Down the Drain

A trail of bloody footprints led from the shadows across to an iron door. If it wasn't locked I might've continued through, driven on by my sick curiosity. Beyond the safety of a secured door could await dangers the same as the hall I was now in, but I couldn't afford not to check. The thought alone brought chills to my spine, that behind any door a new danger could await. How far could I run before I was caught? In this place I welcomed broken lights.

I returned to the lit path now on my left, were another of the countless slain of this place rested. Briefly, I looked over his body, maybe he had a card or something I could use later. The nametag read Doug Jenkins, he was high level security, probably down here to regain control and lost himself in the process. He had no weapons, but he was grasping a walkie talkie. From that I salvage two batteries, there was a chance they would have no power given the drafty chill that slunk in through every corridor.

As I continued through the broken segregation gate, I realized this was where that camera shy freak had made his scene. I was glad he seemed to be gone, but his absence was discomforting. Nothing had changed since I left this area, the gate still locked, but the floor along my right had shattered from some climatic event. A thin edge of cement remained, enough for me to strafe along I gambled. It looked sturdy enough with rebar exposed at the crumbling edge, the drop wasn't far enough to hurt if I did manage to fall.

The Asylum was shut down years ago, and degraded to a condemned state before the Murkoff Corpotration reopened it for their research. They didn't even bother with the minimal of repairs to maintain it, they barely shoveled out the collapsed ruble from walls and floors. I could just picture the memo

All staff must use Cell 52-E to reach the other side of the upper floors

I began to wonder if some of the patients locked away were ever looked in on, or if Murkoff only focused on those used in their research. Even a doomed dog was fed up until he was put down. Those affiliated with Murkoff were some of the lowest of the lowest bastards out there.

Carefully I slide my back along the rough wall and tested my weight on what remained of the walkway. It felt more than sturdy, as I continued to slink along little by little. I tried to focus on my footing and not get distracted by the lost souls, locked in their broken routine. The man that had been smashing his skull against the walls had sat down and, I think he was mumbling to himself while he persisted to crack the side of his head on the corner of a pillar.

They could have easily killed me, the opportunity was still there should they decide to pursue - hunt me down. But the humane side of me felt sickened to the core. Something about this, everything that was done here, the way they were left, was all wrong. If there was a way to escape Mount Massive, why had they not left this place? Or had others already fled? The Warrant for Seizure indicated so, before all of this came about.

When I reached the other side, I barely recalled the twins and their sick promise. They were absent.

"You, ah, didn't wait until I finished." I sprang back as the man from the room I omitted to shut, sprang across the distance and shoved at the door. "But I saved some for you. Just wait." He turned and skipped down the steps like a jolly school boy, his voice full of merriment. "Just wait…Mm! Hmm!"

Maybe I should have shut his door AND propped the little chair in front of it, for good measure.

The open hall behind me was the only available route. The lights above had failed in this section, but I could make out dark blood splatters scrawled on the wall across from me, illuminated by an open door. I wanted to avoid using the cameras NV as much as possible, but odd sounds were nearby somewhere in the dark. Beside me was a set of bars, but pressed against them 'gazing' up at me was another discarded man tied up in a straightjacket with bindings coiled about his mouth and eyes.

It was easy to feel sorry for him, and attempt to undo the cruelty done to him. But my instincts warned me to hold my ground, and this time I listened. The worst killers of our world could feign normalcy, but the soil in their basement could conceal the bodies of many duped by this illusion. I easily recognized a makeshift muzzle.

From this point on I burned it into my thoughts, if I didn't I was damned. Speak with no one. Trust no one. EVERYONE wanted to kill me in some way. The MHS cop warned me to hide, well I could fuckin hide.

Ahead, someone, probably their 'Father' Martin, scrawled a new message for me in red.

God annoys…

I blinked and read again.

God Always Provides a Way.

Follow the blood

Below the wording was a red streak, another wide mark was on the ground leading into some sort of pressurized chamber. The interior was lined with what looked like foil or thermal material of some type, most likely a fire retardant. I examined the large pipes that ran along the upper corners, connecting into pressurized caps. As I entered my attention dropped to the floor, where there was a pair of bloody shoeprints I recognized. The door hissed shut upon my entry and a shriek of hydraulics spooked me. My mind flashed to Auschwitz, death camps and gas chambers. I knew at once this wasn't to be my demise, it was a light chemical spray to sterilize the air. Though it did manage to stall my heart for a second.

