over the edge and finally up to his feet before picking the lantern up to look around again.

Looking down at the floor showed him an old set of tiles that were faded in red in color, with a section of white a couple feet in front of him. Walking forward along the ground he could see that this white of tiles seemed to mark a walkway of this floor as they led directly forward across the room or broke off to the side into nearby doorways against the nearby wall. As for the other side of the wall, who was to say what could've been there since there lay a massive cave-in of debris covering the entirety of the left side. Upon the stone pillars that ran up to the ceiling a couple of ravens were seen perched and looking all around, occasionally glancing down at he himself. The obvious path laid out before him, Mike slowly made his way across the room towards the opposing wall, and its door.

He felt slight alarm rise within him upon seeing the door closer. Of course, this was simply because he was able to see it thanks to a nearby industrial flashlight projecting its light upon the door. With this place in its broken-down state, this thing had to have been put here by someone. Someone that could very well be nearby.

Maybe even on the other side of the door...?

Mike slowed his pace to the smallest of steps as he approached the dual doors. Before he made a reach of the doorknob on the right, he noticed a peephole upon the door about level with his face. Instinctively he brought his lantern down and away from him, worried that more light shining through would give him away.

Through the narrow sight, Mike gazed out at what lay on the other side. There, standing merely a few feet away from the door was the man! His back was still turned to him even as he continued to walk away from him. Aside from the familiar dark green jacket, dark blue beanie, and dark tan pants he'd seen before, nothing else could be identified about this individual. Mike felt his frustration only grow at this information, or rather, this repeat of information he already knew. There had to be more to this!

He then found himself involuntarily recoiling upon catching sight of something else. Movement to the left side showed him the two wolves were there with him, shuffling about. The man suddenly tossed something towards the two, and they began to shuffle harder and growl as they struggled to claim whatever it was. The lighter of the two wolves prevailed as it took it in its mouth, with the darker wolf backing off. The man himself then proceeded to continue walking across the room away from two creatures.

Mike's eyes remained transfixed upon the display before him. This guy just had some actual wolf pack with him at his beck and call? And while there were two wolves that could be seen right there, who knew how many others there also were in this place?

With the man having already made his way to the further end of the room and retreated through a metal gate, the wolves themselves began to make their way towards the right side of the room as well. They disappeared from view around a nearby bench off to the side, and Mike could see no further movement inside.

He instinctively reached down to the doorknob and gave it a twist, only to find that it was locked. This broke him from his transfixed mental state as he realized what was going on. The door not only wasn't opening, but he also needed... a security pass?

"What the...?"

Mike gently lifted the lantern's light just barely to read a green sign posted on the door itself. Sure enough, a locking mechanism was engaged on the door, and the sign itself spelled out that something called a 'chapel security pass' would be needed.

'The hell? Why would I need a...? And how did he even get in?!' Mike thought to himself. He quickly shook his head however. If that's what it would take to get in, he supposed he could spare a few moments for some 'search'. If that guy had some pass to get in through this kind of door, then there had to be another one, right? And another one had to be somewhere around here...

With that Mike carefully stepped away from the door and proceeded back the way he came through the larger room.

Looking at this room from the opposing perspective didn't do it any favors. This entire place looked like it was literally falling apart. So many chunks of stone from the walls themselves having broken off and fallen to the ground, destroying anything that was beneath them. Seriously, did some like earthquake do this? Shake this whole place up so hard as it was?

Casually glancing down at the ground, Mike found himself thankful that amidst his earlier removal of clothes that he'd never gotten to taking his boots off. There was a good chance that at the time he'd have run after Jess completely barefoot into the snow, and then risk his bare feet stepping on some like piece of glass or wood laying on this tile ground. As it was now though, his boots were keeping his feet not only shielded from cold, but also from stepping on any sort of thing littering this rundown place. No good would come from if he was getting glass-cut or splinters in his feet at this time.

Following the ground tiles taking him to the left, Mike looked up to a doorway before him. Or rather, this was the 'only' doorway available that could be traversed, one that wasn't blocked off due to a cave-in of debris and rubble. The door itself was marked with the words 'Admin' on a sign directly above the threshold. With a shrug Mike proceeded towards the door. If there was any hope of finding a 'chapel pass' or whatever, this was as good a place as any to look. Along the way he glanced to the side at a nearby plaque mounted on the wall. The words 'Blackwood' and 'Sanatorium' could be seen etched upon it, but little else was legible.

Upon entering the next room, Mike beheld a much smaller space. As admin areas go this was about what he'd come to expect; well, that was if this place was actually in well-kept order. A number of wooden shelves and desks could be seen against the walls, in further state of disrepair. Thankfully there weren't any large chunks of broken stone and debris littering the place, which was something different at least. Actually, if there was any chance of finding this 'chapel pass', then some place that had papers in it would be the best place to start, right?

Mike made his way further into the room, the sounds of distant skittering of what he hoped were rats filling the room. He took a sharp turn to the left and into a small cubicle of a room with windows on both of its walls. Inside his eyes quickly fell upon an object black in color that stood out against the drab color of the walls. A metal safe! And even better, the door of this thing wasn't completely closed, which meant it could be opened!

"Ah, yes!" Mike said as he dropped down to one knee to pick up a large piece of wood next to the safe, "Maybe I can get this thing open with this...!"

After setting the lantern down, he wedged the pointed end of the wood as best and deeply as he could into the crack of the door. Here's hoping this thing wouldn't break too soon. He pressed both hands against the wood and pushed, gently at first and slowly applying more pressure. The groaning sound of gears and hinges from the safe filled his ears, but the door itself remained stuck.

Mike gritted his teeth as he pushed harder. Under his hands he could feel the wood itself beginning to crack ever so slightly. This wasn't good; at this rate the wood was gonna snap in half before it would get this door open! He could hear the safe door itself creaking a little harder with the urge to break completely open. Just a little more pressure...

In a flash, both the safe door broke wide open and the wood in his hands snapped in half, causing him to jump a little. It worked though; the safe was open! Now he could see what was inside...

He took the lantern back in his hands and held its light up to the dark of the safe. Very quickly though a frown graced his face upon seeing what lay within. All that could be seen were a small number of ripped sheets of paper with completely illegible writing upon them. None of them looked small enough to be a chapel pass. Except for...

Mike's gaze and the lantern's light drifted up to the safe's upper shelves. There, tied up as a bundle by a piece of string, a small pack of cards lay. His free hand reached in to pull them forth. These had to be around the size as whatever a chapel card had to be, right?

Upon flipping them over however, Mike's hopes were dashed yet again. On the underside of these cards was a smaller card with the words '30 clock-in mine cards' written in ink, with the larger card underneath it in fact looking like what an old-school clock in card would look like.

"Ah shit... how about that..." Mike said with a groan. So much for this plan he guessed. He placed the cards back into the safe and rose to his feet again. He held the lantern up to light up the shelf directly above the safe, only to find each one similarly filled with decrepit and ripped papers. This room was a no-go; time to continue his search elsewhere.

He walked around the wall of the admin cubicle and further into the larger expanse of the room. Unlike the cubicle, this room wasn't showing any sort of signs anything could be of use. There wasn't even any paper littering the ground. Just some old-timey wood furniture and actual wooden crutches. Seriously, how old was this place? And was it like a hospital of some kind?

Mike walked through the doorless threshold at the far end of the room. As far as he could see the hallway directly in front of him was inaccessible due to another cave-in of debris. This left his only options being to go left, as indicated through a yellow painted ribbon on the wall with the word 'morgue', or through another open doorway directly to the right of the cave-in.

As Mike proceeded forward, intent to investigate the right-side room first, the sound of distant scratching against stone could be heard, along with the sounds of growling. This all was enough to send yet another shiver running down his spine. If it turned out to be more wolves that maniac had, he could really go for a weapon. Like a gun, a knife, anything to defend himself!

He ducked into the right-side room and was thankful to find no such creatures he'd heard were in here at all. It was a smaller room with a couple of wooden cabinets and desks barely holding their shape from age. The nearby barred windows provided views into the extremely darkened world outside. Thus, Mike could only count on the light from his lantern to see anything in this room.

He took slow, tentative steps forward, and finally coming to a stop before the waist-level table before him. No chapel pass could be seen, but instead lay a folded newspaper with the front page displayed before him.

"Huh," Mike said, lifting the lantern's light up to read better. The paper read that it was from the Alberta Post, from 1952, and detailed someone being assaulted here on this mountain and...

"This... this is a sanatorium...?" Mike said to himself as he looked around at his most immediate surroundings. Now that he thought about it, a lot of the architecture of what he saw that was still intact sort of resembled that of a hospital of sorts. The various cross symbols seen decorating some of these walls only seemed to confirm that too. There wasn't any sort of medicines seen laying around either, but that might've been due to them being picked clean years ago, or maybe even by this lone guy somewhere in this place himself, "Who'd wanna come to a place like this anyway...?"

Mike shook his head as he stepped away from the table. Aside from the newspaper itself, nothing resembled a chapel pass to be found atop it. Nothing that was legible or intact anyway. He then turned around and exited the room.

Remembering where he came from, Mike retraced his steps and made his way back around the hallway's corner where he had started from. The wall directly in front of him held the yellow painted arrow indicating the direction of this 'morgue'. The idea of going through a place like that was not at all pleasing to him, especially combined with how he would be taken down a long hallway towards what appeared to be steps leading even further below, but he was finding himself with very little options. Even as he passed yet another room on his right there was little to be seen in there other than more broken furniture and walls ruined with age and decay. This was one hallway that felt like it had even deeper shadows at its end, and all Mike had to guide him was this lit lantern in his hand.

"Alright... down I go..."

Little by little and with each downward step, a little bit of darkness was broken. The ever-present shiver Mike was starting to grow accustomed to this evening persisted as he walked. Seriously, there was only so much scary stuff that could happen to him in one night. A quick glance at the walls on both sides told him that the long yellow arrow stretched all the way down and around a curve in the stairs. Could these stairs take him back down to the basement where he had started out from?

Having reached the bottom of the stairs, Mike was somewhat relieved to find that was not the case. The hallway directly in front of him was blocked off by more debris, with a double door on the right side before it. The doors themselves were propped open by a table jutting out from them, but something else atop the table drew Mike's attention.

The doors themselves were broken open slightly for Mike to just barely glimpse what lay on the other side. He rounded the corner of the right-side door to look in when movement caught his eye. This was coupled with a loud squawking which caused him to flinch slightly. His nerves spiked slightly from the sudden loud activity, then calmed down just as quickly. He then grabbed the door and pulled it open to reveal what lay before him.

"Oh shit..." The table itself was splattered with blood. Upon raising the lantern up higher the light reflected red off of the liquid, contrasting from the brown wood, "Gross..." However, while that in itself was freaky and disgusting, blood was not the only thing upon the table.

There, embedded in the top and standing straight up was a rather menacing looking blade. A machete by the looks of it. The silver of the blade was also dipped red with blood that dripped onto the table. This thing was used recently by the looks of it. By the maniac maybe? Well, whatever the case, Mike could think of a much better use for it!

Thankfully the handle itself wasn't coated in any blood as he took hold of it. With a couple of grunts and a few literal twists of the blade, the machete was freed from the table. For a brief moment Mike almost caught sight of his own reflection in the flat of the blade, even with the red of blood that covered over it. He quickly wiped both sides of the blade off on his pants leg to clear it of blood, before setting to hang in one of his beltloops.

The hallway he stood in now was in no better condition than any of the rest of the building. This one held broken chairs, gurneys, and other forms of furniture in broken down, decrepit states of disrepair littering the general space. The walls held the familiar ribbon of yellow painted horizontally. All the while the distant sound of skittering of what he hoped were rats echoed throughout the enclosed spaces.

A quick glance to the right showed him that the room was nothing but a dead end, so Mike turned the opposite direction and proceeded to the left. On nearly all sides of him against the walls stood various beds. Or rather, what were supposed to be beds, given that most of them were completely falling apart and were barely recognizable as to what they were meant to be. As Mike moved closer into the room, the wall before him held three windows with moonlight pouring into the room, which he found himself walking directly into. Some light was better than no light he supposed, but it didn't help this place feel any less creepy to him.

Looking down suddenly, he quickly prevented his foot from getting caught in a nearby discarded wire. And here he thought the mine he and Jess had stumbled into earlier was not up to code...

Rounding the corner of this room Mike found two more doorways laid out before him. The one on the right looked like it held a smaller room with no other doors within, while the left side seemed to transition its walls from drywood to tile. With his light held up before him Mike first proceeded through the door on the right and into the smaller room.

He was greeted yet again with shelves and furniture on complete states of destruction and disrepair. However what things he could see that were relatively intact were old diagrams of human bodies hanging on the walls. Maybe this was some kind of nurse's office or something? Mike unconsciously found his mind drifting to many years ago when he himself found him in a similar office at school with skinned knees. Of course, that one was in much better state than this one was.

Another table was seen at the end of the room, also with a piece of paper upon it. However, Mike found himself curiously drawn to what was written upon it just like the newspaper from earlier. For one thing, this held writing upon it that was definitely written with someone's hand rather than typed professionally.

"'Reply Immediately'," he read aloud softly, "'Reporters and other snoopers to be kept away at all costs'...?"

Upon flipping the small paper over, the text immediately turned more professionally. The word 'TELEGRAM' was spelled out in bold upon the top of the paper slip, with a couple of text sentences spelled out bellow.

"'12 survivors... received at Sanatorium'... 'Local press now have scent of blood'... 'Becoming a problem'..." While the words upon this telegram weren't meaning that much to Mike at the moment, it was the number twelve that drew his attention upon it. For some reason, he couldn't help but recall the small bundle of cards he'd remembered finding in the safe earlier. Even in his hand he could tell that were definitely more than twelve of them there; maybe about twenty-five or even thirty.

A curious part of his mind found himself wondering: these 'twelve survivors' listed on this telegram here... could these be what those clock-in cards were in relation to? If so, then what happened to the other... however many or so miners that that card bundle suggested they were? And from what this telegram was suggesting, people like press and newspapers had caught wind of this whole thing?

"Well gee, who wouldn't want press snooping around this paradise...?" Mike said with a shake of his head as he placed the paper back down. As he turned and walked back out of the room, he felt his frustration at something else that wasn't making sense. Where exactly did this maniac fit in to all this? He was hiding out in this rundown place where a bunch of shady shit was going down, or did go down, but could he be related to it himself? While he was uncertain about all that, the fact that he was able to do what he did to Jessica earlier meant he could be capable of a lot worse.

In that moment Mike felt mild reassurance from his hand brushing the machete handle.

He exited the room and turned to the right completely and through the next door. The tiled hallway he now walked within stretched out to the right yet again, its darkness briefly broken by pockets of light from nearby rooms on the right. The left side was barricaded yet again with fallen debris and broken furniture, as well as-

"Gah-!" Mike caught himself from exclaiming too loudly. The lantern's light illuminated the humanoid figure that stood straight up to the side, only for him to realize quickly that it was in fact a model skeleton! Crazy thing to think about, but of all the things that could've been broken down and laying on the ground in this place, why couldn't this thing have been one of them?!

He swiftly turned to the right and slowly made his way through the dark of the hallway, leaving the skeleton behind him. Directly before him lay yet another industrial flashlight on the right and pointed straight up at the opposing wall. Was this maniac putting all this stuff as it was on purpose at this point?

Mike rounded another right into a door-less room next to him to behold what lay inside. The illumination of the lantern revealed yet again nothing of note that he could make use of. At this point he was beginning to feel less disappointment from this and more just weird expectancy. After all, what were the chances one could stumble upon something actually useful in a rundown place like-

Mike quickly saw movement on the nearby windowsill leading to an adjacent room. Combined with the familiar skittering he'd heard before, he calmed down upon seeing it was simply a rat, scurrying from one end to the other. With the rat having disappeared from view however, Mike's gaze was left to linger upon something in its place.

He slowly made his way to the window and peered into it. He lifted the lantern up higher to dispel the darkness. What he saw was a piece of furniture, a chair?

"Holy shit..." he breathed. The lantern's light reflected off of a few puddles on the base of the chair, at the same time revealing them to be red in color! Was that blood? Blood on this chair? "Ugh... The hell happened here?"

Mike then quickly noted the straps. Leather straps on the armrests, at the chair's base, and even at the headrest of the chair had creepy, blood-covered straps built into the chair itself. His head snapped up and looked all around himself, having been reminded of the maniac himself. He was definitely here and with what he'd done to Jessica earlier; there was no doubting that he probably did similar stuff to other people. Maybe even had them tied here to this chair and... tortured them?

