Hello again! So I'm just telling you that I'm trying to get Drew into a "Update on the 1st of every month" schedule, and hopefully the 15th, too, if we stop being so lazy. But we're both lazy people, so... Failure. Well, she needs to stop being lazy. I can only start work when she finishes. Because, what we do while writing this is: 1st: She writes a chapter, explains what happens, etc. 2nd: She sends it to me. 3rd: I rewrite it so it doesn't suck (We both agree that her chapters suck. They're about 500 words, at the most, and have the bare minimum detail. I'm not just being mean to her.) 4th: I post it on here for you other people to read. So... I guess that's all. I really just wanted to tell you that I was proposing/forcing us onto a schedule.

Oh, and sorry that our chapters are really short, but, as I said, I create 2,398 words out of Drew's 432. That's annoying to do.

Bye, and enjoy the chapter!

Aaron soon found himself curled up in a ball on the ground, clutching his head as if it'd explode if he didn't. It hurt. His head was throbbing, although he was unsure about if it was because of that weird siren, or falling to the ground.

His eyes were squeezed shut. Opening them, he tried to look around. It was dark. Too dark to see anything. Was it this dark before? I don't think it was… In the utter pitch-blackness, Aaron sat up and fumbled for his flashlight and the pipe he had found outside this hospital. At least he thought he was still in the hospital. He hoped, anyway. After only a few moments of looking like a fool, fumbling around for his flashlight, he found it in front of him.

Turning it on, Aaron looked around the hospital. The shape of the lobby was the same. But something was off. Something very obvious was different. Aaron struggled to his feet.

The once clean, white of lobby floor has been replaced for a….. Grating? It was a dark grey color with spots of rust, and something else that he couldn't place. He leaned over to take a closer look at the floor to find what the other splotches were. Aaron grimaced in disgust as he quickly pulled back. Blood… This can't be good…

Standing straight up again, Aaron glanced around. There didn't seem to be as much fog hindering his eyesight anymore, but the scenery around him made Aaron almost wish that ominous mist would return if it would shroud his eyes from this horror.

Aaron ran for the door he came through, but it wasn't….. Anywhere. It was gone. He looked towards the front door. The glass door was smashed to pieces. Aaron would be shredded to pieces if he went through that door, and he could see that the entire town had turned to a hell, and facing an entire town that was covered in rust, blood, and things that probably wanted to kill him didn't seem very appealing to him.

He felt a strange pulling sensation, similar to the key he'd found for the side entrance. It pulled him to look up. Aaron complied with the sensation, jerking his head up, only to be horrified at what he'd found. A photo of a woman. Short black hair, green-gray eyes (the same shade as his), a soft, tired smile, lightly blushed cheeks, glossed lips, and light rose pink eye shadow.

Aaron knew that demon, no matter how much he wished he didn't. He held his hand over his mouth in shock, his knees feeling as though they'd give out if he didn't make a conscious effort to keep standing. He shook his head as if to free himself from her grasp on his mind. He'd have to deal with that later. It wasn't as urgent as finding a way to turn the world back to way it should be.

He backed up, fearful of what this world would hold, if the original world had already had demons, like the one in the convenience store. He bit his lip and lifted the pipe ready to strike anything that intended to hurt him.

He continued to wander until he saw a shape. It wasn't human. It couldn't be. It was a mass of flesh, just like the other one was, although it ended in something that seemed, even, ghostly. It was leaned over, head down, hands seeming almost tied together, although this monster was bowing in apology. It couldn't be human. It wasn't moving. It wasn't tied up, no. It could move, but it didn't. It just stood there.

Aaron readied his new weapon and slowly approached the creature, against the voice in his head screaming at him so loud he could swear his ears would bleed. He continued to approach it.

It noticed him. The seemingly apologetic form flipped over into a bridge of sorts. Its arms detached from each other. The creature quickly turned around and Aaron saw it.

