The Ghost

I guess I was following Martin Archimbaud. My efforts to locate a means of escape had presented no progress of what I could see. I was on the ground floor once more but two fingers short.

I gave a sharp shudder recalling the memories. I was still dripping cold water but the draft for the moment didn't bother too much, this would change as the barrier of water drained from my clothes

Sooner or later I would find the exit, if I kept after Martin I might have an easier time with this. But I had doubts, the previous message "…every man needs another to help drive the nails in," lingered in my thoughts. He was bat shit crazy and if he intended to let me wander around learning my sins before killing me, I was at a sever disadvantage. I needed to constantly remind myself Martin had no problem navigating the Asylum's twisted halls, and could surprise me at any turn. He wouldn't catch me off guard again. Never.

If I kept him in front of me, if I kept him in sight then he couldn't surprise me. He might lead me to the exit after all, but I would exercise caution. He was up to something and I couldn't understand his plans. Not yet.

There had to be a stairway or someway to climb onto the second floor, from there 'Farther' Martin would guide me to the next location. A little sense of direction would clear my head, it ached from the cold and getting dragged through the storm. Or I was coming down with something at long last. Just had to hold together till I got far away from here, far down the road. I could reach the nearest town, call the authorities and get some protection. I had no idea if any of Murkoff brass survived, I wasn't taking any chances.

The floor boards creaked as I stepped to the left, away from the comforting pattern of light hitting the murky windows. My last battery was at half power but it'd hold. I tried not to recall navigating the sewers void of the capacity to see. I needed batteries but I had no idea where I was going or where going would take me.

A large ornate archway into a hall, for starters. I could feel a faint draft over my brow as the water dried, hairs on my scalp prickled and stuck up. I rubbed my sleeve over my forehead as I tilt around the corner and checked. No hostile sounds, but there was the ever present distant howl of someone in agony. Outdated hall, large, antique in structure from a distant past when places fitted style. They must've been nice in the summer while the rooms lacked desirable airflow.

Light filtered through the windows to the halls right, it was another dead end if the door there was indeed boarded up as tightly as it looked. I tried the double doors I passed on the way, barely beating an eyelash that they were locked. My focus was already on the shape slumped against the plaster wall, a dark puddle dried under the body. Just another patient, throat torn open, and holding a walkie-talkie.

I lowered the camera and stared at the corpse. A number of documents already had shed light over the concept of taking staff, and processing them as patients. As of yet, the few people that had expressed some remnants of sanity remained identical to the scarred variants roaming the Asylum. Broken people. No different than the countless loonies lost in the dark. But… had some of them found each other and taken walkie-talkies to keep in contact, in the hope of locating a way out together? The idea spurred some small flame in my chest, but that was snuffed out instantly. I had seen no living person utilizing a communicator. They were dead like everyone else, or getting there.

I lowered my eyes as I knelt to pry the walkie-talkie from the stiff fingers and checked the batteries. Just the one. It wasn't worth the discovery.

I touched the handles of the two doors as I passed on my return. I needed just the minute distraction though I kept my eyes locked on my path. A cart and a crushed door lay in the hall, a small crisis to avoid. I avoided the small puddle of water in the beneath, or was it blood? It was difficult to tell and I didn't really want to know. Out of the left side of my vision I thought something flittered, out the gate door.

I hovered beside the corner on the right, certain I had seen movement, at the same time hoping there was nothing just around the corner at my back. The distant pat pat of blood dripped somewhere, but no sounds to indicate a living person. I strained to see through the gate into the room I had previously gone through, still empty from what I could make with the light. It could be following me, whatever my brain insisted was there, but I didn't want that paranoia in my head. I had established long ago I was losing it.

The steady lull was peculiar after the hour I spent racing through the storm, to return to the quiet, dry space of the asylums cradle. It felt unsettling, though I couldn't understand why. I was aware at any turn a man with a club might be posed in wait, or some other indescribable horror squatting and ready to spring out at me. What did I fear most in this place? Not my own death, though I was disturbed by my waning mortality.

I dismissed my doubts and edged around the wall, eased enough to resume. I set my feet carefully on the loose floorboards, it felt like my feet were perched on a thin layer of air. As I progressed deeper into the shadows, the door at my left thudded and crackled. I took a few steps back and knelt, only able to watch and wait. The door looked about ready to snap at the moment, but it held. I did scoot back some distance for good measure. Eventually, it did cease and the air settled, but I was still sliding behind the corner, leery if whoever was there might give one last hooray and succeed. It'd be my luck.

I took a few breaths to settle my rapid heart and shuffled forward, on my hand and knees. At the edge of the NV there was something and gone, I was sure. A face, a fading image in bright static, but no sound. Just the impression of a shape in my mind. My breath quivered as I exhaled, I needed to calm down, I didn't need to be seeing things that weren't there.

Another boarded up set of duo doors on my right. I began to wonder what Murkoff had been trying to lock up. Groups of patients all together, or had they been trying to quarantine the Walrider before it was apparent how impossible that was? What would I find in these rooms if I got one open? Something in my gut told me I didn't want to know.

The same reverberation I heard in the laundry room, when the cafeteria was burning. I tried not to think back on such things, especially now that my head had such an ache from the stress. The rattle sound of pellets, or marbles, spills down a chute. I followed the sound, every time I turn the camera there are dark shapes. Patients in the distance, sometimes the camera caught movement but when I looked I saw only shadows retreating. I paused on my knees briefly to evaluate my surroundings.