"Twisted fucker liked to watch I guess..." he noted as he looked all around at the windowsill he currently viewed through. This was absolutely insane by this point, not that it wasn't already. And that blood on the chair had to have been fairly recent by the looks of it. This guy had to have been up to something sick. All the more reason for Mike to kill this guy, maybe even with the machete he found!

He stepped away from the window and made his way back out of the room. As he did so however, Mike became aware of a sound. A completely new and different sound. Something rather mechanical and... rhythmic?

Turning to the right again Mike gazed into the room before him. The entire floor of the room was tiles, which even spread up to about half of the surrounding walls. This had to be the morgue, if the rather aged yet still foul smell of something didn't give it away. And it was also within this room that Mike saw movement. Movement that matched with the rhythmic sound he'd been hearing.

A hand, waving at him.

Mike's brow furrowed and his head tilted in confusion as he took in the rather strange sight before him. Sure enough, an actual human hand was propped up on some sort of medical equipment in the center of the room. With each mechanical crank, the hand would swing in one direction, before swaying back in the opposing direction. Back and forth, back and forth. The effect was almost hypnotizing, as Mike found himself drawn to the strangely placed appendage. It was only until the body part was directly before him that his eyes widened. Closer observation told him that this arm was completely blooded and riddled with sores and blisters!

"Whoa whoa whoa... whoa!" Mike said as he set the lantern down on the ground, "Is this what he was 'feeding' them?!"

His thoughts returned back to when he'd caught sight of the man tossing something to the pair of wolves. It was true wasn't it; feeding the wolves using... body parts?! And all from this morgue no less? Given what he'd also seen of that chair earlier, it definitely wouldn't be put past this guy to do something fucked up like that.

As the arm swayed to the left yet again, Mike noted something else about the arm. A single tag hung from a piece of string tied around this arm's wrist. The tag held that of a human body with a section of it circled.

Curiously he reached over to take the tag in between his fingers. He tugged ever so slightly on the-

CLANG!

Mike's world immediately filled with the sound of something snapping shut, almost deafeningly so, followed by intense stinging pain in his hand!

"AAAHHHH!" he cried out. Pain shot up his hand almost instantaneously, and he found himself flailing his body in response. That is, what all of his body he could move. After forcing his body to stop moving and assess the situation, Mike found out what exactly had happened. The blooded arm was gone, and in its place was... a bear-trap?! His fingers were caught in a freaking bear-trap?!

"RRRGGGHHH-!" he grunted as he gripped his trapped wrist with his free hand to pull it free. The combined efforts of both his free hand and his trapped hand pulling were not enough, however. All he was met with was his fingers practically screaming in further pain from the metal teeth that were clamped tightly around them. After a few seconds of attempted dislodging, Mike completely gave up the endeavor.

"Ow- fucking FUCK!" he cursed out loud. At this point he didn't even try to keep his voice down anymore. His trapped fingers took priority at the moment! How was he going to get them loose?! They were lodged in there tight, and no amount of pulling would...

Mike's eyes suddenly snapped wide open with realization. He quickly glanced back down at his side to remember the machete! He reached down with his free hand to pull it up and out. His eyes remained fixed on the blade, specifically its rather sharp edge. In that moment his heart began to beat ever faster and sweat started to pour off his forehead.

His eyes drifted back to his fingers. It was then he noticed nearly all of his left hand was decorated with blood splatters. The trapped pinky and ring finger remained held in place by the metal of the trap, rather painfully so still. There was just barely enough space in between the trap and his whole hand...

It would be so easy to simply...

'No no NO!' he thought to himself amidst his outward groaning. There was no way he would do 'that'! He-he just couldn't! He needed his fingers, ALL of them! But what else could he do...?

In between frantic glances at his fingers, and in between the harsh, dull pain that shot up them, Mike looked at the trap's teeth. He noted that because his fingers were caught in between them, there was a very small amount of spacing created by them. He glanced back up at the machete blade, twisting the object with his wrist to show the flat of the blade. The flat of the blade...

'Could... could that work...?' he thought to himself. Another spike of pain through his fingers broke him from mentally arguing with himself any further, 'Fuck it- I gotta try!'

Slowly and carefully, Mike raised the machete's blade up and over the trap with the point facing down. Much to his initial relief, the blade's tip fitted itself completely through the teeth of the trap by a few centimeters. It was working! He could use the blade itself to wedge the trap open! Very steadily the insane pressure of the trap's teeth was loosening on his fingers, making them hurt slightly less.

This was good, just a little more angling of the-

Another shrill clanging sound filled the air, followed quickly by the trap's teeth closing back down hard on his fingers.

"OOOWWWW! AAARRGH-!" Mike screamed with eyes clenched shut. Dull, stinging pain shot up through his fingers and practically all throughout his body. This proceeded for a mere few seconds for him, yet in his mind felt like it was lasting for hours. Eventually he focused himself on opening his eyes again to figure out just what had happened.

Raising the blade back up to him, his face scrunched in visible frustration to find the machete was a few inches shorter than before! No way, a piece of it had actually snapped off when trying to pry his fingers loose?! This was no good, maybe...

Maybe it would really be better to just... lose a couple of fingers...?

He shook his head on instinct, rationale kicking in. He had to try again, there's no way he could live with the alternative!

He again raised the machete's tip up and over the small space in between the bear trap's teeth. Unlike before, he could feel a little more strength in leeway through the entire base of the blade as he worked it in. The trap itself groaned again as Mike pressed down harder, and pressure slightly loosened off of his fingers. This had to work, there was no way it could actually fail a second-

The shrill clang filled the air, followed by the sharp teeth clamping down on his fingers yet again!

"OWWW-! GODDAMMIT!" Mike cried out, this time in equal parts pain as well as frustration. That was twice now! Twice the blade had ended up breaking from trying to pry his fingers loose from this fucking trap! Raising the blade back up level with his face, Mike's eyes practically bugged out of their skull to find just how much of the blade was there, and how much of it was gone! The metal blade remaining was hardly even bigger than the handle itself by now!

Seriously, where was this really getting him? Was this whole thing a way of telling him something? The way this was going, was he supposed to cut his fingers off? Was he 'meant' to sacrifice a small piece of himself so that he could go on? As if on instinct, he angled the blade handle so that it was aimed directly alongside the fingers for a perfect cut. Again, it would still be so easy to-

Mike's eyes suddenly snapped open upon realization. Was he himself going insane?! There was so little of the blade even remaining at this point; there was no way he'd be able to sever his fingers with it even if he wanted to!

His eyes darted back and forth between the shortened blade and the bear trap. There was so little of the blade; could he even afford to try and pry open the trap again? What if it broke again, leaving him with no more of the metal to slip in between and free his fingers? Would he stuck here, unable to move, go anywhere, or even do anything?!

He gave a small testing tug on his left hand, only to find that his fingers were held as tightly as ever. A small drip of dark red liquid from his ring finger only made his heartbeat even faster; the metal of the trap was cutting into his fingers by now!

That's it, now or never!

For the third time he held what was left of the blade over the top of the trap and slipped it in between the trap's teeth. He pulled back firmly but gently. This time as he worked the blade, he focused his efforts on trying to slip his fingers out as well. To his shock and hopeful amazement, not only could he feel the trap's teeth loosening ever so slightly, but his trapped fingers twisted in place as well! Just a little more pressure on the blade and twisting of the fingers...

Once more, the shrill clang rang out throughout the room, most likely for the last time. However, this time, Mike felt his left arm practically swing up and out around him! The pressure and the stinging pain in his fingers were gone; he was free!

"Oh God!" Mike slightly exclaimed. His fingers were practically throbbing by this point, with residually sharp pain pulsing with each throb. Sure, they were hurting like hell, but he still had them! He stumbled around for a few seconds, shaking his hand wildly to work out the pain.

"Thank you, God! Thank you, thank you thank you!"

Having finally stopped moving around Mike held his stance to reassess what had happened. Holding his fingers up carefully in front of him, he could see the hard line where the trap's teeth had cut into his fingers. The ring finger in particular held a small amount of blood dripping from it, but that was about the worst of the damage. The pinky on the other hand didn't seem to be bleeding at all.

Or rather... on the same hand?

Mike groaned inwardly at his bad attempt at a joke.

"Fucking hell! Jeez...!" he said as he threw away the now blade-less machete handle. He then reached down to pick the lantern back up again. Before he had held the lantern in his left hand, but as it was still filled with stinging pain, perhaps it was better to let it rest for a moment. Thus he picked up the lantern with his right hand for the moment while he held his left hand up and close to his chest. Now was feeling like a really time to get the hell out of this place!

Fortunately his way forward was presented as a set of double-doors open and leading to a joining room. As he walked towards the doors, Mike's gaze drifted one last time to the surrounding rundown tile walls. Even without the lantern's light to illuminate them, he could see the dark streaks of blood in some spots, ruining their pristine white image. This was certainly enough blood that he was willing to stomach for now; time to get out of this room!

Unfortunately, the next room he stepped into didn't appear any more promising. Immediately upon his right he was greeted with four metal shelves of strange glass jars. Each one of them filled with strange body parts- No, rather with heads! Strange... human heads?

Pausing for a moment Mike found his gaze drifting along to each one of these glasses, his lantern following along with his eyes. The heads themselves seemed to be suspended in place with liquid inside them, the eyes remaining wide opened. Some of these heads even had their entire jaws missing, which only showcased how their teeth were strangely sharpened and jagged looking!

"Jeez... this place just gets better and better..." Mike remarked with a shake of his head. He walked away from the shelves and towards the door, only to be stopped upon discovering something.

"What the-" he said, noting some strange panel next to the doorframe, beside the handle itself. The familiar red words 'LOCKED' were plastered there on the panel, practically screaming itself at him.

"Are you serious?! I can't get out til I find that fucking keycard?!" he cried out, struggling to maintain the volume of his voice. This was just perfect!

In his anger and frustrated state of mind, Mike couldn't resist giving the wall itself a firm kick with his foot. He quickly regretted this rash action with the sharp pain that shot up his foot through his boot as a result.

"Ow-! Mother... Hubbard...!"

With a shake of his foot as well as his head he calmed himself. The pain in his foot and even his fingers still lingered, but for the most part he was in a calmer state of mind. However there was still the issue that he was trapped in this room, this morgue, with no way to proceed forward...

Slowly Mike turned around to look into the rest of the room. What he could see were various doors, tightly grouped together, built into the walls themselves. If this was a morgue, then this would be where bodies would be kept, wouldn't they? Most of them were wide open with nothing inside of them, while a couple of them were sealed shut.

"Ugh, seriously...?" he groaned. The idea of snooping around dead bodies really didn't bode well with him, but there was little other option at the moment. If there was even the smallest chance this stupid keycard would be here, then he'd have to look inside these morgue doors. Hopefully not all of them...

The first closed door was closest to Mike, along the side wall. As he approached it he noted the cavity directly above it was opened already with absolutely nothing to be seen within. Not even with the light of his lantern did he see anything of note besides strange ashy substance.

He swapped his lantern to his lantern, wincing slightly as a small amount of stinging pain shot up from his fingers. His now free right hand took hold of the small door beneath and pulled it open. Almost immediately he was assaulted by a cloud of dust and ash that poured out from the door, causing him to cough instinctively. He waved his hand in front of him to clear away the cloud then looked down at what lay within.

Despite his eyes squinting slightly from the ash cloud, Mike something within. A table with a handle attached to it, and a small paper card resting atop it. Was that it? Was that the keycard he was looking for? He reached down and picked it up to inspect closer.

"Urgh, nope..." he silently said. The card itself was similar to that tag he'd found on that dismembered arm he'd found earlier, with a small piece of circular string looping through a hole at the top. It featured a depiction of a human body with a the neck area strangely circled. Flipping over to show the other side only revealed that this was some kind of toe-tag, this one belonging to someone named 'Nicholas Bowen'. Regardless, this was not the card he was looking for. Tossing it back down he pulled himself to his feet again and turned around.

The rest of the doors along this wall were completely opened, with none of them bearing anything of note inside them either. Turning his attention to the adjacent wall, Mike noted a couple of the doors there on the lower end were closed. What if there was nothing there either? What would he do?

He shook his head as he made his way across the room. There had to be something there! There was no way he'd be trapped in here! And if that maniac himself was able to get through those doors, then so could he!

He came to a stop at the closest body door on the lower level. He took hold of the door's handle, pulled it open, and was once again assaulted by a cloud of ash bursting out into his face. He coughed a little harder in response to this cloud, but after shaking the dust away looked down to see what he had found. At first his eyes narrowed, then widened a little upon seeing that there was in fact something that lay within! He took hold of the table's handle in his free hand and firmly pulled upon it. He exerted a bit of strength in moving it due to the table itself feeling rather heavy, but the entire thing slid out relatively simply and easily. By now the dust had cleared completely, leaving a clear view of what exactly Mike had found.

And immediately what he wish he hadn't.

Both Mike's eyes and even his nose were assaulted by something truly foul. An actual body laying upon the rolling table slowly rode out from the hole and out before him. The smell of dry, yet still rancid flesh caused him to wrinkle his nose in disgust.

"Ugh! Fuckin' sick!" he nearly exclaimed. He took his hand from the table's handle to clamp it over his nose and mouth, an attempt to block out the foul odor.

The head of this once person still somehow had hair, if single strands of it could still be called that. The flesh itself was cracked and sore-riddled. held wide open eyes, mostly due to the absence of any eyelids. And it's mouth! The only reason it wasn't closed all the way was due to missing teeth on its jaw, both top and bottom!

The sunken-in, wide-eyed body seemed to stare straight up and Mike himself, which only made the boy recoil in even further disgust.

"That's fuckin' sick-"

The body's head suddenly tilted to the side, causing Mike to nearly jump in place. For a moment he saw the body as somehow moving of its own accord, like a zombie! Before anything else however, he viewed what was really happening. The reason the head tilted in the first place was because something was emerging from its mouth! A large, brown furry rat crawled itself out, squeaking and squealing as it pulled itself free. The head then slumped to the side, with no further movements following at all.

Mike could only be left to stare in astonishment at what all he just witnessed. This was a morgue and all, so it was very likely that he was to find at least a single dead body here, but still. Hadn't he seen enough of those today? Another look at this body's flesh and he was further reminded of the arm he'd seen earlier. In fact, could that arm he'd found earlier have come from this very corpse of all places?

As he looked down in curiosity, his eyes came to a stop upon something that stood out against the decrepit corpse. Something thin, paper-like, with green printing written upon it. Mike let in a short gasp of excitement upon realizing what it was he was seeing. Could it really be?

He carefully slipped his fingers up and close to the paper, taking strange care in not even touching the body itself nor even the clothes that adorned it. Desecrating a corpse was one thing, but this wasn't really doing anything like that was it? All he wanted to do was just take this card, slip it out of of the breast-pocket on the front.

The card easily slipped out of the pocket. Mike brought it up away from the body and further into the light of his lantern to inspect it closer. A green arrow was painted on both ends of the paper, holes punched into it as well. Underneath his thumb the word 'CHAPEL' lay printed against the green. The chapel pass felt weathered underneath his fingers, but there was definitely no denying it anymore; he'd gotten what was looking for finally!

"Okay, let's check this out..."

Mike stepped up and away from the corpse, all too hastily to put distance between it and himself. He noted the stinging in his fingers was starting to fade a little bit by now. The pain wasn't completely gone, but it was definitely less than it was before. After all he had been through just now, this simple little card better do the trick and get him where he needed to be!

He made his way back over to the locked door, the keycard in hand. The small box on the side of the door held a small framing of the word 'LOCKED' in red, with a small slot open directly above it on top. Mike held the card up and with the card's arrow facing downward slipped the bottom of the card into the slot. Almost instantly the framed word 'LOCKED' switched to the framing of the word 'UNLOCKED' in green, with the sound of unlocking accompanying his action.

A small smile grew on Mike's face from his initial success. As he then took hold of the door's knob, his smile only grew as he easily twisted it to open the door completely before him! Finally, something was going right for him for once!

As he prepared to step through the door, he snapped his head back out towards the keycard. It still lay within the slot, so it's not like this locking mechanism 'ate' it or destroyed it after use. Plus he recalled that the dual doors in the grand hall required a card as well, so he reached up to remove the card and slipped it into his pocket.