Its face was…. Creepy, to say the very least. It had two holes where its eyes should've been, and its mouth… The entire lower half of its head was its mouth. The arms, previously clenched together, were unfurled, and Aaron could see the three long claws that made up the hand.

With Aaron in its sight, it began to rush towards him. It was faster than Aaron knew he could be in a bridge, but still slow enough for Aaron to be able to smash its skull, if it had one, with his large metal pipe. He hit the creature a few more times, until it collapsed onto the grating. He felt almost pride swell up that he killed it, but that pride died when it began to squirm. He felt he needed to do something certain to make sure it didn't hurt him again. He stomped on the form a couple times; he dug his heel into where its rib cage would be until he felt confident it would not come back from the dead (or was it already dead when I first saw it? What are these things anyway? I call them demons but…).

He backed up and turned around, only to be confronted with that terrible photograph above the doorway. Aaron screamed. It was too much. Aaron hadn't screamed since he was eight years old. He'd thought he'd already gone through enough of a hell for this life. Why was he going through one again? This hadn't gotten too bad. Nothing could ever match up to the pain he's gone through already. He and his sister had already gone through so much of it; why did the world decide they deserved this, too?

His sister. His sister was lost in this hellish hospital, too. As was that girl. No. No. No. NO! I can't let them get hurt! I… I just can't! Aaron screamed in his mind and ran to the reception desk. Maybe he'd find a map of this hospital there. Looking on the desk seemed to prove even more useful than he could've thought. Looking on the desk revealed a handgun, almost identical to the one he'd already found, except the coloring was different and it wasn't in his sister's hands. He had also found a map, like he'd wanted. Aaron grabbed the map. He skimmed over the map. It didn't seem to be a map of this hospital; the lobby wasn't on the map, proving the map useless at the moment, but he pocketed it anyway. He looked over the desk and felt a pull to a large hole behind the desk. Jumping over the desk didn't prove to be too hard, but he almost felt bad for tracking the blood of that creature onto the desk.

He looked down the hole. This was a bad idea if he'd ever had one. But he had to go down. He risked his life for his sister enough, that if she died now, it would feel like he had done so much for nothing. He jumped.

Apparently the hole wasn't as deep as he expected, seeing as it wasn't too hard to land on his feet. He was in a strange…. Tunnel of sorts. He looked behind him. Apparently he could only go forward, and he did so, running. After running for a while (a long enough time to leave him breathless), he came to a ladder leading up.

He climbed up the ladder, which lead him to a series of hallways. It was a hospital again. He could, somehow, tell, maybe from the almost hopeless atmosphere. Aaron ran down the hallways, leading him towards one of those monsters from earlier. He checked his gun. It had ammo already, and, remembering that this certain creature only attacked if he got near it, he decided long-ranged weapons were the way to go with them. He shot at it. And again. Three, four, five shots and it was down. Aaron ran to it, stomped heavily and began to search for his sister again.

He threw open each door he came to, and in a couple of the rooms, there were ammo. Even some ammo for a shotgun. He vaguely wondered why there was random ammo lying around this place (Really! Isn't this a hospital?), but didn't care enough to look into it. Aaron needed to find Roxanne. No matter what. He also found some first-aid kits, and a couple 'Health Drink's as they flaunted on their label. Aaron didn't really trust them too much. He picked them up anyway. At least he could throw them at monsters if it was corrosive acid like he had the feeling it was. He continued running down the hallways until a sound caught his attention.

GGAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

A scream pierced the air. As an instinctual reaction, Aaron quickly jerked his head to the side in the direction the scream sounded from, finding a corridor, and with a quick glance, soon noticed a humanoid shadow with a medium-long something that got a little larger as it moved farther from the body, and a shadow that Aaron could recognize as one of the monsters that flipped over. Aaron lifted the gun that he'd found towards the one he recognized as a monster and shot four times until it dropped. Aaron lifted his gun again towards the other shadow and shot at it. Apparently, the shot missed.