The hall extended further to another boarded up door, and a broken chair. I wouldn't bother with the trip. Overhead and just beyond the doorframe on my left, a loud thud shook the floorboards, I looked up as soot drifted down from the masonry. After a short quiet, the muffled howl of someone rolled out before a sudden bang. I imagine the receiver was either hurt or dead, or worse.

Somewhere, the rattle persisted, the clatter and reverberations of metal clacking rhythmically. Dust was heavy around my head, drying out my eyes but I fought not to blink. Things there I didn't want to see.

I got on my feet but stayed by the wall as I moved, the familiar sound was coming through the walls, muffled, but clearer than I had heard it earlier. I pushed a small cart out of the way and tensed as the wheels gave a high squeak. After a brief pause I continued, always checking over my shoulder with every step. The hall was nearly silent, and the boards groaned out every other sound, it would be difficult for someone to rush up on me. But they might catch me off guard if I was lost in my concentration.

Shelves and desks had been crammed into the corridor, a few of the cracked chairs I was able to pull out to allow easy passage. The cut in my back still seeped blood, but with my jacket drying it and shrinking it would seal the wounded tissue up. It was going to be fun getting my shirt off later, if it wasn't imbedded with the skin and blood.

Ugh.

At the far end of hall on my right, in the cracked windows of the wall I caught movement of a figure as it walked by. It looked shirtless, couldn't tell if it was the big fucker or his sick twin. Before the night was over I'd probably figure it out. The grating pellets were getting louder, my anxiousness to discover the source aggravated me. I felt some great urgency to press on, as though discovering its origins may clear some mystery that clung to this place. Or maybe I was done with it all.

Broken glass was scattered on the floor and over the table. I didn't bother with the door further down on the right, instead I hastened to climb onto the table and perched in the shattered window. This was where the sound was, the source of the trickle rattles. I slipped down into the room, careful as I set my wounded hand down on the glittering shards. The air was sour, a touch of outdated chemicals prevailed despite the years.

Another laundry room with shelves and supplies lining the walls. I climbed off the next table and slipped between chairs lined up along it. So many chairs collected along the walls, for the staff to sit as they worked folding tunics at the tables. Large washing vats were stationed at the wall across from me. I walked over to them and watched a strange obstruction churn in the nearest one. I watched and listened to the odd sound as it clicked and sputtered, the vibrations causing a dull throb to move from my forehead to the back of my neck, somewhere above my spine. My scalp tingled and I felt, it felt like I was seeing some sort of pattern in the dust kicked up. A shape that felt stamped in the back of my skull. The veins in my eyes pulsed causing colors to wash over my sight, and a surge of vertigo weighted my stomach down.

I couldn't bear it anymore and whirled away, to sit at a table and let my senses clear. It took precious time but I was too nauseous to risk standing.

"The sound in the machine, like the sound in my head when the Walrider appeared. I blink and I see static, something else. Something oily and dark descending behind my eyelids. Watching me with organs I can't imagine. But the sound is coming from the machine, too. From inside the walls. I know that sound…."

Sleep deprived, scared out of my mind, body mutilated — I was losing my wits. What had the Father said, they all must endure this? I was almost done, what did that mean? How much trauma did they want me to suffer before I could escape?

Felt truly like I was at the mercy of psychos, moving around me just out of sight, watching my every action with some sick pleasure. Controlling my progress and where I was to go, my life was out of my hands. I've never felt so powerless in my whole life, not ever. A fuckin toy for lunatics, infatuated with their fairytale monster that murders at its whim.

But I had see it, hadn't I? I was aware of what they were telling me. Couldn't get around it. No. No…I wasn't certain what I had seen. Shadows. They creep along my peripheral, I turn but nothing's there. Could be people, hopefully nothing but my fractured mind spilling paranoia.

Light gushed in from the doorway, I peered around the frame almost expecting a line of blood filled tubes and a man bathing a corpse. The hair prickled along my collar at the memory. Thank god there was nothing but laundry baskets and filthy linen to frown upon my presence. I slid along the wall towards what must have been another closet toward the left side of the room. I smacked the door open, probably not the smartest move, but I was not having any of this shit. Shelves had been pinned in the corners, and a wheelchair crammed beside a space in the wall. A battery sat placid on the seat, which I took. I had this off feeling I'd need them soon. As I passed through the room, I made note of the small access elevator in the wall. It reminded me of the dumbwaiter, which did not bring good memories to my head. Just made it pulse more.

The exit was already open, I held the edge as I peered around the frame on either side scanning for the usual shadows. I found a plaque that read Stairs with an arrow indicating to the left. A light source awaited in that direction. Stairs would lead to 'Father' Martin, and more cryptic riddles.

I tried to fit together the pieces I already had, the parts I had witnessed firsthand, had I actually witnessed them and my report could be credible. The documents I recorded, the reports made, what the patients stated they had witnessed.

All of it swirled in my head. The belief and the theories, and what Murkoff must have been trying to achieve before it turned on them. What the patients came to believe, and that not being Murkoff's intentions, only the aftermath of the process. Too many holes yet left in the story, burned out by corporate cigars as the larger business fed on their staff. The pyramid topples if the underlings can't support the stress.

I ventured to the right first, the area was visible from where I stood and a bright light shown on the black and white tiled floor. As I approached the doorway, a loud crash came from the upper floors followed by rapid footfalls. The resulting collision caused the light to dim and flash out, plunging the corridor I was in, into darkness. I was not assured by the amount of batteries I was carrying but bottom line, I was safe in the dark. I listened for a moment, confirming I wouldn't bump into anyone that might be in the next room startled by the sudden dark.