The room he then stepped into was revealed to only be yet another joining juncture room. Even with the lantern's light dispelling most of the darkness, Mike could see that the only way to proceed was through a doorway with a broken door on the right side. He gently made his way across this room towards the door, taking care to remain silent again. The next room he was prepared to enter into held a set of winding stairs. This worked out for Mike as far as he could see; he had the keycard in his possession, now here's hoping these stairs would take him back up to the entry hall.

He took the gentlest of steps up each one of the stairs on the staircase. Aside from the small creaking of the lantern, he was almost certain his own footsteps were not betraying any echoes themselves. While he commended himself on remaining quieter, the antsy feeling only grew within him still. How had he not run into the maniac by now? Or even one of those wolves that were with him? And if one of them did happen to find him, what would he do? Fight them off?

A machete would've really come in handy right now.

As Mike rounded the first turn of the stairwell he took a calming breath. It had to be fine; he just had to remain fine. It was a good thing so far that he hadn't run into any of them just yet, before he wanted to anyway. And as long as he remained quiet and didn't draw attention to himself-

Mike nearly jumped out of his skin as something burst out from behind him. He shot his head around to catch sight of one of the wolves! The one with blackened fur had poked its head through the cobbling of wood that poorly blocked off the doorway on the side, and was barking and growling at him.

"Oh f-!" he exclaimed.

On instinct he quickly dashed up the stairs, intent to put distance between himself and the wolf. As he rounded the next corner of the stairs a quick glance out of the corner of his eye showed him the wolf was definitely in pursuit of him. It was also running at the same speed as him, barking and growling the entire time. He could do this, he could outrun this creature!

Mike finally reached the end of the stairway's climb, with a long hallway stretched out before him. Also as before, a number of doorways on both sides of the hallway were blocked off by fallen debris, preventing them from access.

He spun his head around in a glance behind him. To his shock the wolf had already rounded the last corner of the stairway as well, intent of reaching him without stop! Mike could see the fearsome look in its eyes as it was staring at him the entire time it growled. He nearly stumbled himself as he maintained his running speed back down the hall. Where was he going to go now?! Down the hall? It didn't matter; anywhere that wasn't right here!

Thankfully the hall didn't stretch to far, as the only way to proceed was a sharp left. Mike's left hand held a vice-like grip on the lantern's handle as he ran. By now he was only vaguely aware of the slight stinging feeling in his fingers as he did so. At this point that was a good thing as getting ripped apart and eaten by wolves would be so much worse! The ever-present growling, barking, and even claws scratching against the ground seemed to echo all around him within these confined hallways. It almost felt like there was more than one wolf after him...!

Another quick dash down the hallway to the right, Mike saw something that almost served as a bastion of hope to him. A small sign on the wall with the familiar green word 'CHAPEL' plastered upon it. That had to be the way! One more dash to the left through an open door, and he could try and lose the wolf there!

"Okay okay okay okay okay..." he said in between frantic breaths of air. It couldn't be much further now! As he spun himself to make a sharp left his eyes snapped over his left shoulder again. There it was! The wolf was hot on his heels, about halfway through the hallway behind him! Each barking growl gave Mike a quick glimpse at the creature's teeth as well!

With a burst of adrenaline Mike rushed around the corner and forward. What lay before him about ten feet away was a doorway, but unlike the other ones he'd passed actually had a door in relatively good condition on its hinges! That was perfect; if he could just get through that door he could close it shut and cut off the wolf from getting to him! But, what if there was something on the other side- Mike mentally shook the doubt from his head. There wasn't time to worry about that right now!

With one more mad dash forward Mike cleared the hallway itself and into the joining room. He hastily turned back around and grabbed the door in both hands. One more glance inside showed him the black wolf was literally right there, a few feet within the hall! Heart pounding in his chest, it was now or never! With all his strength he pulled and slammed the door shut.

The sound of the door slamming seemed to echo ever louder all throughout the space. The excitement had calmed for the moment, but Mike still felt the burst of adrenaline and blood pumping through his veins. His breathing still felt heavy and frantic as he tried to slow it down. The now muffled growling persisted on the other side of the rather thick and heavy door. It was all good now, it had to be; no way was any wolf gonna get through there! The growling and barking continued for a few seconds before gradually ceasing completely.

After many haggard breaths of his own, Mike had nearly calmed himself down. That was another deadly trap in this little 'fun house' he had avoided today! Maybe now he could get a better sense of where-

A distant sound of something clanging rang out. Mike's head snapped around, trying to discern where that sound had come from. His attention was quickly drawn towards the wall on his right side, where a giant cross-shaped window lay built into it. One problem leading to another; now what was going on...?!

He took soft and tentative steps towards the window, angling himself around the wreckage of debris that was piled up in front of it. With the lantern light held close to him, Mike peered through the window to behold what lay beyond.

Almost instantly his eyes caught movement. It was the guy- the maniac! He stood within a large room and was proceeding towards a door in the back corner on the right. A sign was posted next to the door that was completely unreadable to him from this distance. Whatever it was, the door itself was a metal-wired door that the man was opening and letting himself slip through before pulling closed behind him. Yet again, this guy was always one step ahead! How was he able to move this fast?!

From what all else he could see, at the very center of the room lay a small, raised section of stone with steps leading up to it. What looked to be a stone altar lay at the center of it and against the wall itself. Aside from that semblance of structure, everywhere he turned his head he could see broken stonework littering the ground and having been broken off the wall. Virtually nothing was intact, except for... a couple of chairs and a table, in the center of the whole room?

"Tch..." Mike let out a scoff as he stepped away from the window, "Isn't this a 'quaint' little psycho crib..." For some reason the thought that this guy would just casually hang around somewhere in relative comfort, and after what he'd done to both him and Jessica... Mike's left hand squeezed the handle of the lantern ever tighter for a second before easing his grip. First thing was first; he had to get down from here and into that room.

Turning directly around the path laid out before him was a left turn onto a stone upper walkway. As he walked Mike noted the room that this walkway overlooked with familiarity. It was the grand-looking entryhall he had first seen upon entering this building! Finally, a real sense of direction in this dump of a building!

As he made his way down the set of steps on the left side, he came to a sudden stop. Directly in front of him the stairway had broken away completely! There were no more steps for him to walk down, with only a massive drop between him and the ground now! Seriously? Now a drop was going to keep him from proceeding?

He let his lantern hand drift all around, an attempt to spot something, anything he could use. Off to the side even the handlebar guardrail that would've been secured into the wall on the left side had broken loose. There went that plan of using that to climb down; this just kept getting better and better.

'Well, I guess I could...' Mike thought to himself as he looked down. It was a really steep drop sure, but at the same time he held some confidence that he could land a drop like this. Slowly he brought himself down to let his legs hang over the edge of the broken rock. With one more moment's hesitation, he pushed off of the edge and straight down.

His feet hit the ground hard, and Mike grunted just as hard. That was a hard landing, but he stuck it!

"Ah right... back in here now..." he said to himself. Turning his head to the right the familiar doorway with the green-framed 'CHAPEL' lay before him. Finally, something was going right for him. A quick scan around the room told him the once again he was by himself in this place. Hopefully there wouldn't be any more wolves to jump out and get him anytime soon.

Approaching the door Mike pulled forth the chapel keycard and slipped it into the unlock slot. Just like with down in the morgue, the satisfactory sound of unlocking filled both his ears and the small space. He then took hold of the left side door and pushed both it and himself forward...

Mike's world once again exploded in sound and flared nerves!

"Whoa-!" he cried out briefly as the form of a wolf jumped up towards him, causing him to jump back. His heart had nearly burst out of his chest at this sudden action once more. Upon realizing that the creature wasn't exactly pinning him down and mauling him to death however, Mike took a tentative moment to actually identify what creature this was.

It was another wolf definitely, but this one's fur was stark white, in contrast to the previous wolf's black fur. It was down on all fours by now but growling heavily at Mike with a couple of accompanying barks aimed at him. The entire time Mike held his hands up defensively before him and the wolf while taking a couple steps away. The wolf itself eyed him in the midst of its growling, but strangely remained in place without moving.

"Okay, okay...!" Mike said in between breaths. At some point he noted the door swinging shut again out of the corner of his eye. Not even its movements stirred the wolf from its focused gazing upon he himself. For the most part Mike kept his eyes trained solely on the creature directly in front of him, almost uncertain if even moving his own body was safe. His heart was practically running at a mile a minute at this point, with sweat starting to pour off of his forehead. Why wasn't this wolf attacking him?

In fact, after realizing a handful of minutes had passed since being scared by this wolf, Mike came to realize that nothing really was happening. The wolf was just staring at him, occasionally letting out a growl, but for the most part was just studying him. Even a glance out of the opposite corner of his eye showed that there wasn't anyone else around either. The only things in this next room were both himself, and this wolf, which Mike noted was strangely tilting its head at him. In that moment, he couldn't help but reminded of his first dog, and the way it tilted its head at him back then. If the wolf wasn't doing anything, and was tilting its head as it was... No, there was no way.

Could he actually approach it?

Mike started ever so slowly by placing one foot in front of the other towards the wolf. His free hand held out and in the open for the creature to see. The wolf's head was craned up both at Mike's head as well as his hand the entire time. He took another step, and the wolf suddenly tensed itself in response, which caused Mike himself to flinch a little.

"Hey hey... easy..." he spoke gently. He held his stance for a moment to let the wolf calm itself too. The creature very slowly relaxed its own tense stance while still eyeing the human approaching it. By now it was no longer growling at him but was actually letting out smaller sounds. Mike couldn't quite tell if those were whimpers it was making, but as long as it wasn't growling or barking at him it was all good.

A couple more steps taken and the space between them grew shorter and shorter. Mike kept his hand held up towards the wolf while the wolf casually sniffed the air in between them. This could actually work! Just one more step, and he'd be directly in front of it!

"That's it...!" Mike said after taking one last step. The wolf was not recoiling, flinching, or making aggressive sounds at him in the slightest by this point. In spite of himself Mike couldn't help but smile a little. Both from this sheer accomplishment of 'wolf-friend-making', but also from reminiscing this similar feeling from his first dog. Jake was his best friend back then, and while this wolf definitely was no Jake, there was no reason the two of them couldn't also be friends, right?

Very slowly, Mike dropped down to one knee making himself level with the wolf's height. His hand was now held directly over its head where the wolf was able to sniff it directly. Aside from the guttural sounds that could be heard from the wolf's throat, it didn't seem to show any signs of hostilities towards him. In fact, the way it was looking at his hand directly now, it was almost as if it was welcoming it?

Before either of them knew it, Mike's hand was placed completely atop the wolf's head. Through his hand Mike could practically feel the sounds it made through its throat. It wasn't a growling noise, but more like one of appreciation. It was one that Mike recognized all too well; Buster always liked it when he pat his head like this too!

"Hey guy...! You like that?" Mike asked. Feeling a little more emboldened, Mike began to rub the top of the wolf's head a little more. As the wolf's eyes were closed this whole time, it tried to angle its snout up to lick at Mike's hand as well.

"Heh, everyone wants a little lovin', right?" he said with a smile as he scratched the back of the wolf's ears, "Yeah, I bet you do too...!" Mike was only faintly aware that his heart was still racing this entire time but could at least tell by this point that this wolf definitely wouldn't be wanting to snack on him anytime soon! After all, this was a good wolf, wasn't he?

After a few more seconds of head-patting, Mike finally withdrew his hand slowly. The wolf gave a small whine at the brief lack of attention it had gotten. As Mike rose to his feet once more, the wolf in turn then folded its legs underneath and laid itself prone on the ground. It made no further sounds directed at him, even turning its head to look elsewhere into the room. Looking back down at the prone creature Mike couldn't help but feel a sense of pride within himself. Sure, he'd lost his girlfriend, chased after her, been chased himself, and nearly lost his fingers to a madman's crazy death trap, but if there was at least one good thing that could come out of all of this, it would be making a friend out of this wolf here.

Now if only he could think of a good name for him...

"Eh, I'll think about that later..." he dismissed to himself as he turned his attention back to the room itself.

The view he was afforded this time was similar to what he saw earlier in the upper alcove. The very center of the back end of this room held an empty altar with a small set of steps leading up to it, with a couple of chairs and a small table positioned in front of it all. What he couldn't see from before however were the sets of metal wire doors at various locations on the surrounding walls. There were three doors on the left and right-side walls, and a single door on either side of the altar's wall at the back end.

Mike's attention was drawn to one of the doors on the right side. There was a small industrial light set up and beaming its light towards it, the metal wires themselves silhouetted against the wall of the room within. As Mike walked closer to it, he noted something else lay upon this metal wire wall: a large green shirt, or jacket, just hanging on the exterior.

"So... what have we here...?" he said as he came to a stop directly in front of it. Upon confirming this article of clothing, the boy suddenly became aware of his state of dress, or rather his state of 'undress'. This entire time he'd been walking around in little more than a wife-beater undershirt and jeans. Guess it wouldn't really hurt to have more clothes on, especially in this cold weather. And plus, it's not like this maniac would be needing it anytime soon!

He set his lantern down on the ground to afford himself free hands. He then took the jacket loose off of the wire wall and slipped it on. The material of this jacket was rough and course, and it had a strange smell to it, but Mike couldn't find it in himself to care about that. The difference in warmth was almost immediate: that slight chill in the air he'd been feeling this entire time was greatly reduced as a result of this jacket.

Turning his attention back up to the room itself, Mike's eyes narrowed as they were drawn to something. Inside the room on a table's shelf close to him, he could see a gun! It was laying at the far end of the shelf, brightly illuminated by the small light that was glowing above it. Even better! If he couldn't have a machete, he could definitely take a gun! Plus, with the hole that was ripped into this wire in front of him, maybe he could actually reach it from here...

Mike poked his arm through the hole, then grunted as he stretched it out as far as he could.

"Rrrrgh...! Come on..." he groaned as his arm muscles stretched. Unfortunately, the gun was just too far out of his reach to be able to grab it from here. After stretching without success for a few seconds he finally abandoned his effort in frustration.

"Dammit...!" he cursed to himself, "How can I..."

It was then that he instead looked at the shelf the gun itself was resting on. Or rather, what this shelf actually was. It was actually little more than a 2x4 flat piece of wood resting upon two thin pieces of cinderblock! The two didn't appear to be secured to each other with any like nails or anything. There was a chance; maybe he could grab hold of this cinderblock closest to him...

Gently his fingers grabbed the outer edge of the cinderblock and carefully lifted out. Unfortunately, wooden shelf itself began to shift and move along with his own movements. That wouldn't do- his movements had to be much quicker for this to work.

His teeth grit a little as yanked as hard yet controlled as he could. He felt his heart leap a little in his chest at seeing what his creative thinking had earned him: the wooden shelf drooped sharply in response to the cinderblock being removed. This in turn caused the gun itself to slide downward across the wood while at the same time knocking away the stray pieces of cans and paper that were in front of it. In no time at all, the gun had slid all the way across and came to a stop directly in front of Mike's awaiting hand.

"Nice!" he congratulated himself. He took the gun in his hand. This made the second time in one night he got to hold a gun in his hand. And just like before a sense of confidence surged through his person. Here's hoping he could get better use out of a gun this time around. He then holstered the gun in his right-side pocket before turning to the side and making his way to the room beside it.

Unlike the previous room, the metal wire door was wide open and allowed access to all that lay within. A desk stood against the wall with a lit desk light. The small, humble light was still enough to illuminate the small confines of the room, as well as the wall behind it and what was posted upon it.

A large thumbtack board with many various pieces of paper stood up before Mike to view. Some of them were newspaper clippings, others were simple photographs of forests, while the largest piece of paper was that of a map. Certain locations were marked and circled on this map with small notes added to them. While none of these began to make sense to Mike, he began to feel a small feeling of familiar unease creep up within him the more he studied.

"Fuckin' freak..." he said. So, in addition to this man being a killer maniac, he was also a killer stalker? Maybe even one of those conspiracy theorists that leave those paper clippings on the wall like a crazy person? Just who Mike wanted to know was running around. Well still, this would be put to rest once he put a bullet in this guy's head anyway, so it really didn't matter.

One last glimpse in this room showed him that there was nothing else of note within, so Mike turned around and exited the room. Directly in front of him was the small resting area setup of chairs, a small table, and even a television set; a sharp contrast from the rather ancient looking stone and architecture of the surrounding building itself. There were even small, opened food cans and empty beer bottles littering the area, as well as... a cigar box?

