Out of The Sewers; Into the Male Ward Part One
Once our laughter subsided, Miles, Waylon, and I all took a moment to gather our bearings as we studied the brick corridor we were all standing in.
"I guess we should just go straight ahead." Miles said with a shrug. We all made our way to the end of the corridor, seeing another sign for the Male Ward with an arrow pointing to our left. We all made our way into another entryway, making our way through the corridor until we came out at the end of it. In the right hand corner, there was a patient sitting on the floor, bandages on his face. He didn't speak to us, he just rested his face on the top of his arms, which were crossed over his knees. There was yet another sign for the Male Ward. This time, the arrow pointed to our right. As we made our way further in, we all noticed a picture leaning against the wall, the image torn. At the end of the corridor was a wheelchair and a grated door. Another patient stood in front of the grated door; holding onto it and shaking. I assumed he was trying to open it, but it was doing him no good.
The three of us paid no mind to him as we turned to our left, heading down some stairs in another corridor. Once again, we were back in the sewers, bloody water continuing to flow throughout them. A sign on the wall directly in front of us read: MALE WARD, with an arrow to our left. We all stepped down into the water, feeling disgusted once more as we walked through the sewer tunnel. The three of us stopped when we noticed a patient running at the end of the tunnel, the sound of splashing footsteps echoing around us as he turned left. We reached the end of the tunnel, the patient continuing to run, going to the right this time.
Did he want us to follow him?
Once we reached the tunnel the patient had turned into, we noticed that it was dark. We switched on our night vision, continuing on, the sewers lighting up in an eerie, green glow. Once we reached the end of this tunnel, we noticed a gap in a wooden wall that we would have to squeeze through. We did so, coming to a stop as we noticed some stairs to our right. The MALE WARD sign was here as well, indicating that we'd reached our destination.
"I think we're finally going to be out of the sewers." I said, feeling happy about that, but dreading what would likely come next at the same time. We all made our way up the stairs, noticing that we were finally in the Male Ward.
"What now?" Miles asked, looking at Waylon.
"Now we head for the ground floor of the Male Ward." Waylon replied, and Miles and I nodded in understanding.
"Okay. Let's all stick together." I said to them. There was an open grated area at the end of the corridor we were in; but it was blocked off by a few cast iron beds. In front of us there was what looked to be a small metal wardrobe; red bordering its edges. Inside of it, there were four white tanks, I assumed they were propane.
"Guys, if we're going to die, we could always just blow this place sky high." Miles said to us, smirking at his joke.
"Well, none of us intend on dying. So let's not do that." Waylon replied, looking as drained and exhausted as Miles and I.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Let's just keep going." said Miles, starting to push the wardrobe out of our way. He struggled for a moment.
"This thing is heavy as hell." He said, pushing into it.
"Do you want some help?" I asked, and Waylon and I stepped closer just in case.
"Nah, Blackie, I got it." Miles said, finally pushing it out of our way.
There was a small, square-shaped hole in the wall which we would have to crawl through. There was blood in the tiny corridor, smeared on the floor. I wrinkled my nose. As much blood as we had seen here, I was still disgusted by it. We made our way through the cramped, tiny corridor, entering a small room where a patient in restraints and bandages sat in a chair, blood pooled at his feet, which were in it. Water dripped from the ceiling, the single light above us flickering. There were bloody footprints leading to the door in front of us. My heart began to race. A feeling of dread pooled in the pit of my stomach. Everything about this place set my body on edge; but I knew we had to get going, as much as I didn't like it.
Miles opened the door; the three of us switched on our night vision once more. We all quickly noticed that the left of the corridor was a dead end. We had to keep going straight. The soft splashing of water droplets falling from the ceiling only added to the eeriness of the whole corridor. There was an abandoned walker against the wall to our left, and we heard the sound of what sounded like someone trying to break through a door. My heart raced even more. We were about to be attacked. We came into another small room, noticing another metal wardrobe blocking off the door opposite us. Whoever was trying to break through wasn't able to, the door shook pathetically against the wardrobe. A patient was lying on the floor, shaking in fear, his hands over his face.
Poor man. I thought, feeling very bad for him.
We waited for a few moments until the banging stopped.
"Whoever is on the other side of that door is not happy." Waylon said, looking between Miles and I.
"What do you propose we do? From my end, I don't think we have any other choice but to keep going." Miles replied.
"You're right. I'm just really dreading it." Waylon said.