Beyond the doorframe was a smaller room, with a hall extending around boxing the area in. Desks and chalkboards were set up inside the windowed walls, suggesting a sort of school for the patients. I could almost see them at the edges of my vision, still in the chairs listening to the instructor. I shook my head, and continued to the other side of the room. I thought I heard voices, not rightly there in my presence but soft murmurs as someone explained simplistic reasoning. I felt a dull pulse behind my eyes as I tried to focus, struggled to define if I was hearing a patient or imaging this.

The hall curled around, one end leading to a dead end blocked with lockers with metal doors torn off and blood splattered on the floor. No body, just the indication of foul play. I followed the hall back around to the opposite side and found stairs beyond an open gate. The stairs led up a few feet but the fire had destroyed most the upper portion, making it impossible to leap across. The air higher up was heavy with the overpowering charcoal and chemicals that had burned out of the room, it was thick enough to irritate my eyes before I returned to the lower level. A few desks and a broken wheelchair had been left beside the steps, I climbed to the other side and located some scorched files. What was illegible described patient status and hypnotic (H) progress with individuals. The only file pertaining to the Walrider, was an excerpt in German religion.

Brief introduction to WALRIDER mythology for M.R.D. Support Staff

The Murkoff Corp.

NOTE - this is for support/notational purposes only, engage in NO direct contact with patients during or after therapy.

the WALRIDER, also known as an "alp," or "mara," or "schrat," is a demonic creature of German origin that torments sleepers. They crouch on a sleeper's chest and crush the breath from him. The sleeper wakes terrified, paralyzed, and asphyxiating. The name "mara" gives us the word "nightmare." Sexual assaults by the demon are rare, but it has been known to drink the milk from breasts of sleeping women, and blood from the nipples of sleeping men.

That was interesting to note, the similarities of America folklore to the crouching devil. This tide the name of Walrider into the realism of the experiments, possibly many of the patients experienced paralysis and other similar side effects of the sort during treatment. It was also attributed to PTSD, when chemicals in the brain had been wrecked enough anyone could have a hard time getting to sleep or waking up. It was an intense condition, and some cases I've read where people slept walk into dangerous areas, or choked before they could awaken fully.

I went ahead and recorded the file, and a few of the patient reports for reference later.

I returned to the former hall, with the plaque indicating the stairs. An open gate on my right was accessible, but only one room available to explore. Another bathroom typical in design, aside from the massive damage to the walls, possibly caused by the grout cracking under the strain of heat and if not from the years of neglect. I shut the door behind me and went through the stalls, I didn't feel at ease despite the complete absence of anything remotely living. The air was heavy with the scorched wood and tile, I began to attribute this as the primary culprit behind my headache.

The pressure from the tap was low but it tasted clean. I'd be able to wash some of the ash off from my hands that I was picking up, but still I couldn't risk tampering with the damaged edges of my fingers. I noted the thick coating of black dust but it didn't bother too much, there was enough flesh still covering the ring finger. I exchanged the camera between my hands, finding my right hand holding its shape. The wound was not as filthy which was good. I didn't have the stomach to look directly into the top of my index finger, I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to make out in the NV, I didn't want to know.

I fixed the camera back to my right hand and flushed my eyes out. I was immediately concerned when my hand came away slick and coated with dirt, only to recall my earlier fall and hunting for the camera in the garden. I cleaned off what I could then spun the visor around so I could view my face.

I looked god awful, the ghost of shade under my eyes and a dark blot on the side of my brow. The nightvision wasn't really credible for making people look wonderful, but I looked pretty horrendous despite everything.

As I turned the camera, something flashed in the wall behind me. I jerked around aiming the camera, but the visor was still facing forward. That humming was back, like when it shrieked in my face. I had to put my palm to my eyes and give pause, ease my thudding heartbeat. No one was in here with me, I was alone.

The trickling sound came from above, pellets tinkling in a pipe. I crouched down and listened, watching for any sign of attack, or form. Nothing showed itself and the room turned silent as before.

I shut the water off and confirmed nothing was in the room, had ever been present in the lavatory with me by checking the stalls. Absolutely empty and unchanged.

My ears were ringing.

The hall was silent, I waited a few seconds before moving along the decrepit wall. I ventured to the very end and checked the gate there, locked of course but it somehow had the capacity to set some of my nerves to ease if I knew some doors at my back were inaccessible. I left the hall and headed to the unexplored corridor, where the stairs had been indicated by the plate. As I shuffled around the corner, a patient approached with a club fitted in his hands. I backed away raising an arm to block the inevitable blow.

"Not my babies. Oh god…." He/she? stopped some distance from me and palmed the weapon, glaring.

I stared back. A female patient? I doubt it really mattered, if (s)he really wanted to they could hunt me down and beat my brains out. The voice sounded feminine but (s)he was muscular and bald, it could've been for the procedures that all patients were shaved. But (s)he had that female gait. Maybe transgender. Why was I debating this? I didn't think this person was quite all there, frightening (s)he was, but (s)he wasn't chasing me screaming. I wouldn't push it.

Carefully, I maneuvered around the clothed figure giving him/her plenty of space and kept facing him/her, as I glanced over my shoulder, the way I was going. For the entire time (s)he followed my progress with his/her eye, but refused to pursue. This reprieve wouldn't last long.

The doorway lacked a door in which to shut. One lunatic to keep on mind, but every corner had someone that was ready slaughter me in some way. Safety was an illusion.

The room had entered was well lit by a lamp hanging from the ceilings center. Large pillars held the upper floors up, as decorated the room. The elevator was still out of order, and two gated doors sat on either side, both open, one of the gates lay on the floor near the doorframe. A wheelchair was on its side in the middle of the eroded tile, alone and forgotten as the patients of the asylum. I walked by it towards the large doors at the front, a greasy large rug lay before the doors, decaying beneath the body of a broken Murkoff doctor. He had nothing useful on him.