"Ah..." Mike said to himself as viewed the open box up close. While there was still one cigar resting within the box, the specific brand label practically screamed itself out before him. He had seen this label before; earlier in the mines with Jess when he'd found that snuffed out cigar butt, that one had the same brand logo as the one on this one, "Stogie stash exposed..." So, this was the guy that was up there with the two of them? Really shows in just how far he must've been tracking them Mike supposed. Yet even more reason to take care of this guy...

Turning his head from the box, Mike looked up towards the room's central altar. While the stone altar itself was ruined with erosion, something else lay at its base amid the rubble pile. That was definitely a chest that didn't belong here; probably brought here by the maniac. Might as well see what else Mike could make use of.

The boy made his way up the steps and before the chest. He then slowly undid the lid's front clasp before cautiously opening the lid completely. After all he had gone through recently, he wouldn't put it past if this guy had another crazy trap in place for him...

Almost immediately Mike's nostrils were assaulted by the familiar scent of blood. His nose wrinkled a little in disgust at the smell. As the lid opened more to allow more light to illuminate the inside, Mike could see that this chest was filled with bones, particularly raw and bloody bones. He cast a look over his shoulder back at the wolf that lay prone at the door.

"Makes sense to keep those wolves fat and happy..." he surmised. With a shrug he reached in himself to grab hold of one of the bones. The item's two ends were fattened and engorged with red blood, perfect for a dog or wolf to snack on. What the heck; why not give his new friend over there something to eat that wasn't himself?

Mike turned around and made his way back down the small set of steps. He navigated in between the assortment of furniture in the center of the room before coming to a stop before the creature. The wolf looked up at his approach, then tilted its head up a couple of times to sniff the air between them. No doubt it already caught the scent of the bone that Mike held in his hand.

"Ok um... Here boy!" he called out before whistling lightly a couple times. The wolf was at full attention now at being whistled to and pulled itself to its feet. Mike then tossed the bone to the wolf, watching it clutter across the ground before coming to a stop at the wolf's paws. The wolf looked down to sniff it once before immediately taking it in its mouth. It then pulled its head up to glance at Mike once before resuming its prone position on the ground and chew on the bone.

"Yeah, that's a good boy!" Mike said with a little smile. He hadn't fed any dog like that in years since Jake had died, so that felt really good to do. Plus, it should at least keep the wolf plenty distracted and away from him for the time being.

"Phew, alright... that's enough of this place... for real," he said with a shake of his head. He turned his head back towards the altar room yet again, "Now, how do I...?" Looking to the left side showed him that similar rooms positioned on the left-most wall were inaccessible, mostly from fallen stone debris blocking them.

"Oh wait- that's right," Mike suddenly remembered from when he was up on the upper balcony. He'd caught sight of the man leaving this very room from a door on the far-right side. That was where he had gone! So that was where he himself had to be!

Mike again made his way through the room and in between the furniture. He then walked to the far-right side of the stone rise and its altar towards the door. Beside this door was a blue sign with arrow pointing to it reading 'EXIT'. As he pushed up against the door presumably to push it inwards, he was suddenly met with resistance of the door itself refusing to move!

"What the-" he said as the door rattled slightly on its hinges. It was then that Mike noticed the handle area of the metal door. Not only was there no handle to push in, but there was a huge padlock on the door itself, ensuring the door would remain locked shut! "Oh, of all the lousy-!" That guy had come this way through this door, on this side no less! How could he have even set a padlock on this door, from the other side, if he'd managed to cross over himself?! Worse still, how was he himself supposed to proceed without any sort of key on him?

His eyes suddenly lowered down to his pocket in realization. He pulled out the revolver in his right hand. Sure, this sort of thing was only done in movies, but in theory it had to work in real life, right? Just a quick shot on the lock to break it; what's the worst that could happen?

He first pointed the gun's barrel at the padlock, as close as he could without it actually touching it. Once he was certain the gun was trained solely on the lock without moving, he turned his head away from the gun entirely. He clenched his eyes as tightly as he could and prepared himself. While this wasn't the first time he'd shot a gun before, this was technically the first time shooting a handheld revolver. What's more with his eyes off of his target and basically hoping for the best...

His ears exploded in a loud burst as he felt himself squeeze the trigger. In the midst of the gunshot, he also heard the sound of a metallic pinging, quickly followed up by the wire door itself practically swinging inward. It worked! The door was open! Mike quickly let out the exhale of breath he didn't realize he was holding. Checking his own body all around, nothing was bloodied or hit by any stray bullets at all. A small, nervous laugh escaped his lips before he carefully made his way through the door.

In addition to his lantern in his left hand, Mike also held the gun pointed out and in front of him as he quickly looked around the corner. All he was met with however was another small hallway, with a bit of modest light shining through an open doorway on the far-right side. This place, sanatorium, church, whatever this place was, it was a freaking maze! With so many literal twists and turns, how could anyone not get lost in a place like this?

Just like before he made his way down the hallway with his gun and the lantern both held up and at the ready. He rounded the corner yet again to behold what lay through this doorway.

What he saw before him made him nearly squint his eyes. A rather large six-frame glass window comprised nearly the entire of the opposite wall of this room, thus bathing nearly all of its space in a bright gray light. Due to this light, Mike found himself lowering his own lantern hand as he entered the room.

He took barely two feet into the room when he felt his right foot kick against something. What he kicked felt rather hard and heavy with the sound of glass scraping against the ground? Looking down he could see the object was in fact an old school picture frame laying forward to conceal whatever picture it held. Mike lowered himself to flip the picture frame over and reveal the other side.

With the aid of light from his own lantern, Mike could see the image of a group of about twelve men, all standing next two each other and in two rows while posing for some kind of picture. All of them were dressed up in really old-timey clothing, as well as mining gear.

"'Miracle Men...'?" he read the simple text on the bottom of the frame. It was then that he recalled: the newspaper he had found from earlier, and how it described the 'daring rescue of twelve miners from a cave-in'. These must've been these twelve miners that survived! But, remembering back yet again to the clock-in cards he'd found earlier, and how there were definitely more than twelve in there... Probably safe to say not all of them were so lucky.

"Wonder if these guys here ever made it home... To their families...?" he said to himself as he set the picture back down again. He then brought himself back to his feet again and refocused his attention on the room itself. Aside from length this room spanned, there were no doors or other windows to be seen within this time. The only other notable feature was the large stone staircase in the very center of the room that would take one down to... who knew where at this point.

"Jeez... down I go I guess..." Mike said. His gun and lantern were held before him and at the ready as he made his way to the beginning of the stairs. He slowly made his way down each of the debris covered steps, the light from the window above slowly dimming in intensity as he went further down.

Upon reaching the very bottom the setting changed dramatically once again. Mike found himself in a much more industrial-looking room with large pipes lining the walls. He was immediately reminded of the basement area where he had first started out in, which is where he assumed he'd made his way back around to. He lifted his lantern to light up the small room he stood in to see better where he stood. Fallen debris like broken wood and rocks littered the entire place and effectively blocked off a nearby route on the left side of the room. This of course meant that the only way Mike could proceed, as well as likely where the maniac himself could've gone, is through a hallway on the right side of the room.

Mike stepped down the small set of steps in this room and walked across, footsteps echoing the confining space. There was a set of windows in the upper corner of this room above him that shone their light within too. However, these windows must've had some foliage like trees in front of them which was making the exact brightness of the light slightly less in comparison to before. Thus, Mike was finding his lantern was providing much more adequate light for him.

He entered through the right-side doorway with yet again his gun held out and at the ready. With the aid of the light, he could see that the way forward was blocked by a cave-in of broken wood which redirected him to turn left within.

What he was met with however was yet another closed wire gate, with a couple rays of gray light shining down on from above. He made his way to the gate itself to find that just like before, this gate was also locked by a padlock.

"Of course, locked..." he said to himself. Yet again this guy was managing to padlock a gate behind him somehow from the other side? He shook his head for lack of care at this point. This lock didn't look any more complicated than the last one he shot, so this should be simple enough. Just gotta get this barrel out of the way first...

Holstering his gun briefly, his free hand took hold of the barrel's edge and pulled it to the side. The metal drum clattered to the ground at his side, freeing up space between him and the locked door. He brought his gun out again, and just like before pointed the gun's barrel as best he could at the lock while also turning his face away.

*CLICK!*

"Wha- seriously? Again!?" Mike silently cursed. How could this happen; yet another gun only good for ONE shot before becoming completely usel-

"Oh, wait..." Mike's eyes squinted as he realized his mistake. He'd shot this gun once before but forgot to pull the little hammer back on the end there. His thumb reached forward to take hold of the hammer and pull it back until it gave a much more satisfying click sound, "Alright, let's try this again..." Once more Mike pointed the gun at the lock and turned his face away from it completely.

The gunshot sound flared up through the tight space for a brief moment before everything was quiet again. Mike looked back down to find that once more this padlock didn't stand a chance! That wasn't the only thing he saw however. Where the padlock had fallen, the world was a little bit brighter from a small fire that had suddenly sprout up a little near Mike's feet. Mike instantly felt a tinge of warmth around him, but also accompanied with the smell of burning oil...? Shaking his head with a shrug he reached forward to push the gate inwards just like-

Mike's world suddenly brightened further and became much hotter. In front of him a fire began to spread directly in front of him, illuminating a set of metal drums on the other end of this metal fencing. Thanks to the newfound light he could see that familiar word on those drums 'Flammable'.

"Shit..." Realization quickly set in for Mike as to what had just happened, what he had just done.

"Shit...! SHIT-!" Not bothering to think he quickly threw himself back into the room he was in away from the barrels. As he dove towards the ground, a massive wave of heat and light hit his back, along with an explosion deafening his ears. A massive flame burst before everything with dark and cold again...


"Right, there you go," Matt said as he held the gate open. He held himself well out of the way as well to allow Emily to walk past him. He then pulled the gate shut, hearing the metal door clank shut behind him. As Matt turned towards her to follow her however, another sound filled his ears, the subtle sound of a beeping sound. He turned his head back around to find that while the gate had indeed shut, the once glowing green light above the handle was no longer glowing?

"Matt come on! What are you...?" he heard Emily call out behind him. Matt on the other hand couldn't help but feel curious. He reached his finger back out to the gate's unlock button and pressed it. Instead of the pleasant green light, the light instead grew red, rejecting the option to open again!

"Hey, it's locked?" he said, "The hell? Who did that?!"

"Let's go Matt! We've got more important things to worry about than locked gates!" Emily pressed. He glanced to her once, in time to see her already turn around and walk on before him. With a shake of his head, he pulled his finger away from the gate's handle before following after her.

"Man, there is some seriously uncool shit going on up here tonight..." he said to himself as they walked down the short, snow-covered incline back to the cable car station.

Even as he walked behind Emily, the sound of wind and the almost rhythmic sound of snow-crunching beneath their feet, Matt's mind was still running at practically a mile a minute. What had started off as bag-hunting with Emily had quickly taken a turn for the worst really quick. It all started first with those weird noises he and Em had heard out in the wilderness, prompting them to abandon her bag entirely and return to the lodge. Then everything got even worse upon meeting Chris and Ashley, the latter with blood splattered on her, and them relaying that something had happened to Josh! Matt swore he could still hear Chris' voice and Ash's cries in his mind even now.

"I can't believe Josh is dead," Emily said in front of him. Poor Em, Matt could only wonder how she was handling this whole thing in her head too.

"I can't believe 'how' he died," Matt found himself saying. If half of what Chris said that he could understand was true, then he really was killed by being cut in half, probably with like a big saw or something. All the blood and gore that was once his friend everywhere... Matt felt internal shivers as he recalled a scenario in a horror movie he once saw years ago that still shook him to this day.

"No, I mean like, what if they were wrong?" Emily said.

"What?"

"Just, do you think we should've checked the shed to see if it was really true?" Almost immediately Matt's mind began to flood with images of the past. When a younger him watched that... stupid, gory horror film that filled his head with present day fear of blood and gore movies. He quickly shook his head before any more unpleasant thoughts could cross his mind.

"I-I don't know," he said before following up with, "There are some things that once you see them, you can never un-see them."

"Yeah, I guess," he heard her admit, "But some things you have to see for yourself-"

"I'll take their word for it," Matt quickly cut in. The less Matt had to see of blood and gore the better. And the fact that it was Josh that had suffered such a fate didn't make this any less an easy thing to want to see either. Better the two of them stay focused on getting some help from someone.

The two had made their way down the snowy incline and found themselves back at the cable car grounds. The entire stretch of land held its pristine plot of snow across the ground, completely undisturbed by footprints or anything else. The wind was also not blowing nearly as hard now as it had been to cover up any previous tracks, which Matt was feeling slightly good about at least.

Upon reaching the cable car station's building, something immediately caught Matt's eye. Something that stood out as definitely not belonging there.

"Look there! An axe...?" he pointed out. Sure enough, a fire axe could be seen lodged into the door with the handle sticking out slightly as if to invite someone to take it, "Er, I don't care; I'll feel better with an axe..."

Emily stepped to the side to allow Matt to step forward up to the door. He gripped the axe with both hands and with a couple of tugs completely dislodged the tool from the door completely. Inspecting the weapon, he couldn't see any signs of blood on it anywhere. He could feel his confidence rising again with the axe in hand. Now at least if that maniac decided to pay him and Em a visit, he had a decent chance of defending the two of them.

That did leave the question of how and why this thing was stuck in the door in the first place...?

The sound of a jiggling doorknob drew his attention. Emily had tried unsuccessfully to open the door before stepping away.

"Oh, what now- this is locked Matt!" she indicated to the door before looking at him with a rather expectant look, "Well, break the door down, will ya?" Her request/demand broke him from his stupor; that might not be the best idea.

"Whoa, wait a second," he said, holding a free hand up, "If we start smashing shit down, he'll definitely hear us!"

"Well, you got any better suggestions?" Emily pressed. She had him there; Matt didn't exactly have any better idea, at least off the top of his head, in that moment.

"I don't know; what about..." he took a few steps upon the wooden waiting area to look around. Unfortunately, it looked as if this one door was the only way to enter the cable car station by the looks of it. Everywhere else he could see was just wooden wall, stretching all the way down to-

"Look!" he suddenly pointed out with his free hand. Within the waiting area and where the wooden bench was seen against the wall, a small window could be seen directly above it. It was cracked open ever so slightly by about an inch or so.

"What?" Emily asked.

"A window!"

"That's great Matt," Emily said with a scoff, "I can just about fit my lip balm through that little slot!"

"No-no, it could work-" Matt insisted.

"But you'll never fit through there, big guy," she reminded him. Staring at the window Matt couldn't help but agree; he was a little too big to fit through that window even if it were opened slightly wider. He turned back to look at Emily when an idea flashed through his mind. What if 'she' could go through there instead? She was smaller than him, and maybe even smaller enough to fit through the window herself...?

In his mind he couldn't help but shake his head at the notion. It might not be a good idea either to send his girlfriend through something that they didn't know what was on the other side. And if there was, he might not be able to get to her fast enough to save her...

"Okay, fine," Matt finally relented with a sigh. He gently made his way past and around her back to the station's door, gripping his axe with both hands, "Here goes; I'm gonna huff, and I'm gonna..."

"Shh-! Just do it!" Em pressed him.

With that Matt raised his axe up above his shoulder, mentally aimed where he meant to strike, and swung hard. With a loud thud the axe-head dug itself into the wooden door leaving a scarring that marred its once pristine image. While it was a good strike it wasn't enough to actually open the door any, so Matt raised his axe to try again.

He brought the axe down to chop the door again with another heavy thud. This time however he felt a brief resistance as the axe-head had actually lodged itself into the door. Thus, he was forced to pull up slightly on the handle to dislodge the wedge from the door. By now the damage done to the door was looking pretty decent at this point. Perhaps one more strike just outside of the door's knob could break it loose.

Matt raised the axe above his shoulder with both hands and brought it down as hard as he could in front of him. The resounding thud was accompanied by a larger crash from the door itself. Not only that but the door finally swung inwards slightly! Matt let out a breath of relief as he lowered the axe to his side. That was a decent work out he guessed, but now he and Em could finally go in.

Leading the way, he gently pushed the broken door further in. There was a strange resistance against the door as he did so however; almost as if something was piled up against it from the other side. With the absence of light however Matt couldn't see what it was. Clearing the door and stepping into the room as much as he could he gripped his axe with both hands.

With a click, the lights immediately turned on, and the two were quickly met with a huge mess. The first thing they could see was the nearby shelf filled with miscellaneous clothing and skiing tools completely broken down, spilling all of its contents out onto the floor. And this was only what greeted them upfront. Even from where he stood Matt could see some similar vandalism up in the station's control room.