But then something…. Different happened. The shadow seemed to have dropped the medium-long something and took off running. As Aaron got closer, he found that it was an aluminum baseball bat with strange characters (Like the ones on the pipe) that read something Aaron couldn't decipher.

Aaron picked up the bat and swung it a couple times. It seemed like it'd already had been used to attack a couple of these creatures. Aaron then realized, with a fair amount of shock that the scream wasn't of anything of the same species as the dead creature at his feet.

It was another human. Another possible ally. Another person with some sense that would understand his situation. Recognizing this as a chance, Aaron sprinted off in the direction that the other had gone. As the corridor began to get more and more doors, Aaron continued kicking in each and every one of them to find this other until he reached a door already opened.

Walking in, bat set over his shoulder, ready to swing, Aaron heard something that sounded like a whimper. Leaning over to check under the table, he was met with a head of mussed up, grayed hair with strange chunks of the color green, as though the hair was dyed green, but the green was disappearing. Then again, Aaron pondered, it's strange enough that this kid has gray hair. And Aaron meant it. This kid was, at least, three years younger than Aaron, making him, with gray hair, seventeen—At most!

Aaron poked the teen's back, making him jerk his body around.

Aaron was met with frightened blue eyes, with large, dark bags underneath. His face seemed as though he were crying, which seemed to be true, as the boy's pale eyes were watered, his face red, and a small, quick hiccup escaped him every few seconds.

"It's okay, it'll be okay," Aaron attempted to sooth the boy with simple words used for any situation. Not quite appropriate for when you're in a town filled with strange demons that all want to kill you. Aaron fought back the weak urge to chuckle when he realized that, but was stopped when he heard a trembling voice pipe up.

"Are…. Are you human? Please, tell me you're human…" The younger boy timidly asked Aaron, squeezing his eyes shut, hands over his head, and knees up against his chest, not seeming to even bear to look if Aaron told him no.

"Y-yeah. My name is Aaron. Aaron Owens. You?" Aaron suddenly found himself out of breath, in shock of this new-found ally. One who knew how to speak, no less!

"D-Drew. Rowlands. Drew Rowlands." Drew opened his eyes, a hopeful gleam lighting the sky-blue eyes that no one could deny was cute, although tainted by the large bags under. Drew's small mouth twisted into a tiny smile.

Drew got out from under the table and began to rub his hand over Aaron's outline, although checking to make sure the blonde weren't an illusion of sorts. Drew seemed to have the movements down, as though he were used to checking this sort of thing. After he was completely sure, Drew finally believed the reality of Aaron and hugged him in a way that proved that he couldn't care less about masculinity anymore.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," Drew continued to whisper, to no one in particular. Aaron smiled, happy to find someone to go through this hell with him, but….

Drew quickly let go, stopped speaking, stopped smiling, and, overall, just stopped showing any proof that he were alive other than that he were standing and breathing. Aaron stood there, intrigued by the teenager's sudden change of heart, and shocked when he turned and sprinted away at full speed.

"D-Drew! Drew!" Aaron screeched after the younger boy until he was out of Aaron's sight. Aaron's jaw dropped and his face froze in disappointment as he came to the realization that the only person so far that seemed to have any sanity had just run down the corridor to God-knows-where.

"Do you at least want your bat?" Aaron whispered, breathlessly, to seemingly no one, although it was directed at Drew. After just standing in disappointed shock for a couple minutes, Aaron began to hear a strange sound.

Static? Why is there static? Aaron searched for the source of the static and found a small, pocket radio. Why is this emitting static? Why am I picking it up? Aaron realized in shock that he had just put the radio in his pocket. The pulling sensation from this item was the strongest that he'd encountered yet. So strong, Aaron didn't even notice he'd taken it at first. Sighing in resignation to this weird, dream-like place, Aaron turned to the door to continue a search for his sister. That was the only important thing at the moment. He could have his sanity checked later.