The other side of the room was windowed, I recognized it as where I had entered from the storm. Ash was still settling of the gleaming metal of the hospital chair, but scattered and clung to my damp legs as I walked the perimeter. I stifled a sneeze as I turned my head up, admiring the worn panels nailed in place to comprise the floor above.

Chances were high that I'd find 'Father' Martin upstairs, and he'd give me further guidance or more blood trails to follow. I preferred talking to the man face to face, or with a twenty foot gap between us. I took the stairs that went down, deep into the dark lower floors of this section of the asylum, the musty grime of soil crept up as I descended. To the left some wash basins nested against the stone wall and a mop bucket, old janitorial tools and a radiator. This place was full of them, along most walls, it was a trial to keep all the large rooms warm in the winter time I'm sure, way up in the mountains. An additional section of the basement was gated off, I turned and entered through a metal doorframe into the main section.

A few more wash basins and some large bed frames, left over from storage or just dragged down here by the patients. I moved around the room examining the various pieces of hospital equipment forgotten, as I explored I felt an ominous pressure behind my eyes like the headache that plagued me. I tried not to blink my eyes, they felt wounded from the dust I was stirring up and my nose was getting stuffy.

Off to the side, a flash, I spun raising the camera but didn't catch a glimpse of what I saw. It felt like every time I moved there was something there, someone watching.

A desk had been left in the middle of the basement, as I approached a shape emerged from the darkest corner through the NV I relied on. He was clothed, facing the corner not doing much. I watched for a moment but he seemed oblivious to my presence. I moved forward checking a file set on the desk, and flipped the pages over as my eyes darted up to the man.

PROJECT PAPERCLIP, Joint Intelligence

Objectives Agency (JIOA) document number 8 of 186, location 230/86/46/5

excerpt

REF: Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act.

a. The First, PAPERCLIP, provides a means of obtaining services of foreign specialists for specific assignments within the technical services of the Departments of Army, Navy, and Air Force.

b. PROJECT 63 is primarily a denial program with utilization as a desirable feature. The aim of this program is to secure employment in the United States of certain preeminent GERMAN and AUSTRIAN SPECIALISTS, thus denying their services to potential enemies.

I decided to take this file with me and get proper images of it in the light. I gave the man one last glance, before I moved sideways out of this place. On my way out I noted a hard cot with fresh blood glittering on it, and a bucket splattered with dark blots, set on the ground near it. It all looked fresh

There was no door to shut on the basement, no surprise. Doubt it hold him there anyway. I reached the top floor and sat on the steps in the light, I went ahead and changed out the battery before I recorded images from Project paperclip. Bygones be bygones in America, they were still assholes in my book.

The stairs leading to the upper floors wound around the backside of the elevator. I secured the camera in its hoister before leaping over the large gap in the stairs, made from rot and the years of out commission this side of the hospital had obviously been on. I wondered if many of the patients had come to this side when Murkoff lost control, or had some been kept in this section during experimentation. It was obvious they migrated between the two sections at whim, and some may have found trails not as perilous as the one I undertook to reach this side. Or this was the result of my stubbornness?

The outdated side of the Asylum had been operational during Murkoffs function, but that didn't confirm if patients were kept here or what exactly they used this section for. Experimentation was a high possibility. I surrendered to the theory that I would never learn the truth unless I picked up a document that specifically mapped out the entire Asylum and labeled which buildings were in use and for what.

I grunted and hissed as the ruined edges of my fingers brushed the rough floor boards, I could keep most my index finger from rubbing if I had the chance, but the awkward ring finger was impossible to keep out of the way. Blood started pouring down my hands as I hauled myself up and went for the camera. I was certain I could pose as a corpse if I was desperate enough.

As I walked up the steps, I heard footsteps and the sound of something crashing. The ash in the air lifted and swirled as the light overhead snapped from its tether and swung, but the illumination refused to diminish. Instead, it sent odd vapor trails of buttery gold along the walls as I carried up the last steps. The handle turned as I pushed the door, I paused to scan the visible area before stepping around the gate.

The floor wasn't very large, a bed lay near the back wall and to the right door gates to other areas. Behind one was a dark hall with burnt wood and candles at the very back, I tried the door but it was locked. The door beside it to upper floors was as well, locked. My only access was to the other side, where a light was cut through the black corridor. I think I knew who that was.

"Nearly here." His voice echoed over the distance as I approached. "You can cross from the upper floors." I walked to the end of the corridor as he pivoted from the ledge and departed. A gate stood between us, but it was locked and there were few options to get to the other side unless I had a vine stashed somewhere. The fires from the kitchen had consumed the floor between us, apparently there was more damage than what I had initially seen.

I turned back, idly trying another door pinned by a bloody bed, but the lock was jammed. Near the entrance of the hall awaited another set of double doors, only one left open inviting me to enter. I jerked my elbow up using it to brush at my head as water dripped from the ceiling above, to a puddle just in the doorway. Instead of filling buckets with blood, they needed them to catch this water mess.

As I crept along the hall I could easily discern where the water had come from, I looked up at the ceiling to see holes where rain trickled down. Damage caused by the fire. The hall as well scorched black with broken timber, cold and wet lying in every direction. I hopped over a section of the fallen roof and came to path a little ways to my left, light spilled over the counter from the other side. Another section of this floor, I tried to picture what might be in that area. Not likely a way to the upper floors. At my right and across from me, more double doors barricaded shut. I blinked and shook my head, in the glass of the door…never mind.