"Whoa..." he breathed, "God damn."

"What happened...?" Emily said as well. Matt moved up closer to the control room's window to peer through it. Just like outside the furniture within was thrown around and broken. There were even some strange red markings written on the wall, but the fogginess of the window made it very unclear to see what exactly was written.

"This is crazy!" he said.

"We were here, just a few hours ago!" Emily added, "This must have just happened!" Matt remembered those few hours ago rather vividly when he and Em had come through this very cable car station to start their walk up to Josh's lodge. The place was very much neatly arranged back then, whereas now it looked like a storm had ripped through here and wrecked the place.

"What the fuck is going on...?!" Matt said as he stepped away from the window and back towards Em.

"It's gotta be the guy; the one who got to Chris, and Ash... and Josh..." she said nervously. Mentions of this 'guy', this maniac as Chris had described earlier only brought back the chilling memories of a few minutes prior back into Matt's mind. From seeing all that blood that Ashley was coated with, there was no telling what more that guy would be capable of.

"He's gotta know this is the only way back," he found himself saying.

"Oh God, don't say that," Emily spoke even more nervously with a wave of her hand. He could hear from the tone in her voice how much this must've been getting to her. Before he could try and say something to comfort her, something else could be seen out of the corner of his eye. The slight swinging and swaying of the massive cable car could be seen, but from a great distance away instead of in its stationary position at the station. That thing had to have been moved too on top of everything else that had happened in this place!

"And look!" he pointed outwards for her to look, "The cable car! It's all the way out there!" Emily herself stared out along the main cable at the cable car stranded in the distance away from them. From the angle she was standing Matt couldn't exactly see the expression on her face. He could only guess she wasn't feeling any better about this whole thing than he was.

"Well, I mean, that's not far, right?" Em tried to say, "You... you can jump it?"

"Heh, I'm good Em... But not that good," Matt spoke with a nervous laugh of his own before quickly adding, "Flattered though." As he began to disregard the cable car itself as an option and turn to look around more, he heard the quick shuffling of feet behind him as Emily approached closer to him.

"Well, Matt if you can't jump that, what are we gonna do?!" she practically begged him.

"I-" The boy quickly caught himself before his frustration could speak for him. Could she not see that he was just as clueless on what to do as she was? A quick breath of composure and he spoke again evenly, "I don't know, alright? Let's... let's just look around, see what we can find." To his credit Emily's face seemed dismissive enough and didn't press the issue, which made Matt feel a little easier. He in turn proceeded to walk up the control room's steps and into the room itself.

The sight of this room didn't fare any better than the outer room either. Nearby filing cabinets were pulled over and knocked on their sides, chairs were thrown all around the room, and many sheets of paper from the nearby desk littered the floor. If all that wasn't bad enough, the red he'd seen from earlier could now be seen as actual legible writing. The word 'DIE' written in red... hopefully not blood, all along the walls. Matt felt a cold shiver run along his hand from gripping the axe ever tighter.

"God," he could hear Em speak from behind him, "Everything's so busted up." Matt brought his gaze around towards their side of the room and the massive control panel in front of the window. This would be simple enough; just gotta bring the car back towards-

And just like that, Matt's mental hopes were dashed upon inspecting further. The large ignition slot where a key was usually located was missing its key completely.

"Great," he said out loud. It's like whoever this person was knew exactly what they were doing, "No keys, no cable car... So, back to square one."

"Matt- we need a new plan!" Em pressed, "We can't just sit around and do nothing! There's gotta be something we can do!"

"I'm all ears," Matt said with a shrug of his shoulders. He in turn walked towards the back of the room towards the knocked over filing cabinets while carefully stepping around the smaller items that lay scattered all along the ground.

"Look at all this crap; there's gotta be something else useful in here, right?"

Matt quickly glanced in her direction. Her comment did make sense, seeing how the first 'out of place' thing they found at this station was the axe he held in his hands. Maybe whoever did this did leave something amongst the mess here that they could use.

Lifting his eyes up towards the wall however, the only thing that came to view were the much more legible scrawling written in red. Now that he was inspecting it even closer this stuff had to be some kind of red paint. Having seen blood before this red stuff didn't look quite the same as what blood would be like.

"Very friendly," he off-handedly commented before walking away from the writing completely.

"Unfollow..." Emily added as well.

Making his way to the larger control station table Matt quickly scanned all in front of him. The ground directly beneath the table was littered with scattered papers and discarded junk, while various items atop the table bore markings of the strange red liquid on them as well. As completely messed up as this place was, he couldn't see anything else lying around of note. No portable radios, no supplies, not even another weapon like his axe that they could use. Just broken items scattered all about, and even a large portrait having been knocked loose and held up on the table by boxes.

"Jeez, someone really did a number on this joint."

"It's such a mess," Emily said, "This place was barely in working condition before, and now..."

Matt set the axe down for a moment to free both of his hands and reached out to lift the portrait back up onto the wall. With the picture back up where it belonged, not only was the crude red-word vandalism covered up more, but Matt was granted a clearer view of what exactly the picture was. A large, almost art-work style depiction of Blackwood Mountain itself with dotted lines connecting various locations of interest. Matt quickly found the cable car station where he and Emily stood, as well as the Washington's lodge as connected by a dotted line. He could also see another rather large building near the top of the mountain referred to as a 'Sanatorium', whatever that was. While a little to the right of that building was...

"Hey look! A fire tower!" Matt pointed out. With another dotted line connecting from the cable car station, a small art depiction of a tower could be seen on the map above a jagged drawing of more mountain ranges. At the base of this tower was a circular symbol of a tower with small waves drawn around its central point as well.

"Huh," Emily said as Matt turned around to look at her, "Maybe that old fire tower would have like... a radio, or a phone, or something?"

"Yeah, it might," Matt agreed. His response only earned him a small frown and a tilted head from Emily.

"Well, it's not like we got any other options...?"

Her follow-up tone was spoken rather expectantly, and one that Matt recognized all too well. His girlfriend was dead set on something and there was little in this world that could change her mind. Normally in the past he wouldn't mind it so much, and at times he would even go along with what she proposed. With now however...

Matt's mind drifted back to Chris and Ashley, and their state of extreme distress he and Em had found them in. And not only did he recall them, but he even thought back to Sam, and Josh, heck even Mike and Jessica. Somehow it had felt like so long since all of them had even been in the same room as each other! If something had happened to Chris and Ash, who was to say something hadn't happened to the other four as well?

"Well, I mean-" Matt started.

"Matt! We've gotta get to that radio!" Emily forcibly cut in. There it was again; Emily asserting her point above everything else. While this was a rather unkind way of seeing things her way, Matt did find himself rethinking things as well. His mind was no longer cluttered with the fear of what 'might' be, but rather reminded of what needed to happen now. The radio tower was there, on that map, and if the dotted line was any indication would be easy enough to trek towards.

"Okay! Okay..." Matt held his free hand up. If this is really what they were doing, it's best to get a good sense of what all they'd be doing, "So... we'll use the radio... to call for help! I mean, somebody's gotta pick up on the signal, right?"

"Wow Matt, good call! Radio! So smart...!"

Emily said with a small clap of her hands. Her exact response however drew a frown from Matt. Even he could tell that she was speaking with heavy sarcasm in her voice, for some reason. What the hell? He was agreeing with her! Why was she acting like that?

"Why are you being so bitchy!?" he suddenly blurted out, "We're in a real serious situation here-!"

"Whoa Matt, take it easy, alright...?"

And just like that, Matt was knocked out of his brief stint of annoyance. In its place, and with a much clearer head, he was left with Emily giving him a pointed stare of her own, followed by her turning to leave the control room completely. It was also at this point that Matt didn't exactly feel too smart, snapping at his girlfriend like that.

'Drgh, so stupid, STUPID!' he berated himself in his head. Maybe she didn't exactly deserve that. True she didn't need to act so bitchy like that to him either, but maybe he himself could've handled himself a little bit better. Rough patches like this between him and her unfortunately did occur, sadly a lot more often he'd care to admit. Most times he tried to show her that he would always be on her side, and that he'd always be there for her. However, there were times when even she could push him a little too far...

'Hope she doesn't stay too mad...' he thought to himself, 'Still, at least we both agree to get to that tower. Let's just get there and get some kind of message out, then maybe... we can talk some stuff out together...'

With that Matt made his way out of the cable car control station himself. He'd had enough of 'rooms trashed by crazy psychos' for one evening and was about ready to be long gone from this place. And that usually meant following wherever Emily had-

"Oh! Hold up..."

The sound of Em's voice drew his attention to the side. There stood Emily, near the far side wall across from the entrance near where the cable car would hang when stationary. Or at least, stationary when it was where it was supposed to be. She suddenly began to reach her arm out, stretching it well over the safety railing between her and the sheer drop on the other side. Matt was about to call out to her until he looked closer at what exactly she was trying to do. There, just out of her reach was a ladder, which when pulled straight down would lead down along a small, narrow walkway and around a corner of the building itself.

Good thing he wasn't scared of heights at least.

An idea coursed through his mind as he set his axe down at his feet. Maybe if she wasn't still too upset right now, he could try and butter her up with some of his 'sweet-talk'!

"Hey, what's cookin', good lookin'?" he joked as he lowered himself to cup his hands level with her knee. Emily flashed him a look and her mouth twisted as if to retort, but she held her tongue. Maybe she figured out that he was trying to help her reach the ladder. Instead, she let out a small scoff at his 'pick-up line'.

"Gettin' us out of here, Mister Meat For Brains...!" she said, while nonetheless accepting his helping hands. She reached her own left hand out towards the wall to steady herself before placing her left foot within his hands. A quick second to steady herself, and she then jumped up and to the side. Her outstretched right hand quickly grabbed hold of the lower rung of the wall ladder and pulled it straight down. The ladder clattered as it slid down before coming to a halt, now level with both of their heads.

"There we go!" Matt said as he reached down to pick the axe back up, "Go team, right?"

"Yeah sure, thanks," Emily replied. With the she very slowly and carefully made her way down the rungs of the ladder before finally reaching the bottom completely. Once she was clear of the ladder completely Matt began his descent as well. The ice cold of the metal stung a little beneath the bare skin of his palms. Still, he gripped each rung as tightly as he could as he slowly made his way down as well. He found that his axe-holding hand was only capable of holding on with a couple of fingers, as it was hard to hold on to two different things at once.

"Ooh, look at this bad boy! You're coming with me, buddy..." Matt turned his head to the side as he reached the bottom to look at what Emily was talking about. He could see that she was now in possession of a large industrial flashlight with a handle on its side. The light shone from it quickly brought small illumination to the section of wall she aimed it at before pointing it back outwards.

"And just like magic; come on, we can totally get out this way...!"

Matt carefully placed a foot firmly on the lower level, making sure it would not slip at all before placing down his other foot. He may not be afraid of heights, but he wasn't about to do anything stupid to test that fear. He then carefully released one hand from the ladder and spun himself so his back was to the wall before gently releasing his axe-holding hand as well. He then paused for a moment to make sure he was in fact steady before very slowly inching himself to his left. He could hear and feel the snowflakes shuffling underneath his feet, but thankfully that kind of ice wasn't nearly enough to pose any slipping hazard.

As he cautiously turned his head to the left again towards where he was moving himself, the image of Emily caught his sight again. As well as her strangely leaning outwards... A little too far over the-

"Whoa-!" Matt instinctively reached out and clamped his free hand on her outstretched hand.

"AHH-!" Emily squeaked. A moment of limbs flailing was followed by Em and Matt re-steadying themselves. That was TOO close!

"You alright?!" Matt called out to her as he gently wrapped his arm around her waist to pull the two of them closer together.

"Yeah...!" Emily replied, her voice slightly trembling in fear. She gave no further resistance as she allowed herself to be pulled closer to Matt's own body, "Thanks- um, maybe you should go first? T-To protect me?" Whether he agreed with that notion or not, it didn't seem like Em was giving him any choice. With his arm still wrapped around her waist, she herself was inching herself carefully around his front so that she was now behind him. The way in front of Matt was completely clear, and with a hand gently pushing on his shoulder, he proceeded to lead the way.

He carefully moved a foot outward, taking care to 'drag' it along the ground so that it was still in contact with something solid beneath him. He could feel more snow being dragged and shuffled with each movement. As he moved, he prepared to duck his upper body slightly to avoid being hit by the angled I-beam that served as the 'corner'. With a couple more steps he was close to completely angling himself around the corner and proceeding along the other end.

"Ohhh... okay..." Emily could be heard behind him. She didn't sound that far away from him, which meant she was sticking all the closer to him, "Easy now..."

"Okay, alright," Matt said himself. With his back pressed almost squarely against the wall itself, there was little else he could direct his line of sight other than in front of him. This unfortunately granted him an almost daunting view of the rock walls in front of him, and the absolute sheer drop that lay before him. Only making things worse was the ledge the two of them were walking on was noticeably shorter than the other side. Nonetheless, if they just repeat his stepping motions as they'd done before, they'd be fine.

As long as they didn't look down either.

"Oh my gosh..." Emily said behind him.

"Almost... almost..." Matt spoke aloud, to reassure both Emily and himself. Each sliding step was a small victory, but they had to keep it up...

"I'm feeling kinda faint-"

"Don't look down," Matt quickly said, "Just focus on me, okay?" He knew he couldn't look behind him to see if she was actually heeding his words, so he just had to trust that she was actually doing that herself.

Just a couple more steps now; the outstretching cliff on the edge was almost in reach. Even better was a guard railing overlooking the edge as well.

"Okay... Okay!" One more step outward and Matt reached a hand to grab the railing. The fingers of his free hand gripped the metal a little tightly for assurance, the cold and snow biting into his skin again. He quickly pulled himself inwards and back onto the safety of solid ground. Actual solid ground, and completely free of deathly sheer drops.

Matt let out a huge sigh of relief before turning around. To his continued relief he could see that Emily was quick to follow directly behind him and pull herself onto the ledge as well.

"Whew! Holy cannoli, thank God that's over!" she said with a sigh of relief as well.

"Yeah, for real!" Matt whole-heartedly agreed with her. He reached up to rub his forehead of what he presumed was sweat buildup on his brow. Guess narrowly walking over super high places could make someone work up a sweat, even in snowy winter seasons. Course that was nothing new to him though; he tended to sweat a lot during football practice in cold and even snowy weather at school too.

With Emily leading the way the two made their way up along a small set of steps and from between two sets of walls on both sides of them. Upon emerging they were met with the actual back end of the cable car station and the forest behind it. While there was a path stretching slightly upwards and to the right, it looked like it had barely been walked upon in years. Pieces of broken sticks and leaves lay submerged within the snow that buried them. Matt could feel a chilling feeling running up along his spine, and it wasn't just from the sudden burst of cold wind that began whipping at the skin that his letterman jacket didn't cover. For a moment he began to wonder if this really was where they needed to go exactly.

A glance in front of him at Emily's already advancing form provided most of his answer for him. She was clearly dead set on where they needed to go as she was already walking up the path with her lit flashlight guiding her steps. Having remembered seeing a path trailing upwards from the cable car station to the tower on the pictured map he'd seen earlier, this seemed the best path as any in real life. Thus, he quickly followed after her to catch up and stick closer to her.

As the two quickly made their way up along the trail and underneath a set of trees that stretched up and over their heads, Emily spoke up again,

"What if it doesn't work?"

"What?"

"The radio?" she clarified.

"It'll work, it has to," Matt quickly replied with confidence. It was a radio tower built in the wilderness, probably by ranger teams or something, so it had to be working even in the worst of snowstorms.

"But... okay but if it doesn't... We need a plan," Emily further elaborated. In the middle of his walk Matt frowned a little in thought. What could the two of them do in case it didn't work?

"Maybe..." he said as he considered all options open to them, "We can just climb down?"

"Climb down what?"

"The mountain," Matt clarified this time.

"Are you serious?" Emily asked incredulously. By now the path the two walked up was beginning to curve slightly to the left around a snow-covered rock face beside them. Along with the tall rock face on their right side, the two began to walk within what felt like a small ascending ravine of snow-covered rock.

"What's the big deal?" Matt tried to say while giving a shrug of his shoulders. He glanced to the side at each of the rock walls on either side of them as they walked, "I-It's not like it's... floating in the sky, you know?"