Once the pumps ceased, the opposite door opened and I stepped out. I was still shaken, but continued on without hitch. Another broken segregation gate and beyond that stairs that curled up and around leading to the next floor. Behind the first set of steps lay the crushed pieces of a wheelchair, I ducked to check behind them for anything valuable to my progress but there was nothing, aside from more low key patient files discussing prescriptions for the none volatile class. The sounds of muttering came to me, and I took the concrete steps softly gazing up at the floor above.

On the wall was a large arrow indicating my route, I touched the edge to certify the blood was fresh, still sliding down the brick wall. A large plate read A Block. The Block I just came from was B Block. Good to know.

The voice grew louder, and echoed as I made the first landing. Another locked grate, but an area I was excused from exploring.

Continuing up the steps I could pick up an overbearing reek of old copper, along with the source of the voice. Another emaciated patient scooted sideways, pressing his knuckles into the weathered cement wall until he had worn the skin away leaving bloody smears.

"Down the drain. With the blood, he said." He seemed fully lost in the wall and strafed right, then left, repeating his words. "Only way out is down the drain."

Behind him slouched against the wall was what looked like a doctor, he was dressed in thick white scrubs stained black with blood. My shoes squelched in the fluid as I neared him, and I turned my eyes back to the patient as he continued with his song and dance. I raised the camera and filmed his jargon, then turned to the dead man. It looked as though he had been sliced in multiple areas and all his blood poured out onto the floor, I stepped over the puddle and looked into a crimson bucket across from him filled completely with the thick black clumps.

My stomach did a flip and I retreated to the far side of the hall, another dead end blocked with crap. I sat down on the desk to gather myself while I watched the patient shuffle and repeat. "Down the drain," he said. I took a shallow breath through my collar and exhaled.

This reminded me of the dead man I found in the lavatory, with "Witness" painted on the wall above him. Down the drain. With the blood. I guess I knew where all the blood scribbles came from. It was never a mystery in the first place.

There was another file on the desk beside me. I checked my friend before I turned to the folder and did my best to record the pages with the night vision.

From: .com

To: .com

Subject: Patient Art Program / PATIENT "FATHER" MARTIN ARCHIMBAUD

Helen-

Dr. Zeichner gave me your info to contact regarding the cancelation of the arts program. My patient, Martin Archimbaud, has made enormous strides in his therapy on account of his finger painting. Just in the week since canceling the arts program, his schizoaffective assertions of some "higher calling" have accelerated enormously. Please, just let the man finger paint. The few dollars you're saving on temper paint is more than swallowed by the cost of Clozapine. I can't imagine the logic at play here, unless Murkoff WANTS our patients to become more disengaged from reality.

Please advise.

Dr. Neil Wolfram

Martin Archimbaud. Yep, sounded like my guy. It felt good to know for certain he was the one leaving all these messages for me.

Fuck you Murkoff. Why couldn't you just let the man finger paint? It would have saved so many lives.

My heel slipped in the blood as I tried to step over it, but I caught myself before I could lose my balance. I shuffled along the floor following a set of bare feet prints stained thick with blood leading along the same route, to a hole in the concrete and rebar where the drooping arrow on the wall directed my path down into it.

"With the blood, he said."

Sighing, I eased myself down the opening and looked around. Another corridor, blood stained floor, walls eroded and bleached, the usual. Furniture was crammed down the way with dark streaks across the surface, and another pressurized chamber with blood indicating through a sealed door.

I took note that this was the room I had seen from the other side of the gate, and cursed my bad luck colorfully.

The door failed to open on my approach, it was either locked due to malfunction or just flat out locked. There should be a way around, but the path marked out for me was through there. I wouldn't rationalize following a blood trail left by a psychotic 'priest,' but maybe he would show me the way OUT of this place if I humored him.