I thought I heard something humming, or maybe it was my own thoughts clouding my senses. Needed to focus, find a way to the upper floors. The light illuminated the inner room on my left, I peered around the corner. I put down the NV and examined a little more clearly what I was present.

Open door on the right of a windowed in hall, across from it a nearby desk on my left, another countertop divided the hall and room. On the wall beneath the light was a small laundry chute, inside something gleamed in the angle of the light.

I slipped over the counter and made my way towards the little slot, gently closing the door on my right before leaving it. The grate was shut on the chute, and the key was too large to maneuver out. It was also attached to a dead man's finger, via the small loop on the keys end. It looked as though the guard had been folded up and crammed into the tiny chute, bone stuck out of his torn skin and a foul reek drifted from a draft in the small compartment. To the left was an open panel with three fuse slots. Each one was empty.

I sighed and coughed a bit as my ribs troubled me. My job now was self-explanatory if I wanted to get out of here.

There were two 'options' available to me. One way might lead to the items I needed to find, the other could be my certain death – or worse. Or, both could lead to a fate worse than death and there were no fuses, one of the patients might've stolen them and tossed them out a window. I couldn't be sure the fuses actually existed. I was beginning to question my own reasoning, if I was actually standing here studying a laundry chute full of dead man and a key jammed on his finger. Curiously, I pressed the switch but nothing happened, aside from startling the insects that had settled on his clothing. I shielded my face with an arm as they took off. Maybe I could find a clothes hangar or something to fish the key out.

I decided to start in the area at the rooms back, over another countertop that segregated from a passage. The NV had some difficulty piercing the lingering steam from the fire, the hall itself suffered massive damage and the wood felt cold while heavy with the burning scent. The wood all around was black and twisted, I had to crawl over a few fallen chunks from the roof before the worst of the damage was behind me. It puzzled and irritated me, why would anyone hide the key in the chute then steal the fuses. I might be wasting my time with a wild goose chase, when I should be hunting for an alternate climb to the upper floors.

Around the corner I recognized the setup of candles in the gloomy distance of the nightvision. Behind me was the gate that I had examined, I went in a complete circle. Why couldn't this door have been unlocked? Waste of time, all of this was.

I didn't recall the door at the end of the hall being open when I saw it last.

I paused to listen. Silence. No resonance to indicate I was not alone. Muffled steps did pace light and tentative from somewhere above, as though someone were sneaking around. I echoed the movement without really meaning to.

Candles had been set on a gurney at the halls end, and a plank of wood behind them with the blood scrawled phrase

Drive in the Nails

A few other candles had been lit and set on either side of the door, but I wasn't focused on them. My eyes had set on what was beyond the door hanging before a cackling fireplace.

An upside down crucifix with a man nailed to it. Had he been dead prior to his crucifixion? It might not be difficult to determine, but I didn't have the nerve. That ringing and the pain in my head, I didn't want to push it here and now. I didn't want to enter the room but I felt compiled to. Not even as my duty as an investigator to gather evidence, it was nearly null at this point. I was almost fascinated, aside from gripping terror I felt from this display.

That same sensation came over me, the way I felt when I was curled up in that room shaken, not helplessness but I couldn't call it numb either. It was the sense that something was ill in me, or strange. I didn't feel right. I tried to shake the odd tingle in my skin by stepping further into the room, trying to focus on the man and the flickering fire, the occasional fly zipping about in black tendrils.

A few beds sat scattered around the room's perimeter, and more gatherings of candles huddled on the floor dripping wax in liquid rivers, the soft flicker and the warmth of the fire almost put my nerves to ease. If only there wasn't a man crucified before the fireplace, the heat on his dead skin filled the room with a thick oily smell, like burnt leather. I watched the body as I scouted the room, until something in the light caught my eye.

On a nightstand near the body, sat a clean metal plate mirrored against the warm flames. On it sat what looked like a fuse.

The steady pad of footfalls reached my ears, and I abandoned the item to occupy the space under the nearest bed. Too close to the flames, I couldn't be sure. I didn't need my camera to view the shirtless figure that strolled in. He walked straight to the small table and gave it a look, with the pipe he carried he tapped the side as though confirming its solid presence. Once he was satisfied all was as he left it, he made a turn and passed right by the bed I was under on his way to the door.

I held my breath as my nose tingled, all this dust kicked up was getting to me, I had to sneeze so bad it hurt. Just as he was stepping out the door, I snorted into my collar. The soft steps stopped, and I could hear the floor creak as he shifted. I held perfectly still, even as my nose itched once more with another sneeze.

"What's there?" His steps reentered the room, and I watched from the corner of my eye as he stooped to check under the bed nearest to the door.

Quietly, I slid out from under my bed and slunk towards the corner of the room, avoiding the bright luminous of the windows draped over the floor. I curled up as the patient went to the next bed and stuck his weapon under searching the dark space. He might've been half blind, his only advantage the all-consuming dark of the asylum he had adapted to.

This became a solid theory of mine when he began scouting the perimeter of the room swiping the pipe low searching for a form that wasn't there. I stretched out on my side, melting into the shadow. He came close, no more than five feet from me as skipped the pipe along. I held my breath and stared as he completed his patrol, then returned to the door.

"No ghost. No shadow."

I focused on the soft rustle of the flames, biding time before I gathered the nerve to move. It felt 'safe' enough to roll over and get back to my feet. And sneezed. Three times, it felt so good. But each convulsion in my body brought that sharp pain in my side, and the pounding in my head felt worse. I needed some aspirin, or some strong ibuprofen. Some real sleep would do wonders.

Drive in the Nails

This mans fate did not set me to ease, so long as Martin Archimbaud was out there somewhere there was no telling what fate he had in store for me. This was a precursor to my fate.