"Well, it might as well be; it's pitch black out!" Her comment caused Matt to instinctively look directly up above him this time. Aside from the branches of trees that stretched out and over them and the path, he could see a little bit of the night sky itself. The full moon must have been behind some thick clouds during this time as the entire sky was nearly completely dark and black. Not even the smallest star could be seen up their either.

"Hey- hopefully won't have to," Matt assured her. At this point the rock faces on both sides of them and the path were beginning to dwindle in size, replaced instead by more snow-covered foliage. A couple of well-worn waist-high wooden posts with ropes tied to them could be seen marking the trail's edge and guiding them further up. Unfortunately, this also meant that the harsh snow wind began to whip their faces a little harder, causing Matt to squint his eyes a little harder as he focused on following Emily.

"Do you think the psychopath is just going to give up and run away?" she suddenly asked again.

"No! But-" Matt quickly spoke up until he caught himself. Who was he kidding? There was no way some killer psychopath was gonna stop with just 'one' of them. And from the way that Chris had described it he had made it a big show out of when he had gotten Josh killed. Chances are he would go for every single one of them if he were able to, or if they allowed him to.

"Maybe we should find... a safe spot. Hole up, and wait it out," Matt continued, "I-It'll be a lot easier to figure this all out in the morning."

"Well as long as we don't hide in the lodge; that's where he'd expect us to go..." Emily said. Matt bit his lip this time instead of replying. Again, with some small details that he didn't quite agree with, but now wasn't the time to be arguing courses of action. For the moment it was better that he and Emily stay together and united in a single goal.

And that single goal still awaited them; the fire tower which presumably stood at the very top of this winding, ascending pathway. Just how much further was there to go though anyway?

The two of them ducked their heads as they passed underneath a fallen dead tree that lay propped up just over the trail. Upon walking forward, the trail itself began to narrow ever so slightly. A thicker wall of rock and forest lay on their left side while the other side began to dramatically thin its own forests more and reveal more of the sky beyond.

Eventually the line of forests had cleared almost completely on their right side, while directly before them the path presented a wooden bridge before them. This must be one of the bridges of the hiking trail that Beth had told him and the others about a couple years ago. Glancing to the side he was granted a rather large, unhindered view of the world itself. The sound of howling wind filled his ears as well which fed into the whole 'snowy mountain aesthetic' vibe that this place was. If it weren't for killer maniacs and all that, he might've even brought Emily out here for a more romantic moment between the two of them. No one could ever deny this view at all.

With a shake of his head Matt made his way up and across the bridge to follow closely after Emily. Their footsteps rhythmically thumped against the wood. Despite the bridge itself being covered atop with a layer of snow, Matt found it easy to maintain his footing and not slip. These weren't even his best slip-resistant shoes either!

With one more curve to the left, the two finally made their way up and off the bridge. Before them lay a small open stretch of snow-covered land with a couple of thin trees standing up in the center. However, a quick glance to both sides told him that their options for proceeding were a bit limited.

"Um, I'm not seeing..." he said aloud before glancing to Emily, "W-which way do we go now?"

"We should probably stick closer to solid land, obviously?" she reminded him which subtly indicating with her flashlight the left-most path, "That's gotta be where to go to get to the tower!"

With a shrug Matt did as she suggested and proceeded to the left. As if the path were 'funneling' back into the whole of the forest, thick forests and trees began to surround each side of the path again. This in turn made it more obvious how the only way to proceed this way was through a wooden structure with a large entryway, almost inviting the two of them to enter. Matt held his axe tightly in both hands as he cautiously approached the structure. Shifting light from Emily's flashlight behind him caused his own shadows to dance a little on the ground in front of him as well.

The strength of the ice winds whipping his face reduced a little as he first crossed the threshold. Directly in front of him he couldn't see terribly far, probably due to overhead trees blocking more of the night sky. As he began to turn his head over his shoulder to assure Emily, he felt something creak beneath his foot.

"What the..." Matt looked down at the single wooden plank he stepped on. One end of the piece of wood stuck straight up from literally not being nailed down to anything. Matt found himself slowly ducking down to reach down and grab the exposed end and pull up.

"Matt! What the heck are you-?" Emily called out, but Matt nearly didn't register what she was saying. Not in comparison to what he had just discovered. He reached his hand down into the space that the board itself was covering to pull something out and into the open.

The entire time as he stood back up and faced Emily with the object in hand, his eyes widened more and more upon realization. What he held in his hand was a small, black device with white frost covered edges, while the back end of it was rather pink in color.

"Whoa- this is Beth's phone!" Emily pointed out. Memories flashed in Matt's mind of Beth and this very phone as if they were glued to each other. She hardly ever went anywhere without her phone; she must have dropped it around here back then!

"Holy hell!" Matt said, "But, I thought the police had like swept this whole area?"

"Well, I guess they missed this!" Emily said with a shrug.

"Jeez..." Matt said, feeling that familiar chill running up along his arms and spine again, "Guess we should take this with us, right? Show it to them in the morning maybe..." With that he placed the phone in his pocket.

"Yeah, good idea," Emily agreed. She then turned her flashlight up to illuminate the opposing entryway before the two of them. What they could see however was in fact a huge amount of snow buildup rather close to the exit with little option for the two to be able to navigate through or even around, "Oh, crap... guess we can't go this way after all..."

"Let's go back then," Matt said, pointing out a finger towards the expanse of land directly in front of them. The shifting light behind him was enough indicator that Emily was in fact following behind him.

With him leading the way this time he made his way out of the wooden structure and back to crunching beneath his feet. Each one of the individual trees passed him by on different sides as he made his way across. Looking outward he caught a larger view of the world beyond, but more importantly the fact that the land he and her walked upon quickly became a large cliff edge.

"Watch where you step around here..." he said while taking note of a nearby broken danger sign.

"Yes Matt- given the choice, I'd prefer not to spend my evening plummeting to my death off a snowy clifftop!"

Glad to know someone was keeping things in perspective. Very sarcastic perspective.

Following his own advice, Matt refrained from walking too far out towards the edge of the cliff himself. Little else could be seen or found in this area anyway. In fact, where they stood right now was starting to feel like a dead end. It might be better for the two of them to walk back towards-

A noise suddenly filled the air, causing Matt and Emily to flinch slightly. This sound strangely resembled a screeching sort of noise, echoing across the air from what was hopefully well away from where they were. This screeching sound started out small before gradually raising in intensity over the course of several seconds.

"Gah! Matt, what is that?!" Emily called out to him. Matt instinctively raised his hands to cover his ears but stopped his motions upon finding the sound wasn't that deafening. His gaze snapped all around directly in front of him trying to see if whatever was making this noise was close by. Aside from the whipping winds blowing their snowflakes down before them, little other movement could be seen before them.

"I don't know- whoa!" Matt started until something did catch his eye. Movement could be seen within the tree line before them, followed by more movement all around them. Something was emerging from the forest, many things actually, all of them rather huge with really large horns atop their heads. The herd of elk practically emerged from the dark of the woods itself bearing straight for the two teens.

"Jesus-! Shit!" Emily said could be heard saying.

"Oh fuck...!" Matt also said. A glance out of the corner of his eye told him that Emily was in fact right next to him, which was a good thing at least. The bad part was that the herd was slowly advancing towards them, which caused them to back up themselves on instinct. They were even coming from all possible angles of the cliff edge, which wouldn't make it possible to run around them either. Many of the elk let out individual cries both directed at their own kind and at them specifically. Each cry caused them to back away from them even more.

Matt gripped his axe with both hands but nonetheless continued to back up along with Emily. If this didn't stop soon, they might end up being pushed off the cliff behind them! The wind was starting to pick up with intensity as well, hammering the backs of their heads with razor ice flakes and chilling them further to the bone...


Sam could not get enough of this hot, hot bath!

Even when she'd first arrived at the Washington lodge, she'd been dying to get some warmth in her by any means necessary! Of course, at the time Josh was sure taking his time getting a fire started. Plus, there was the fact that she'd somehow worked up a bit of a sweat making her way up to the lodge which only reinforced the idea that she'd need to take a bath too.

Why not settle both issues with a 'hot' bath?

Having finally gotten that boiler started with Josh (as well as having the living day lights scared out of her by Chris as well), she was finally given the opportunity to just let the hot water work its magic and melt away her stress of the day. The cold had long since melted out of her by now, but maybe she could enjoy this bath just a little longer...

By now she had her earphones plugged into her phone and was listening to good old classic tune. This was one of her father's favorite pieces after all, and now that she was much older and more understanding of art and stuff, she could definitely see the appeal in pieces like this. Or rather, she could 'hear' the appeal in this case. After all, that stringed instrument could help her to relax even during her most stressful school days! The way the deep sounds seemed to resonate within her very heart itself made her feel-

Sam suddenly felt a small vibration which knocked her from her relaxation. Her eyes fluttered open, and her mind finally deduced what that sound might've been. A thud of some kind? Like a door being closed?

Her eyes glanced to the side towards the bathroom door only to find that it was in fact closed shut completely. She quickly felt some relief in that knowledge; that no one else was in this bathroom with her! How creepy would that have been if someone were just standing there watching her-

Wait a minute. Sam couldn't help but think back to... however long it had been when she first came into this bathroom. Had she remembered to lock the door? Part of her chastised her for even considering she'd forgotten to do something so basic as that, while another part of her couldn't help but worry all the same...

"Hello...?" she casually said as she reached up to take her earphones out of her ears. The sound of the song she was listening to quickly faded away, replaced instead by silence. Rather dead silence. In fact, Sam was beginning to feel a little... unnerved, by just how silent it was sounding right now. The only sounds that filled her ears were the slight sound of water waves from the bath water she was still sitting within right now. Aside from that however, she couldn't hear a single sound from the other side of the bathroom door, no matter how hard she focused her hearing.

"Guys?" she called out again, with more focus this time. Yet again, she was met with complete silence. No one's voices could be heard on the other side of the door; not Chris, Josh, nor even Ashley's.

"What are you doing out there?!" she called out deliberately. A part of her almost wish a set of footsteps could be heard just so she was assured that 'someone' was out there! Maybe someone didn't have to reply to her directly, but at least there'd be someone!

"Being creepy...?" she said to herself. Seconds upon seconds passed by, and Sam was still met with not a single sound outside. Maybe that did answer that question at least; the silence was starting to get a little unnerving by this point.

Sam pulled her gaze away from the door to look down at her own hands. Her fingers were definitely starting to prune up by now; maybe it was time for her to call it quits on her bath anyway.

"Okay..."

She slid herself across the bottom of the tub and towards the edge and raised her legs up and over. Her exposed, wet skin shivered upon contact with the open air of the bathroom. Feet then touched back down on the bathmat at the base of the tub, and Sam pulled herself upright again.

As she reached down for a towel, her eyes unconsciously drifted to the side, then widened upon what they saw.

Or rather, what they didn't see.

"What the- where the hell are my clothes?!" she breathed. She distinctly remembered undressing herself and placing them neatly in a folded pile right here, on the footstool next to the bath cabinet! But now, there was nothing there at all! Not a shred of apparel for her to make use of! As a result, Sam's breath began to hitch a little and her heart started pounding in her chest.

Placing a hand on her chest, she turned her head angrily towards the closed bathroom door.

"Hey! Whichever one of you did this is OFF my Christmas list!" she called out in a show of irritation to mask her fear, "Seriously, not cool guys! Not cool at all!" She let out a huff of a sigh from her little outburst. Venting angers aside, what was she going to do now? Walking around naked was absolutely out of the question, but there wasn't any sort of clothing here she could put on. Josh didn't even keep any spare clothes in his bathroom either...

She glanced back down at the towel she was about to pick up. The idea instantly flashed across her mind, as well as the absolute absurdity of it! But at the same time, there weren't a lot of other options for her at the moment. Here she was in a bathroom, her skin exposed skin starting to shiver with goosebumps by now, and her only option for decency lie with a simple towel...

"Of all the lousy... Fine!" she groaned as she reached down for the towel. After a few moments of drying off all of her wet skin with the towel, she then proceeded to wrap the cloth around her chest area. It was just the right length to keep all concealed, so Sam felt the slightest bit at ease about that at least. Well, as easy as she could feel with the fact that her clothes were missing!

On that note, now that she was semi-decent and much more dried off, she would have to see where she could find some actual clothes. Unfortunately, this possibly meant stepping outside, into the open of the lodge, and searching for herself...

Her feet shivered upon contact with icy cold tile as she made her way across the room. One hand kept a tight, firm grip on the upper edge of the towel as her other hand reached for the doorknob. As she gave a small, rather experimental twist, she felt her heart suddenly drop as she found she was able to turn the knob completely! She had forgotten to lock the door! She could feel a deep chill running down her neck from within; what if what she'd heard earlier was one of the others opening the door and... and sneaking a peak at her?!

She slowly and gently pushed the door all the way outward, the creaking of the door's hinges providing the only sort of noise within the deafening silence. What she was met with was none of the other guys, but a strange sight indeed. A couple of lit candles lay burning on the side table next to the door before her, stretching all the way out towards the balcony railing towards a... a balloon? A red balloon with a white arrow painted on it?

This was probably a prank that had Chris written all over it!

"Chris... Josh...?" she softly called out but was left with no reply. What the hell was going on here?

Taking a couple tentative steps out of the bathroom, her exposed skin immediately shivered. No longer standing within the steam-filled enclosure of the bathroom and its hot water, Sam was left to walk within the rooms of a mountain lodge in the middle of winter. All the while without any actual clothes on her body! Seriously, somebody was gonna pay big for making her walk around like this!

A couple more steps forward and she stepped out of the small hallway. The room she stood in this time was a little more decently lit. From both the assortment of small lit candles placed at various locations along the walkway to the moonlight shining clearly through the window blinds behind her, Sam at least had a better chance at seeing where she was going. Unfortunately, this would also mean that anyone else would have a better chance at seeing her in all her glory as well...

"What the hell?" she said as she looked upon the balloon itself. There was a white arrow pointing to the right painted on it, as if it were telling her where to go. As far as pranks went, this is by far turning out to be one of the creepiest. Chris had jumped out and scared her earlier on, why couldn't he do that again now and get it over with?

With little other course she could go, Sam followed the vague directions of the 'creepy arrow balloon' and made her way to the closed door of the other hallway. The fact that this door was closed in itself caused her to consider as well. If someone had snuck into the bathroom with her in it earlier, why would they go to the trouble of closing all doors behind them when they could've just easily left them open? And if they wanted her to follow along some creepy course why not make it more direct and-

Sam shook her head of such pointless pondering. She needed to get her clothes back first and foremost!

Just like before she held a tight grip on the upper hem of the towel to hold it in place while her other hand gripped the doorknob. The door slowly but surely opened to her again, allowing to behold what lay within. What she did find was sadly more of what she was starting to expect by this point: silence and darkness. Aside from the small, faint and literal light at the end of this hallway, there was little else in the way of illumination for Sam's liking. With the silence being as deafening as it was, her own heartbeat was starting to sound like a bass drum echoing in her ears with each beat. This would be easy though, just to walk towards the light at the-

A loud crash filled the air, causing Sam to let out a yelp of surprise. Her heart nearly burst in her chest and her breath caught in her throat as she instinctively reached up to clutch the top of her towel. But then, just as quickly as it had happened, Sam quickly regained her senses to realize just what had happened.

"Ugh... stupid clock...!" she silently cursed. The darn thing just had to strike at just that moment, didn't it!? With a shake of her head, she made her way down the hall and through the entryway, leaving the ticking grandfather clock behind her.

What she found in the larger living room of the lodge didn't fill her with any ease or assurance, however. Not only did could she see more lit candles and even a couple more white arrow painted red balloons telling her where to go, but even as of this moment she couldn't hear anyone else around! Seriously, there were no voices, no shuffling bodies to be heard, nothing!

"Chris?" Sam called out while adjusting the upper hem of the towel top on her body again, "Mike? Emily?"

Once more she was met with complete silence. Seriously, just what was going on here? She knew that Mike, Jessica, even Matt and Emily had left the main lodge for different reasons, but still even they had to be back at here by now, wouldn't they? And why would the other three not answer her either? Surely if they went somewhere out of the lodge, they'd have informed her of that beforehand, wouldn't they? Thinking back to Chris however, she was only reminded yet again of how he had pulled that stupid prank on her and Josh earlier on. With what she was being forced to go through right now, this was almost starting to feel like something he'd do.

"This is really getting out of hand, okay?" she called out sardonically as she followed the course literally laid out before her, "It was all very funny; 'ha ha, look at Sam walking around in a towel', but... now I just really want this to be over, okay...? You had enough?!"