I didn't want to think about his plans if this was all some elaborate delusion of his, right before he or one of the other patients decided to murder me. In the distance I could hear screaming, or someone sobbing, or something between the two. It seemed like there was always someone crying out, for whatever reason. I had a suspicion that for many it was their last cry before death.

Or escape through finality.

Light on my feet. Be observant. And above all else, survive.

I covered my nose as the heavy stench of rot hit me hard. Another corpse, right beside the desk I crawled over. Everyone with a half a mind in this place was dead.

"Just shut up and let me think for a minute."

The sound of grunts and meaty thwacks came from around the corner. I dove down against the wall and listened as the violence continued. It sounded like someone was sobbing and thumping about with wild abandon. "Quiet! Quiet! Ah!" Then it ended.

This place was horrible. I hated this place. Down the drain. Gotta get out. I repeated these meditations to myself as I crawled under a murky window with trails of soggy red slipping down. The wall would end in a few feet, I would be exposed to whomever was there.

Slowly, I peeked around the edge into what looked like an office, or check station. Another corpse of the asylum, and fresh I presumed. A patient stood over the body with a wet club, droplets still dripped from the desk onto the crushed man. It might've been my nerves, but I swore the body jerked as the last impulses left what was left of his brain.

The patient turned his head, then spun fully to where I was. I froze in place coiled in a crouch ready to sprint. I was right in the middle of the opening, there in full view of the murderer.

"I'd like you to stay quiet."

He remained where he was and I stayed right where I was on my hands and knee. Caught in a stupor, I nodded and scooted away.

That was weird.

I checked a Security door from my humbled position, and he gently reminded me to be quiet. I used the shelf in the next hall to pull myself up and get going. I just needed to stay quiet. That corpse was quiet.

At the halls end waited a metal door which I carefully opened, without so much as a whisper. Inside the room a figure stood tall staring up at monitors mounted high on the wall. Below them was a darkened window, I was between figuring out what was marked on the glass and the man as he spoke to open air.

"Trying to trap us in here." Camera stupid, get your camera. I lifted it and checked the visor, needed to hit record too. Of all things….

"Not a lot they can do about it lying in their own steaming guts, is there?"

The variants were responsible for this shit hole disaster. But how did they manage to kill the Security personal, and the MHS? As far as body count went (excluding limbs and pieces) those that could be identified had all been staff, very few of the slain had been patients. This statistic should be reversed, unless they moved their dead. I didn't believe enough of them had the cognitive faculty for that, but I hardly viewed a blood stain that was unaccounted for. I was barely scraping the surface of this horror mystery.

"Who…?" He had spied me when the door creaked as I leaned in a little. "You're one of Murkoff sons of bitches, aren't you? I want to show you something."

He had nearly reached me at the end of that sentence, but I had whirled away to run. He wanted to kill me. Thought I was Murkoff or something, maybe I looked too normal for him. I didn't feel healthy in thought.

"You FUCKER!"

I tried the metal door across from the librarian, locked. No shit. I darted off as my pursuer skid around the corner. There was no other place for me to go, no place to hide! Maybe I could get back up the drain, it was my only option I could see.

At the halls darkened end, all but invisible was the hairline creep of light from a door! I picked up speed smashing it open with an arm, in the same motion I spun about catching the edge and threw it shut. I didn't see if he had followed this far, or if his hoots had done him in.

I looked around, another office. There was a desk, filing cabinets that hadn't found the hall yet, a barred room with lockers and janitorial equipment. I walked the perimeter and found an open cell door, through the NV feed I could make out a bed but little else. I entered and shut the gate and slipped under the bed. Here I lay safely secured by my only ally, the shadows. He would know I had no place to hide, no place to run. If only there was a way I could lock that gate.

The door knob twisted and the door opened. My breath caught as I turned my face into my shoulder and shut my eyes.

"Son's of bitches." I heard his footfalls fade. The door of a locker opened and shut, all in the same motion. "Sooner or later. Doesn't matter." I pried an eye open as he paced the room, he paused to examine the bars of the room I hid within. I stare at him unblinking, it felt like my heart and blood ceased all at once. If he came in he would find me.