I took up the fuse and considered the meaning of the crucifixion. This Walrider demon mythology, or did it delve deeper? It was common mistake of anti-Christians that the upside down cross was in reference for its denial, or acceptance of the anti-Christ – which pissed off the religious flock to no end. This wasn't the case, here. If 'Father' Martin was as much of a Priest as he believed, then this was in reference to Saint Peter.

I've researched enough fanatical religious groups.

Saint Peter was crucified upside down to denote unworthiness. Then, this mans fate wasn't in any form of league with a demon, it simply implied he was not worthy of crucifixion.

It was almost scary how hinged 'Father' Martin could be. This was well planned out, and its intentions clear cut. Though I was already recording everything through the NV, I switched it off to film the cross against the natural light of the room.

I returned to the mid room with the laundry chute eluding incident. However, the door previously shut when I passed through was now open. I knew where the half blind patient had gone.

Rather carry the heavy fuse around, I stuffed it into one of the slots and took the unexplored corridor. Two were left, but I doubt I'd have as easy of a time locating them let alone returning with them. I leaned through the doorframe checking to my right then the left. The left side was a dead end, a boarded up wall that might have been an entrance to another room. Lockers glittered in the NV, abandoned at the wall with a broken door stuffed into the corner.

As I turned to the right, I ran through my mind the occurrence with the fuse and wondered - had there been a fuse at all? The nature of my own self-doubt frightened me. I was questioning whether or not I had lifted the heavy item and brought it back to a fuse box, and found I couldn't really prove the event.

I jumped back when something flashed in my camera. Briefly, directly in the lens, but there was nothing there. With a groan I got myself under control, breathed deep the soggy charcoal. I was almost certain I'd seen something, and there was this odd taste on the back of my tongue. There was nothing, but I couldn't discredit my jumpiness. There was someone here, just not the thing I kept imagining. Once I quieted my murmurs I resumed, fully anticipating another stutter in the visor to send me into another panic. I was fed up with it.

Broken glass lined the floor beside the cracked windows of the upper wall. The window looked as though someone had attempted to tear through it, a few metal carts and a dismantled wheelchair lay at the base. The Plexiglas had refused to submit to brute force, only one layer had been shed in the ferocity of the attack. They might've had more luck carving out the wood beneath, but I recalled the plating set between the wood panels as well.

I swear this entire building was alive.

A ways down the hall I found double doors, one was left open and inviting as the usual case, while the other was shut. I tried to pry it free but the latch in the doorframe was jammed, I didn't fight it loose.

The hall was littered with lost items, broken bed pieces discarded along the walls, papers and patient folders. A few doors taken from somewhere, maybe brought by the workers to block rooms with. I did my best to avoid each while keeping track of noises echoing from the walls, and my own paranoia that I was hearing people running back and forth. I calmed my breathing down a bit as I turned a corner viewing much of the same, hall and gloom, but this was good.

I crouched down when in the darkness emerged a shape, but when a minute passed and it did not move I shuffled forward. When the NV outlined the form more, I was leery but not alarmed. It was a man sitting in a wheelchair, but so far my experience with men in wheelchairs had not gone over well. He looked dead. And pants less.

I slipped along the doorframe to the right, trying to keep as much space between him and I as possible. He looked cold and dead, water dripping from the ceiling gathered in a puddle under him. I refused to let my guard down, even when my hand brushed filthy cloth rotting into the wood.

When I felt secure enough by the distance, I slowly rose to my feet I ventured deeper into the hall. It felt silent all at once, and I envisioned somewhere far away children sleeping in their warm, safe beds. Never dreaming such a place like this existed.

Then I crashed back into the reality of my situation, and recalled dreams I had as a kid, nightmares. Running through the woods near my home, from something huge and nameless with no description, just horrible and scary because of the fact it was chasing me. Then the paralysis that would follow when I was caught, and the only way my brain could cope with the trauma was to evict my mind from my body. And I'd lay awake in my warm bed, stunned and trembling terrified I'd shift an inch, and that thing would crash into my room to eviscerate my body.

Why couldn't I be dreaming now? Why did I have to wake up this morning and undertake this horror? Why couldn't I have stayed in bed?

I was edging towards an overturned bed when the sharp slap of feet on floorboards came. I stepped back as the nightvision revealed the shirtless figure racing forward, pausing just o the other side of the bedframe.

"I hear you."

I fought off my flight instinct and waited, before I gave him something to chase down. He was bluffing, I had been silent. Except for my breathing.

As quietly as I could, I crouched low and inched back on my foot and knee, wincing as a board creaked under my weight.

Blind. He was half blind. But he wasn't stupid.

The patient hopped over the bed and approached. I was trying to get on my feet to run, when my ankle wrenched awkwardly under my weight and my body sort of melted to the ground. He paused to listen as I dragged myself towards the wall and lay there, camera shoved into my coat to prevent him from seeing the light. Wasn't he blind?

He set the pipe on the floor and ran it gently along the surface, bouncing over uneven floorboards, a wheelchair wheel near me, and the furnace on the other side of the wall. When he returned to my side the pipe made a dull thump when it ran into my hip. Silence followed, I couldn't see a thing he was doing, I only knew that the pipe had departed for some time and the floor boards groaned uncomfortably close to me.

I lunged to my feet diving into the direction I had been headed. My ears nearly missed the sharp crack in drywall, the instant before I went tumbling over the bedframe I had completely forgotten about. Somehow I somersaulted over and landed on my butt, feet sprawled before me. The patient shrieked over me, wild with the excitement and exasperation that I had vanished suddenly. I pulled the camera out and crawled to my feet, racing to the end of the hall where the soft glow of candles awaited.