Each step on the cold floor filled her with even more chills than she needed. Seriously, couldn't they at least have left her some socks, so she didn't completely freeze? This was a snowy mountain after all!

She made her way down the steps and back to the first floor of the building. Compared to the wooden floor, the stony ground floor felt much more chilling beneath her bare feet. To her continued not surprise there was no one to be seen around, nor any noises to be heard from anywhere.

"Can I have my clothes back now? Or am I supposed to hang out in a towel for the rest of the weekend...?" she called out sarcastically. At this point the silence that greeted her in reply almost felt like a punchline to some stupid joke.

"Towel it is then..." she said with a shrug. Like they were gonna just 'give' her back her clothes anyway, especially if they've been keeping up this facade for this long. Sam reminded herself that her best course of action would be to seek out her clothes on her own. They had to be hidden somewhere, they just had to be, and she'd have to figure out where they were.

The soft glow of candles lit up the skin of her legs as she walked by them. Sam made her way over to the nearby closed kitchen door.

"You guys in the kitchen? 'Cookin' something up?" she jokingly remarked as she reached for the doorknob. In the midst of her anxiety, she couldn't help but smile at her dumb joke. Unfortunately, the silence that greeted her along with the doorknob refusing to open before her caused her to frown again. Maybe she wasn't meant to go this way? Especially with these creepy balloons literally telling her where to go?

She glanced to her right to find that said balloons were in fact pointing in the direction of the stairs leading to the lower levels of the lodge. This only filled Sam with a heavy feeling in her chest; the one place she did not want to return to this weekend and that was looking like the only direction she was allowed to go at this point. Whoever was playing this prank on her was getting crazy good at pushing her buttons so far.

On instinct she stepped forward and peaked her head around the corner of the dining room.

"You guys in here...?" she gently called out and found no movement met her eyes nor sounds met her ears. With another shrug Sam made her way back and towards the descending staircase. Along the way she passed by the pictures on the left-hand side, the one portrait of Josh staring out as if watching her the entire way.

"Okay, if you were trying to freak me out, guess what? You succeeded!" she called out ironically. At this point she was almost starting to wish there was someone around to answer her calls, modesty be damned. The silence was definitely feeling more unnerving than preserving decency.

To her small relief however, as she rounded the corner of the descending staircase towards the lower floor, another source of light met her eyes. As she looked down while walking Sam could see the door to the Washington's little cinema room was wide open with light of some kind pouring from within.

Her feet once more made contact with more solid ground, though thankfully this time she stood upon a soft carpet instead. Sam quickly made her way to the entrance of the cinema room and prepared to glance inside. However, before she did so, something else caught her attention: a flashlight on the small shelf next to the open door. The very same one that Josh had left there when she and him had gone down to the basement. She quickly stepped forward to take the flashlight in her hand and instinctively flick it on. Thank goodness this thing was working at least.

"Where the hell are you guys...?" Sam said to herself in frustration. She then turned back again to look into the cinema room, "Whoa, this is weird..."

At the very least this cinema room also held some rather soft carpet on the floor as well. Sam was starting to get tired of her feet freezing from walking barefoot on the cold floor. That was the only good thing going for her however. From the looks of things, not a single person could be seen in this room either! Aside from the projector on the back wall spewing flashing bright images onto the large screen itself, no other sounds or movements could be seen, anywhere! The longer this continued to drag on, the more Sam could feel her personal anxiety levels beginning to skyrocket! Was this yet another sick prank being played on a friend, just like last year?!

"Hey, guys COME ON!" she called out yet again, "Okay- I am DONE with this! I really don't appreciate the silent treatment here-!"

No sooner had she finished her tirade before a thudding sound was heard behind her. Sam let out a yelp of surprise as she spun around. To her shock, as well as confusion, the twin doors that she had entered this room through had... pulled themselves shut? Was someone out there? Did someone pull those doors shut directly behind her and had locked her in here?

"Hello Samantha."

Sam jumped in place yet again, having heard a voice for the first time in what felt like hours. However, this voice was not something she'd have preferred to hear. It was... creepy sounding, almost mechanically filtered, and sounding like it was projecting from all around her. Her eyes darted to different corners of the cinema room to see the various speakers built into the walls. Whatever spoke just now had to have used those speakers.

But worse still, 'who' exactly had spoken to her scared her even more. Despite the voice being filtered as it was, it sounded like some man's voice, but it didn't sound like any man she'd heard before. A creepy sounding man that somehow knew her name, and presumably that she was standing in this room right now, all alone... clad in literally nothing but a bath towel.

Sam's free hand clutched the top hem of the towel yet again as her gaze followed the flashlight's beam, desperate to pinpoint the voice's source.

"Looking for me?"

The voice spoke again, which only fueled her terror. He couldn't possibly know that she was trying to find him unless... he had view of her right now! Some creepy sounding dude had to be peaking at her right now in her current state of 'undress'! Her free hand stayed positively glued to the top of her towel hem to keep it in place as she frantically looked around. Unfortunately, aside from the various movie posters lining two of the walls and the actual cinema screen projecting its white film images, Sam couldn't find any sort of cameras or peepholes that anyone could be looking through.

"I don't think you'll have much luck by looking, Samantha," the voice spoke again and reminding her of the perceived futility of her attempts. This guy clearly knew, and he seemed to be toying with her about that knowledge too, "You're only going to see what I want you to see. And I have... quite a lot to show you."

Against her better judgement, Sam stopped attempting to pinpoint the source of where she was apparently being spied on. She ceased her rapid movements in an attempt to steady herself. However, her heart continued to pound hard in her chest and her breathing was anything but steady. Some potential pervert was watching her in literally nothing but a bath towel and she could do nothing about it!

"What... is going on...?!" she breathed out.

"Open your eyes."

The moment the voice spoke the light in the room faded from its previous bright glow. Sam's eyes snapped up to the movie screen to view this sudden change right before her... but what she saw only made her heart drop even further. There, on the movie screen right now, was her! Sitting in the bathtub a few minutes ago with her eyes closed! Back when she was still listening to her music in her earbuds, and without a care in the world.

"Oh... my God...!" she forced out. Sam could feel her own mouth nearly drop in complete horror upon what she was seeing. What she'd heard earlier wasn't simply her mind playing tricks on her, but in fact the door opening and closing to let someone in and out! Her breath became erratic and out of rhythm with this knowledge. What if... what if she had been molested?! While that clearly didn't happen, it might as well have. Somebody had just intruded upon her privacy and was literally displaying her at her most vulnerable to her right before her eyes!

"She quite beautiful, isn't she?" the voice could be heard again, almost as if it were mocking her at this point. While Sam on the other hand was reduced to a stammering mess by the blatant disregard of privacy being displayed right in front of her, "A beautiful bathing bird."

There was no doubting either that this footage was taken not by her friends, but by this... this psycho! Not even her own friends would display something like this before her in this way! Some stranger, some creepy psycho stranger was watching her and seemed to relish in this?!

"Do you think she has any idea what lies ahead?" the voice continued, "Do you think these were the last happy moments of this creature's life?"

"Why... are you showing this to me?!" Sam managed to force out.

"Why are you watching?"

Why are you- what?! Did this guy just seriously just say that?! How the hell could Sam not watch visual evidence that she was being spied on?! And how could this guy just pose that statement so casually? Who was this guy?!

Her head snapped back to gaze upon the projector's wall, both to take her eyes off of the screen but also to view into the room itself. In the midst of her turmoil, she tried to at the very least deduce who this person could very well be. The voice itself made this especially difficult to discern with how unnaturally mechanical it was sounding, which left only those with motives as her options.

Immediately her mind shot back to both Chris and Josh, and their penchant for being jokesters and pulling pranks. Sure they had pranked her before but this? This had to be going too far and even they had to know that! As for the others like Ashley, Jessica, Emily, even Mike and Matt; they had their moments but nothing at all could push them to want to do this! To her even! Who would even want to do this to her at all? Who could have it out for her so badly that they would-

And just like that, Sam's mind was brought back to one person. Back when she and Chris were coming up to the lodge via the cable car station, and the poster they had seen. It was a wanted poster with someone's face ripped off, but it was someone all the same. Someone that allegedly had been seen creeping around these mountains and maybe even stalking the Washingtons for quite some time. She couldn't recall the exact name of the person listed on the poster but there was little other option here; it had to be the same person! This guy was a creepy psychopath and she had to get out and find the others to let them know!

In the middle of her mental panic, she turned her head back to the screen to find that it no longer held the invasive video footage of her. Instead, it had changed to something else entirely.

"Josh-!?" she exclaimed.

The footage now playing before her did in fact feature the boy in question. In sharp contrast to his troubled yet gentle eyes that she was so used to looking back at her with, this time they were wide open in pure panic, terror, and pain. This was coupled with the screaming she could hear him making; the absolutely bloody murder that he was screaming, it only further chilled Sam to her core.

Until she saw the blood.

"How does it make you feel?" the voice could be heard saying, but Sam almost didn't register it. In between her own screams in response to seeing a massive circular saw blade! Dark red blood practically erupted from his midsection where the blade effortlessly carved through his body. In the midst of his own screaming his voice began to become more blood gargled as well. She could feel her very blood chilling in pure terror by now as she watched unwillingly. This couldn't be happening; this just couldn't be happening! She was just talking with Josh a few minutes ago, and now... Now he was gone?! This guy had killed him?!

"Oh my god- what did you DO?!" she exclaimed. Sam became acutely aware of the slight stinging in her eyes. They were beginning to tear up from having seen what had just happened to her friend. One of her best friends in fact that this maniac was displaying to her as if it were a personal achievement. Thus, she took a quick moment to rub her eyes with the forearm of the hand that held the flashlight, until the voice could be heard again.

"I'm going to give you ten seconds."

Sam brought her arms down instantly and her eyes shot open with alarm and worry. Did he just say ten seconds? Ten seconds to what? What was he going to do? What was about to happen-

"Nine..."

Yet again she was caught off guard by the voice suddenly starting his countdown. Her heartbeat and breathing were both running at like a mile a minute by this point. She snapped her head around to various places of the cinema room on instinct and she found herself back up towards the stone wall behind her.

"What-?!" she breathed, "No no..."

"Eight..."

"No no no no..."

"Seven..."

Sam clutched the side of her head with her free hand as she clenched her eyes shut. This was a bad dream, a nightmare! It had to be! She just had to wake up! WAKE UP!

"PLEASE, NO-!"

Her world suddenly exploded in sound, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Sam screamed as she caught sight of the cinema's dual doors practically bursting open. While that in itself weren't enough, seeing who exactly was standing in the doorway looked like something straight out of a nightmare.

A figure stood in the doorway, most likely a man. He was dressed in denim overalls, a blue plaid shirt, and thick gloves on. However, it was his face that Sam was truly horrified with upon seeing. That had to be a mask he was wearing, but that didn't make anything less reassuring. It was a pure white colored face mask with deep, cracked sockets where the eyes would be, and a whole section broken off around the mouth area to reveal teeth and gums.

"Sam..." the voice from earlier could be heard again. This time however there was no mistaking that it was coming from this person right now, despite his mouth of the mask not moving at all. This man most definitely had to be this psycho! The one that from what he just showed her had killed Josh and likely wouldn't have a single qualm about doing anything just as bad or worse to her, right here and now!

The Psycho lumbered forward a few steps across the door's threshold, his footsteps thudding across the carpeted floor with each step. The closer he stepped into the light of the room the easier it was to see the specific item he held in his hand. Some sort of cylindrical object held by the base of its neck; the man dragged the gas can with him next to his leg without it dragging across the ground.

Sam took many steps backward herself, desperate to put distance between herself and this guy as she could. She didn't know exactly what that gas can was filled with, and she didn't care to know. The only thing that mattered was getting the hell out of here!

"Sam...?" the man spoke again. The way he craned his neck as he called out to her as well, it sent yet another chill of fear running down Sam's spine. She was not about to stick around and let this guy do whatever he wanted with her! But where could she go? The doorway directly in front of her was out of the question since the man was standing within it, blocking the way.

In the midst of her frantic breathing, Sam glanced out of the corner of her eye to the right. There on the right-side wall of the cinema room was another door! That had to be her chance to get out of here! If she could just-

Sam let out a yelp of surprise at finding the man was taking more steps towards her during her moment of thought. On instinct she grabbed the closest object near her, which turned out to be a small ceramic vase positioned on a display pedestal. She hastily cocked her hand back and tossed the vase at the man before turning to the right and bolting for the door.

"Gah! Shut up!" she cried as she ran. Behind her she heard the sound of shattering, but she had no way of knowing if that bought her any sufficient time or not. It didn't matter anyway; what did matter was if this door in front of her was unlocked.

Gripping the doorknob, she practically twisted it with all her might before finding it easily yielded to her at all. With that she pushed the door open and threw herself forward with little regard for what she was to find on the other side.

"Shit..." she breathed as she ran, "Shit shit shit...!" Adrenaline practically pumped through her veins as she ran through the hallway. The ice cold of the wooden floor beneath her was barely even registered. The only thing that mattered was getting away!

With pure instinct as her guide, she grabbed the doorknob of the first door she came before and threw it open. She slipped inside and closed the door behind her. Maybe the maniac didn't have enough time to see where she had run off to, but Sam wasn't about to take that chance. She needed to put as much distance between herself and him as she could.

With that she turned around to actually see where she stood in. From the single bed in the center of the room, she found herself in the guest room. One look and a shining of the flashlight upon the bed itself proposed an idea of sorts; she could potentially hide underneath that bed. Maybe the psycho wouldn't see her under there?

As she ducked down to view under the bed herself, the door behind her suddenly slammed open. Sam yelped to find that the Psycho had already caught up with her! As he lumbered forward to grab her Sam herself practically flew forward towards the bed. However rather than slip herself underneath it like she planned, she vaulted herself over the bed. Her free hand she kept a firm hold on the top of the towel to keep it in place as she performed the leap. In the process she managed to glance back behind her to find that the Psycho was still lumbering towards her, that strange metallic canister still in his right hand. Sam quickly threw open the door on the opposite wall and dashed out.

The hallway bent at an angle to the left however, with a nearby window casting its shaded light upon the floor seemingly in the direction she needed to run. With a hand planted firmly on the towel's top and her flashlight held straight out to guide her, Sam ran down the darkened hallway of the Washington's lodge. Where was she going now? Where could she go? And wherever she did go, how could she be certain this guy wouldn't catch her? Each question that flashed in her mind only made her heartbeat faster, in addition to the running she was doing.

Temporary relief came in the form of an open door, directly in front of her. As Sam slowed her run down to just in front of the door, she quickly realized that this door in fact led to the basement! The one place she told herself she did not want to return to this evening! However, a quick glance back behind her showed that the Psycho had already exited the guest bedroom and was making his way towards her! Screw preferences: she'd just have to try and lose him down here!

Her bare feet shivered once more upon rapidly stepping down the stone steps. Sam's eyes darted up and down between watching where she was going and where her feet were stepping. In fact, she was thankful for having done this as that one broken stone step had seemingly appeared out of nowhere beneath her foot!

Thinking quickly Sam stretched her leg out further to overstep the broken stone step. This of course caused her to essentially jump down further to the base level of the steps entirely. With the forward momentum though she held her flashlight hand out to catch herself from colliding straight into the stone wall in front of her. She felt a quick exhale of breath from her lungs from the extraneous effort, but aside from that she remained relatively in control.

Not even bothering to look up and see her pursuer, Sam then dashed down the remaining stone steps and into the dimly lit basement hallway. The lights above her flickered erratically, as if in rhythm with her own erratic heartbeat. She was once again met with the familiar feeling of darkness from being in this basement. This time however she had more than enough reason to feel absolutely terrified, panicked, as well as vulnerable.

Upon passing the wooden shelves that separated the boiler from immediate view, Sam suddenly came to a halt. Her breathing came hard and heavy as she forced herself to stop it for a moment. With focused hearing, she heard the familiar sound of heavy footsteps from behind her. There was no doubt the Psycho was directly behind her and following her into the basement! And this time, there was little else that she could run to! He'd essentially have her cornered!

"What do I do? What do I do?" she practically scream-whispered to herself. Whatever she had to do she needed to do it fast!

Turning to the right her eyes caught sight of the massive boiler itself. The machine still rumbled with the sounds of activity within it, which only meant it was still on. Maybe... If she ducked down into that space that was right next to the boiler and kept quiet, she could potentially stay hidden from the Psycho! Then she could slip past him and get out of this basement; maybe even lock him down here! It was worth a try, but Sam had to act now!