But the closed gate deterred him, and he swung away knocking over the computer monitor out of spite. The screen crashed and flashed out beside my head, I hadn't flinched from the explosion and saw bright spots as a result. "Doesn't matter." Satisfied with his inspection, he turned and exited the room whistling an off tune melody.

Even after his song faded, and the clack of a door echoed to the room, I waited. I could never overcome this icy clutch of feebleness I felt, the overbearing weight that my life was out of my control. I shoved myself a little more under the bed until my back pressed against the wall. For a moment I felt safe.

People live in famine, mothers watch their children starve. Families are torn apart by war, yet life goes on. Men kill children because their leader orders it, then live free and safe because they are still useful.

The world had fucked up shit in it. I was going to get out of here, I was going to survive and tell the story. Others had survived. My will couldn't be broken, no matter what they did. I hadn't seen the worst of it yet. There will always be the worst, waiting just around the corner.

I pushed my arms out and crawled from under the bed. A little puddle of blood had stained my elbow, but it was so insignificant. This was probably my most favorite room in this entire place. It was so…tame.

"They weren't experiments." His sudden voice didn't alarm me, I think I knew he was there the whole time. I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them, staring into the dark and where his shape moved. "They were rituals. A conjuring."

A conjuring. This seemed along the same lines the Priest was on about. This 'Walrider' he called it, same as in the project reports that Murkoff based their studies. And they found it in the mountains.

I rose to my feet and left, trying to find the door so I could shut it, only to recall it was on the other side of the door frame. He was still muttering behind it as I tiptoed through the hall, listening for the echo of steps not my own. It sounded like the patient left through the metal gates, but I hadn't seen the quiet man yet.

Cautious and quietly, I stepped beside the wall that separated us. He was still there, now staring at the cold corpse. He didn't seem too interested as I passed by toward the control room, this suited me.

I peered into the open room before waltzing right in. Desk with monitor to my left, control panel where I left it, and lockers with a desk situated in front of them on the far right. I crossed over to the panel where a button sat on the terminal, one that looked important or might shed some light on my whereabouts. I gave it a swat and cringed when the lights behind the glass blazed a nasty yellow, the doors hissed as they opened.

Follow the blood.

I had to hand it to the 'Father' Martin, he was getting creative with his grim messages. If I moved side to side I could tell the arrow indicating my path was painted inside the sterilizing chamber, and Follow was scripted on the glass. It would have been more impressive if the message wasn't written in blood.

My battery was running low on power, best to fix that now while everything was calm. I decided to use one that I had salvaged from the guard and popped it in, but was dismayed to find it only had half strength. Probably because it was some off brand Murkoff had ordered, typical. Better than nothing.

I listened, picking up the faint pats of bare feet echoing from the hall. The doors had made a good deal of noise when I activated them.

The camera went to its hoister, and I moved quickly to the lockers and slipped inside. Two lockers. Wouldn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out if both were empty….

I held my breath when he entered. Indeed, it was the librarian. He approached my side of the room, checking the brightened window as he twisted the sticky club in his red hands. He was thinking of leaving, there was no one in this room. Just turn and leave, there would be no more noises, at least not until I was safe beyond those doors.

His gaze fell on the lockers. I swallowed as he moved over and pulled the latch on one. There were two lockers, someone was in the second one. That was what he was thinking.

He shut the door and turned to the next, right when I decided to throw it open and flew out. The door smashed into his chest, as a result I couldn't clear the door and tumbled when my foot glanced the sharp lining of the interior. He toppled to his knees as I rolled into the filing cabinet.

"Come back here!" He had already made it to his feet and was nearly upon me as I scrambled to get up, my vision distorted by vertigo like in a bad dream. I bolted for the open hall dead ahead.

A sharp whistled cut through the air and I felt the crushing blow to my shoulder, causing me to stagger. The walls quivered as my vision warped, the pain began a slow march up my shoulder into my neck. I didn't know if it was broken, quickly I decided it couldn't be.

I zipped around the corners and flew over the desk, the patient had trouble keeping up from whatever Murkoff had done to him, or I was just moving too fast for my own good. I skipped across the bloody threshold of the sterilizer's doors, they shut at once and misted the area with their foul smelling spray. Even after the other door opened I knelt down for a beat, to calm my nerves and test my shoulder. It was hurt, not fractured, but it would bruise up later. Regardless of what could happen, I needed my arms no matter what. Hell, if they were tethered by little tendons, or bloody-butchered stumps I would still use them. I couldn't afford not to.