I pivoted on my heel and threw the door shut on the patient. A few seconds later the door shuddered with his weight, but I knew he had not run into it. Another thud, and the wood cracked along the hinges.

Had to hide. I whirled around, stunned instantly by what was left. To the side of the left wall was a gurney splattered with blood, the violence of it spread in a thick stain up the cracked plaster. It looked fresh. The same words that were scrawled beside the door, reaffirmed the message outside

Invite the Walrider

Beneath the blood spray lay a body on the gurney, coated head to toe in blood. Candles had been set around the corpse and on the floor beside it, and on a desk near the cot was a pristine metal plate with a fuse on it.

The door shattered and broke in. I snatched up the fuse and darted to the darkest corner of the room, pressing my face into my shoulder and watching through the nightvision as the patient entered. He crossed the room directly towards the nightstand and tapped the side with the pipe. A pause followed.

"Gone. Gone." He began to work his way around the room, touching the weapon into the dark seeking.

The nightvision on my camera started to dim. I kept low as I fumbled to take the old battery out set a fresh one in. As I checked through the visor, the patient had cut the distance between us as though he knew exactly where I was. I got up and ran for the door, he lunged after me yelling. He swung the pipe, it caught my back low not hurting me but upset my balance. I stumbled out the door gaining speed before I hurdled over the bed frame, in the edge of the NV I spied beds stacked in an alcove on my left, with space enough for me under them.

I skidded down to my backside and shoved myself under them as the patient cleared the obstruction and kept going. "Hide and seek! I like games!" His steps continued until I could no longer hear them, and still I kept hidden.

A warm spot began to grow on my back, and I cursed to myself. He hadn't wounded me, but he must've reopened the cut. I waited a bit longer, listening to the muffled sounds behind walls, and thought I heard the creeping rustle of pellets. I attributed this to my overstrung psyche.

I didn't wait long before I dragged my body out and stood, keeping my sense raw to whatever I wasn't yet aware of. I had one fuse, that was two for the slots, but I needed a third. Yes, I admit, the fuses did exist and I wasn't completely nuts.

Maybe I just wanted to believe I was loosing it. Keep me from being responsible for what I thought I was seeing at the edge of the visor, I didn't want to look. I was trying to keep my focus solid in the bright gleam in the little windows center, and move not too quickly if I needed to check some sound.

Further down the hall I picked up the loud glow of candles, another offering I surmised. I crept along the wall, opting to give the wheelchair corpse less room but I was wary should he suddenly spring back to life. He was less alive than the guy with the pipe though.

The door at the end was shut. I doubted the blind patient would shut a door if he entered a room, he hadn't seemed keen on it thus far.

Pray for Revelation

I'd pray for something. But not your revelation. I moved to the door and listened, hearing nothing. I turned the handle and stepped inside.

I froze when my eyes feel on the outline of a figure standing over a corpse, bloodied and surrounded by candles, his hands clasped together as though in prayer. I took a step back but the patient hadn't moved, he just stood watching the body and the candles.

Behind me the rapid approach of feet echoed in my ears, so I took a gamble in entering and slamming the door behind me. The other man hadn't moved, but he did look over at me. I moved to the left side of wall, away from the door as the wood cracked and thudded. I wasn't thinking when I THREW the door shut.

Halfway around the room I stumbled into a cold fireplace, the brick felt damp on my hands as I slipped into the hearth and knelt. The patient that had been watching me, now turned his attention to the door as it crumbled inward. I watched as the shirtless man entered and began scouting around the room, avoiding the center section where the other man stood. Either he decided I wasn't here, or couldn't be here due to the other patient, the half blind figure dashed out the broken door and was lost from sight.

I didn't wait long before I crawled out and went to view the body once more. This time the man didn't acknowledge my presence, but I did take into account the large butcher knife he held.

Beside the body was a table, with a pristine plate atop the blood stain. And there was the last fuse. I snatched it up and stuffed it into a pocket.

"No more!" howled the man, he clutched his face with his palms outraged before stalking towards me at a slow pace. I backed away.

He gained no speed and he said nothing more. When my back was to the shattered door I ducked out, wishing I had not slammed it on the other man in the first place.

As I turned the corner into the next corridor, I had to duck sideways to avoid running into the blind patient. Meanwhile, he tried to get his pipe up to bring it down as I pushed off the wall to keep from crashing into it. The open double door was now in my path, I brushed by the patient as he stumbled from the unaccounted force of missing his target. I stumbled through the open door and took the edge and tossed it behind me, but he had already twisted to chase. As result the door bounced off his weapon as he swung it, and snapped back open and he came through, eyes on me. I thought he was blind!

I didn't try and figure out which, I sprint the length of the corridor, turning the corner back into the laundry chute room. I dug in my pockets, hissing at the fibers getting caught on the gooey tips of my fingers. Had to get the fuses in, had to get that door open. I jammed one in, dropped the other on the floor in my haste. Rather fix this error I jumped back at the still open door and slammed it on the patient when he reached it. As he went for the handle, I gave it a Sparta style kick tearing the mechanism off. The patient pulled free the broken half the knob on his side and gave it a befuddled stare as I spun away to get the fuse. I stuffed it back into the slot and punched the panel. Power restored to the gate, the door began to open and the guard caught on the edge dropped. I lowered the camera as I looked down the chute. Fuck!

The patient threw his body against the door with a crash. I watched his actions for a moment as my mind blanked out. Laundry chute leads to the laundry. Would the body be there? Better than hanging around here.