Sam quickly but deftly made her way in between the walk-in space where she and Josh had worked earlier and backed herself up against one of the stone pillars. Finally stationary, she tried her best to regulate her breathing to not sound so loud and hard. There was little she could do about her heartbeat, but here's hoping this guy couldn't exactly hear that himself.

With her focused hearing, she could hear the man's heavy footsteps growing louder. Each step echoing the confined space seemed to ring louder in her ears. She could feel her own heart growing heavier with fear with each step taken. Her eyes remained glued to the space that she had entered from; between the small glow of light from that entrance and the strange source of light that was next to her-

Sam snapped to attention as she suddenly realized her flashlight was still turned on! Hastily she clicked the button on the device so that she was surrounded in complete darkness again.

Just then the footsteps behind her, once loud and deafening, came to a halt, just on the other side of the partition...

"Sam... why are you hiding?"

The Psycho's unnaturally filtered voice echoed through the space of the basement. That scary, almost demonic voice... It was coming from just on the other side of this wall! And the question he was posing; did he know where she was? Did he know that she was in fact trying to hide and was simply mocking her?

Heart pounding hard in her chest underneath her towel, Sam held her pose as deathly still as she could. He couldn't possibly know where she was, and her best chance at proving that was to remain as still as a statue as she could. After all it's not like he had a flashlight and could see where she was. He might overlook where she was if she just kept still long enough. Sam could start to feel sweat pouring off of her forehead and all along her upper body. Ever so slightly she craned her neck to the side to allow her eyes to look through one of the wooden shelves.

The Psycho stood there, in plain view. He was just standing in the center of the entry hall to the basement, turning his head in various spots in front of him. From her angle she had on him she could see the strange strands of black hair that poured off of the back of his head. While his hair did in fact look creepy, what mattered to her right now was his face. As long as his face wasn't turned in her direction specifically, there was no way he could see where she was.

"Sam...?" the Psycho called out again, "Why prolong the inevitable?"

Footsteps soon followed after him speaking, and Sam could feel her heart start to race again. His head disappeared from the view she had of him, and she began to fear the worst. Her gaze snapped up to the very edge of the partition where she hid behind, knowing that it was the only other place he could go if he ever meant to catch her. This meant that if she did see anyone appear from around that corner, she'd most definitely be seen.

Movement was seen and Sam almost let out a scream, until she looked closer. What she could in fact see was only the back side of the Psycho, standing more in the center of the basement and looking inwards. All the while his gaze was clearly focused off of her own self. Sam clamped her mouth shut to suppress whatever noise would've surely given her away. The only noises that did fill the basement right now were the strange breathing sounds that the Psycho was making. The way it too sounded so mechanically filtered made him sound like he was some cancer patient, or someone restricted to a breathing device.

From the way he was scanning this basement area, it didn't appear that he had any idea where she was at the moment, which was the good news. Unfortunately, the bad news was that he was still standing too close to the edge of the partition. She would never be able to sneak around and past him without being seen. For there to be any hope of her escaping, she'd have to wait for him to move further and out of the way.

With that she very slowly and carefully crouched further to the ground. Her free hand kept a tight hold on the top of her towel to keep it from slipping due to the motion she was doing.

"Why kid yourself into thinking you can get away?" the Psycho's voice echoed yet again. In addition, a small clinking sound could be heard. Sam slowly looked up to see motion from the man. He was clanking his cylinder and some weird mouthpiece together in almost rhythmic motion, "Don't you know I can smell you, Sam...? I can smell your fear...!"

Seriously, there was only so much terrifying, so much demeaning, so much creeping stuff that a girl could handle in one night! What was with this guy?! Was he getting off on tormenting her like this?!

Well, it didn't matter. Once he had moved out of the way, Sam would make a run for it. She would carefully sneak around the partition's corner and dash back up to the basement's door. She remembered earlier she'd seen Josh lock this door from the outside too. And even if this guy had some means to break down a locked door from in this basement, she'll already have found a more secure hiding place to hole up in-

"There you are!"

Sam's eyes and mouth widened in absolute terror. The coldest chill ran down her entire body as she saw the Psycho suddenly spin around in place. That creepy mask and its even creepier eyes were somehow bearing straight towards her!

"Oh, FUCK-!" Sam exclaimed. Screw trying to hide; she had to run!

She instantly rose to her feet to try and run around the Psycho, but the man held his outstretched arm out in her pathway before she had a chance to change direction. Before she knew it she was being held in his embrace with him at her back. The same arm that held her also held that strange mouthpiece in its hand. Only while she was up close and personal with him could she see that it was one of those medical mouthpieces that doctors used to administer gas to patients.

"No NO-!" she cried out as she tried to wiggle from his grip. The man was shocking strong however and the mouthpiece was brought closer and closer to her own mouth and nose. No matter how much she struggled she couldn't free herself from him. His unrelenting grip on her might as well have been made of pure iron. With little chance to wrest herself from his grip, her free hand flailed all around to the side...

Until something brushed by her fingers. Something hard, cylindrical, and made of wood. It was then that she remembered the bat! The baseball bat that she had found and showed to Josh from earlier! It was still here! A quick thanks to Providence or God or whatever allowed for this good fortune, as Sam was not about to let this go to waste!

Sam's fingers clamped down hard on the bat, just as the mouthpiece was fixed squarely over her nose and mouth by the Psycho's hand. The gas beginning to fill her nose and mouth smelt awful and she had no clue what that was, but she was not about to find out!

She brought her bat-bearing hand up hard up and over her head until she felt the satisfying thump if it hitting something. This was quickly accompanied by the Psycho himself letting out a quick grunt of pain and the mouthpiece falling from her mouth and nose. It worked! She was free from his grip and she could get away from him! She then let the bat clatter to the floor as she dashed across the room towards the doorway closest to her.

However, it was only after she had run well into the room did she realize what she had just done. Her plan was to run for the basement door upstairs, not to this side room! Where did this even lead anyway?! Her answer came in the form of a large wooden door directly before her, except with one glaring flaw.

"Wha- Are you kidding me? No HANDLE?!" she exclaimed. Her head shot back around to find the Psycho had shaken off being smacked in the head by a bat and was looking back up at her again. There was no time for second thoughts; she'd just have to bust this door down and hope for the best!

She cried out as she threw the strength of her shoulder into the door once. Her efforts rewarded her with the smallest creaking of the door's hinges, but that was it. For a moment Sam's heart dropped further in her chest at the thought that the door might not open at all.

What didn't help at all was her glancing back over her shoulder yet again towards the entrance to this little storage room. The Psycho could be seen darkening the threshold as he slowly lumbered towards her, canister and mouthpiece in hand. Sam's eyes widened as she spun back towards the door again. Blood and adrenaline practically running hot in her veins she threw herself at the door again with all her strength.

This time the door budged a little more inwards. A small crack between it and the threshold began to grow about the size of a finger to fit through. It was definitely working now! It had to work, otherwise she would no doubt get caught! She didn't even need to look over her shoulder to be reminded of how close the Psycho was getting to her by this point. Just one more good thrust into the door...!

With a thud and a heavy creaking of hinges, the door finally gave under Sam's thrusts. Summoning all the quick movement she could possibly muster she practically threw herself through the open crack in the door before spinning back around. The Psycho was right there, like directly on the other side of the door! A quick reach of his hand outwards and he could grab her! It was now or never!

With all her remaining strength Sam threw the door shut with a resounding thud. She stepped back a few feet to try and catch her breath until she realized something. The guy could just as easily force the door open as she did! There had to be a way to lock-

Her eyes snapped up to a small metallic deadbolt directly above doorknob on her side of the door. She quickly reached up and secured the bolt by sliding it out and into the catch on the threshold of the door.

No sooner had she done so however when a massive arm suddenly burst through the small rectangular peephole in the door!

"GAAAHHH!" she exclaimed as her heart nearly beat out of her chest, "Get OUT!" She reached up and grabbed the handle of the peephole on her side and pulled it to the right as hard as she could. She could feel resistance as it collided against the Psycho's arm as he briefly struggled to grab for the handle from his end. Maybe she could break his arm off if she pulled hard enough. Eventually the Psycho seemed to give up and pulled his arm back through onto his side, allowing Sam to close the peephole completely.

The door and the peephole both completely closed off, Sam felt herself taking a few cautious steps back away from the door. She kept her eyes glued on the massive wooden door for a solid handful of minutes, fearful that it might suddenly burst open again. The beam of light from the flashlight shined upon the door trembled along with her own shaking hand. However, the only thing that could be heard on the other side of the door was the familiar sound of thudding footsteps. After what felt like an eternity of staring at the door, Sam finally willed herself to turn her gaze away from it and focus on where she stood now.

A single light fixture hung from the center of the roof of this room, bathing the small space in a soft glow of white light. She could see various boxes and items stacked up against the surrounding walls and even a couple of pipes hanging from the ceiling. Just where she wanted to be: running away from a Psycho and into some even creepier storage room. She shook her head and slowly made her way forward towards a nearby door at the far end of the room. Best thing she could do now is keep moving; keep on moving and putting as much distance between her and the Psycho as she could. Her heart definitely wasn't feeling like it could take much more from how hard it was beating, but she had little choice at this point.

Upon reaching the door she gave the knob a quick twist to find that it too wouldn't budge to her hand. Figures that another door would be stubborn and refuse to open. It didn't matter she'd simply bust through this door like she did the last one! Though maybe she should be careful as her shoulder was starting to feel a little sore from having shoved it hard against the other door before.

Thus, she tensed the muscles in her shoulder and upper arm and threw herself-

"WHOA-!" Sam suddenly cried out. Unlike the last door this one actually gave way to her shoulder thrust more easily. A little too easily actually, as with the excess shoving power she exerted she ended up falling straight forward into the space directly outside!

At the same time Sam felt a sharp pain on the side of her head along with a jolting of her neck. Once she came to a full stop did she realize that she must have hit the side of her head against the wood of the floor.

"Oh, ow...!" she groaned as she raised a hand up to her face to rub the impact spot. She brought her fingers in front of her to inspect them instinctively. There wasn't any blood, so she wasn't cut or nothing. Perhaps all she'd be left with was a small bruise on the side of her head.

As she quickly scrambled to her feet, she felt a slight draft along her front. Her eyes widened to find that in the process of literally breaking down doors and crashing to the floor her towel had actually come loose! Seriously? She had been chased all around this lodge by a crazy man, nearly been man-handled by him, and THIS is what finally dislodges her towel from her body?

Thank goodness no one was around right now at least...

Tucking her flashlight under her armpit, her two free hands quickly set to work refixing her towel around her body, once again making her semi-decent again. She pulled her flashlight back into her hand and shone its light all around. In the process of 'breaking and entering' she was vaguely even aware of where she was even standing now!

Everywhere her flashlight illuminated with light, Sam was met with the sight of wood. Wooden walls, wooden floorboards, wooden boards covering up broken and rotting holes in nearby sheetrock. And from shining her flashlight out directly before her, she could see that she stood within a hallway of sorts that stretched out for a good twenty feet forward at least! What the actual heck was this place? Some creepy, rundown haunted house inside of a resort lodge?

Sam became acutely aware of how loud she was panting by this point. She proceeded to carefully make her way down this even creepier hallway. Who knows what was even down this way at this point? But as long as the Psycho was behind her, and not knowing exactly where she was, she felt a little more at ease. One less problem to add to her mountain of anxiety of terror at this point.

Eventually she reached the very end of the hallway itself to find it curved sharply to the left. Along the left side path, she found the hallway stretched out another ten feet or so, probably deeper towards some creepier part of this little funhouse she was in. Directly in front of her was a small assortment of wooden tables with fragile looking chairs stacked on top of them.

However, it was what she saw to the right that drew her attention. Illuminated by a glow of light by some source up above, Sam could see an elevator shaft with the car itself raised halfway up. The bars of the car were closed off, while below the car was an opened space. A space that looked rather big enough for someone to squeeze through. Someone of her size even.

Memories quickly flooded back into her mind of the last time she attempted to hide. She did everything right; she kept still, she didn't make a sound, she didn't even breathe! And yet still this guy was able to find her just like that! Would it really be a good idea to try hiding from him again?

Something could be heard from behind. Sam caught herself from yelping out loud as she spun around to look behind her. Although distant, the familiar sound of footsteps could be heard from way back in the storage room at the end of the hallway. The Psycho! He must have gotten through the door and was on his way towards her again! She couldn't stay here; she had to move, to do something!

"Oh crap...! Crap...!" she silently whimpered. Sweat pouring off of her forehead, Sam's eyes darted back and forth between the two options laid out before her. This elevator shaft was closest to her in terms of running towards and she could try hiding again, or she could keep running onwards down the hallway and hoped she came across something else to help her.

Whatever her decision, she had to choose now! The footsteps were growing louder...!

"Oh fuck... Fuck!"

Adrenaline fueling her body once again, Sam dashed towards the right-side elevator shaft. Hiding had to work this time; it just had to!

She first brought herself down to peer underneath the raised elevator car. Shining her flashlight within, she could see the stonework comprising the entire shaft. But more importantly, there was in fact a 'ground' below, about a few feet or so from the wooden ground she currently walked on! There was a chance! She actually could hide inside this shaft from the Psycho! No more thinking about it; she had to act!

She could hear the distant footsteps echoing against what she hoped wasn't actual wood boards as she brought herself lower to the ground. This time she didn't even bother looking over her shoulder to verify anything. Her hand holding her towel squarely in place and her feet slipped over the edge of the shaft, she dropped herself down and landed on harsh stone with a small grunt. This time she quickly turned her flashlight off and let herself be bathed in pure darkness this time.

Sam as well held her breath to prevent any sounds from escaping her mouth. The sound of footsteps grew ever louder now, and even from within a stone shaft Sam could hear them echo. With her breath being held as it was, both the sound of the footsteps thumping and her own heartbeat pounding in her chest were practically the loudest things Sam could hear at the moment. The way they just thumped completely out of rhythm, and so loudly... Sam wanted it to stop! She wanted it all to stop! She wanted to wake up from this nightmare! That's all this had to be: a terrible nightmare!

And just like that, the thumping of the footsteps came to a stop. Sam almost let go of her held breath in surprise, but she maintained control as best as she was able. For a handful of seconds, only silence could be heard from atop the shaft's ledge and into the hallway. Sam was almost tempted to peer up and look for herself. Maybe what she had heard wasn't even there, and she was only hearing things. That is until she did hear something...

"Here, kitty kitty... here, pussy pussy...!"

The Psycho was definitely here! He was outside in the hallway, and from how close his voice sounded, he might actually have been right next to her hiding spot! Oh God, this was just like before! He was right next to her, and he'd find her! Somehow he'd find her! She shouldn't have come here, she should've run! Maybe she could've gotten away if she'd put more distance between her and him!

This was it, this was really it, wasn't it? She was going to die or something, at the hands of some Psycho-

"FUCK!"

Wait, what? 'Fuck'?

Sam was almost taken aback by what she'd heard just now. Did this guy just say that? Why the heck would that come out of his mouth? Didn't he know where she was and was about to grab her?

Before Sam could ponder this any further, the sound of footsteps was heard again. For a moment she thought that he was resuming his pursuit of her, until she listened in further and... they were going away? The footsteps were growing fainter?

"What... what...?" she muttered as she let go of her held breath. What just happened? Did she... did she actually elude him? Her heart began to beat harder as she realized there'd be only one way to find out. She first listened to the ever-fading footsteps to make sure they were in fact growing fainter. Eventually, she could no longer hear them at all, and all she was left with was the sound of her own frantic breathing and her drumming heart filling her ears.

Very slowly, she turned herself around and raised herself to standing position. Her eyes peered over the top of the shaft's ledge to see...

Nothing.

He was gone! He was really gone! She really had given him the slip!

Sam fell back to crouching position on her legs and let out the longest sigh of relief she'd ever done before. Her heart continued to run at a mile a minute and her breathing was still crazy erratic. But for the first time in what felt like forever tonight, she felt a tad bit safer. Even the chill of the elevator shaft wasn't nipping at her as hard anymore; not while there was some hot blood running through her veins to keep her warmed up...!


-Holy crap! This is by far one of if not THE longest chapters I have ever written, in any story and at any point in my life! I really hope I delivered on this one! Guess you can see why this chapter took as long as it did, eh?

But anyway, stay tuned for more chapters, I've got more one the way; keep on reading! -