Red streaks and an arrow greeted me on the other side. At least it was something. I stepped out, checking around the corner and listened. No sounds, nothing but the occasional distant shriek. I ventured into the decrepit hall and tried the Security door, locked of course. The hall ahead was still inviting and the familiar echoes of cracking came to me, I stepped over a fire extinguisher as I went. I wanted to kick the stupid thing but knowing this place it would spew ice or blood, or something else horrible. The hall took a left, but in an alcove at its end was another dead man, but I wasn't keeping count. Looked like another one of Murkoff's Research division, he seemed a long way from home.

In actuality, I was losing my patience with them. I had seen so many corpses, dead and crushed in every way imaginable, and why? Why the fuck did they lose control of this place? Why wasn't anyone alive? Why couldn't they have gotten out, called someone, and kept me from joining them in this shithole?

I paused and sighed as I reached the corner. I wasn't being fair. I had entered under my own terms, though I had misgivings, I ignored them until it was too late. The one to blame here was not the people duped into working this system. It was me. I had to look in the mirror and remind myself, I had climbed into that window. I wanted the story. I was getting the fuckin story of a lifetime.

Just had to survive it first.

"We gave him a chance."

Oh for Christ's sake….

"That we did."

"I'd say we were more than fair."

"Paragons of patience."

The voices drifting around the corner sounded amused, or pleased, or every sort of happy I could describe. I glanced around the edge ready to bolt if necessary, but it looked like they had another one of those beautiful metal gates between them and me. I breathed a sigh of relief, and winced. My ribs hated me.

"Job-like in the suppression of our desires."

"But now."

"Now."

"Now we indulge."

"Yes."

"His tongue and his liver."

"Yours."

"Mine."

My options seemed unfairly limited.

I stepped out from behind the safety zone and moved forward, keeping eyes locked on the twins. They watched my every move with a morbid fascination I was not comfortable with. The gate between us might have looked locked, or they might wait until I neared and then they would burst through. They couldn't know I was trapped here, if they had plans they would wait until I was too close that they could catch me with little effort. But I had no idea what was going on here.

Aside from the discussion of how to divide me up. I refused to imagine what those plans entailed.

The first door on the segregation section had been torn off and left in the middle of the floor. I stepped on it as I examined the area keeping a portion of my attention on the twins, always. They were on the other side of the second gate with weapons that could slip through the bars easily to deal fatal injuries. Beyond the frame on the left was another door labeled Security, I didn't know if it was locked or not and I didn't plan to get close enough to find out. They said nothing more, content to palm the flat side of their weapons and teeter anxiously as I weighed my 'options.' On my right was a smashed out window with a dark crimson stain stretched on the sill, but that presented no better route. Was the mark another indication of my path by the 'Father?'

I looked out without getting too close, viewing a long drop to Block B where I first explored. The man that had been smashing his skull into walls had resumed his mission, and patrolled, sobbing about voices. From the distance he was easily identified by his blood drenched face, as his actions. I thought he would've succumbed to the self-mutilation long ago.

I pretended not to notice the twins as I climbed onto the sill and slipped over, grabbing the ledge on the other side and hung there. My shoes scuffed against the wall, but my grip was firm despite my wounded arm. There were no other areas of interest to the right, but I knew the twins could judge my actions and would wait for me wherever I decided to go. If I slipped under their view I might have a chance to get up on the other side and take off before they could surprise me.

Given there was any place to go once I was there. A locked door could be waiting, or a blocked corridor. The fresh bruise in my muscle alerted me to action, as visions of my body plummeting to certain death haunted the forefront of my mind. I hastened my movements locking it in my mind that I must not let go, no matter what. Was there even a way in, a shattered window that was away from those two?

There was, but it wasn't far enough to be worthwhile. At this point my arm was burning, I needed to rest it or I wouldn't be able to pull myself up. From there my only option would be to drop.

I braced my toes against the wall and heaved up over the frame enough to see into the hall.

They were gone.