I shot towards the counter and leapt it, stumbling over scorched wood and broken lumber from the room. I think the patient screamed after me, or that was the sound in my head. Shaking myself, I continued to the end of the hall.

The floor gave out under my foot when I reached the soaked wood, causing me to fall forward and nearly break my ankle. Instead, I caught myself on one hand and clutched the camera to my stomach as I groaned. My finger had jammed into the floorboard and before I had my foot free I was on my side, lying in the puddle trying to get out a sound. Something to rekindle my broken senses. My entire hand had gone numb.

Miles! Up! Get your ass up and MOVE!

I ground my teeth together hard enough to crack a molar. With some effort I finally unsnagged my foot and pushed myself to my feet, one shaky step after the next as I continued to the main room of this floor.

Walk it off Miles. You can do this. I remembered where the laundry room was. The key would be there, it must be.

I blinked against the harsh light, opting to use it as some meager form of distraction from my hand. I moved across the door less segregation gate that led to the lower basement, and considered the man I had seen down there studying the corner. Wasn't there a horror movie where someone was made to face a corner? My mind couldn't recall. I paused beside the inactive elevator and pressed my hands into the hard plastic of the camera, concentrating on the worn casing stained with a rosy hue. It wouldn't matter what polish or cleaner I used on it, it was perpetually dyed through its abuse. As long as it was still filming, that was all I was thinking. The footage, the evidence. Everything I had gathered. I drew in a deep breath and let out a long sigh. This was good, I was calming down and the feeling had returned to my hand, in that reminiscent throbbing when your hand falls asleep. It tingled, almost tickled.

I adjusted my footing, ready to climb back to my feet, until I took note of the contents of the elevator. That's right, I was in another section of the Asylum. Female Ward. Rick Trager died in the Male Ward. I fumbled with the camera, still unable to detect sensation between my fingers as well as I would like to.

"A dead body at the bottom of the elevator shaft, surrounded by food. He barricaded himself in someplace safe, someplace nobody could reach him. It didn't work."

There was even a filthy, stained mattress right before his scared and broken feet. I could detect the fetid sour rising from the dank walls of the lifts cradle. I recalled my short stop in the kitchen and the canned goods, how bland the contents had tasted despite my hunger. This person had obviously not considered the time limit and the inevitable outcome of eating through ones provisions, unless he had died of dehydration first. He had been ludic enough to realize what was happening and had tried to elude the horror and death that had swamped the Asylum. He could've been my hero.

I pulled myself up the linked segments of the lift and turned away, I stumbled a bit with my first steps as the kinks worked out of my legs. I entered through the segregation gate and walked down the dark hall. A plate on the wall reminded me the Laundry room was to the right.

When I moved around the corner, I was startled and backed away from the patient standing there. Fuck, I'd forgotten about that one. I took a few breaths and put myself beside the wall as I walked past him(her? I don't fucking care).

"Stupid, stupid, stupid."

Shut up. I kept that person in my sight as I limped, the one good eye gleamed in the NV as (s)he watched me. The laundry room wasn't far from here, I was having trouble focusing on where I was going and why exactly I needed to find the laundry room.

Key. The key fell down here.

I entered the room and shut the door behind me. The churning rattle seemed distant now, and I felt this inexplicable wave of sorrow or regret. It was just bizarre, and I hated how insignificant I felt to these emotions.

Shrugging it off, I approached the chute with the dead guard inside. And the key. I punched the panel and snatched the key the moment those doors had open, though the body could fall nowhere else. The key was still lopped on his swollen finger, and I had this gruesome task of massaging it off his finger. The way I did this…I picked up a piece of tile on the floor and crushed his finger to a pulp. By the end of it, I was ready to throw up again. Somehow I kept it together.

That and I was soon distracted by yelling on the other side of the closed door.

"Not alone! No more! Please!"

I stood across from the door listening as the screams grew louder. Then the door rattled, as someone tried to beat their way in. I immediately ducked down behind the laundry baskets and pulled the camera up, I had one route to follow and didn't need to slip up. I cringed into the sour smelling basket as the door creaked opened.

"He's one of Wernicke's! Don't let him hurt us!"

I crawled on my hand and knees around the other side as the bare feet worked around the other direction. When I was by the door I slipped out, while the man still hunted for me. There was precious little time to waste.

I saw no one else as I raced back to the stairs and leapt across the rotted wood to the next floor. I nearly dropped my camera, in my haste I forgot to secure it in the pack before I jumped. No harm was done, but it was a careless mistake I chided myself for. When I died, this camera was going into a museum.

I didn't plan to die for a very long, long time.

I sped through the smaller floor, to the locked gate on the right side. When I fished out the key from my pocket, I paused and took note of the blood collecting at the edge of my sleeve after I had fallen on my hand again. I whimpered to myself as I opened the door, and shut it behind me.

I rethought over wrapping my hands in sheets or cloth that I had found, or something. It had to be better than sticking them in the places that I had and butchering the ends further. I looked away when I noticed a little scrap of flesh dangling at the end of my ring finger. But I reminded myself using my hands in their current state was a hazard. A thin layer of sheets would only get soaked in filth and blood, and make it harder to get around. My fingers were a lost cause, I accepted this. But I could not afford to lose anything else.

My life.

I needed a real doctor, to give me shots of antibiotics, and put me back together. I didn't want to think of the dangers of seeking medical treatment, if Murkoffs presence still existed after everything that had happened. I needed that drive to keep me running, to keep me going when my body felt like it had nothing else to give. I would get help and rest, and some goddamn good food, but I first had to survive, no matter what it took. No matter how mangled and wounded I became, I was not dying inside this horrible place. I promised myself that.