"Seconded." I replied.
"Now or never, guys." MIles said, quickly pushing the wardrobe out of our way. The three of us stood silently; looking at the door in front of us. Miles pulled the door open slowly; the three of us peeking out into the hall, looking left and right.
"No sign of anyone." I said, frowning in confusion, yet I was relieved at the same time. To our right was another dead end. We could only go left, so we did, coming to another small vent in the wall.
"Guess we have to crawl again. I'm about damn sick of this shit." Miles said in annoyance as we all dropped down on all fours, starting to crawl our way through. What we saw in this room disturbed us. There were what looked to be hospital beds on both sides of the room; the curtains down over them. We could hear the low groaning of the patients on the inside. There were a few metal tables placed outside of these curtained structures.
"Okay, where the hell are we?" I asked as we all stood up, looking around the room.
"Some kind of hospital room by the looks of it." Miles replied, frowning as the three of us began to look around. We all came in front of a hospital bed in front of a few of the curtained ones. It was stained with blood, a few flies swarming around it. Somebody's leg, intestines, and liver lay on the floor in a bloody pile. Ants were crawling all around it and in it. We heard a patient in one of the tents talking quietly.
"Too alive. Too alive. Too alive." He said. The three of us exchanged glances, wondering what the hell he meant. I didn't know; and I damn sure wasn't going behind that curtain to find out. We walked further into the hospital room, stopping at yet another blood-stained bed in between two curtained beds. There was blood splattered on the walls behind it, more blood and body parts on the floor. The ants continued to swarm. I really hope we don't get a disease from this place.
We heard another patient speaking.
"Can't sleep. Wernicke's waiting for me there." He said, and I felt my heart drop into my stomach. Wernicke was dead. What did he mean, Wernicke was waiting for him?
"This whole place is fucked. These people are just in here waiting to die." Miles said, shaking his head, looking more worn down than ever.
"And it's more than likely only going to get worse from here." Waylon replied, sounding hopeless. I hated that they were right. I dreaded whatever came next from this point onward. The three of us came to some double doors at the end of the hospital room with grated windows. Peering inside, we noticed another patient strapped to a chair, shaking.
"I don't want to go in there. But I know we have to." I said dreadfully. Once again, the three of us looked at each other. I could tell that Miles and Waylon were feeling as tense as I was. But I also knew that they were in this with me. We would escape this place, if it was the last thing any of us did.
When I reached the door, I twisted the knobs, noticing that they were both locked.
"Shit. We have to double back." I said. We all turned around, looking into the hospital room when Miles pointed to an open vent in the ceiling above the bloodied bed.
"There," He said, jumping onto the bed and into the vent. Waylon and I followed quickly. My heart was beating so loudly I could hear it, and I wondered if they could, too. My stomach quivered with anxiety, my legs beginning to feel shaky. We soon reached the end of the vent, which looked down into the same room we had just been looking into through the hospital room's doors. The three of us dropped down into it, freezing in our tracks as the patient in the chair began screaming.
" WANTS MEAT. WANTS MEAT. WANTS MEAT." He yelled. We all watched in horror as two men came running to the double doors, slamming themselves into them.
"YOU'VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!" Miles yelled, all of us looking around frantically.
Shit, shit, shit!
Finally, we all noticed another door.
" LET'S GO!!!" Waylon shouted, throwing the door open as we all bolted through it, the shouts of the two men echoing around us.
" ANOTHER WAY. WE'LL FLANK THOSE PIECES OF SHIT!!" They shouted as we all ran like bats out of hell, coming to another door at the end of the corridor, throwing the door open quickly.
" YOU CAN'T HIDE!!! YOU ARE THE PRODUCT!! DEATH AND TAXES, DEATH AND TAXES..!!" The men continued to shout.
" THE DOOR. WE NEED TO BLOCK THE FUCKING DOOR!!" I shouted fearfully, tears streaming down my cheeks as I shoved my body into the metal wardrobe, trying frantically to push it against the door I'd slammed shut behind us. Miles and Waylon rushed over to me, helping me shove it into place against the door.
" THERE'S GOTTA BE ANOTHER WAY!!" The men shouted. Miles, Waylon, and I quickly burst through the opposite door, sprinting as fast as we all could. We came to another room, a trail of blood leading into it. Charging into it, we ran our way to another vent in the upper wall. The three of us climbed into it as quickly as we could.
"THERE'S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO FUCK A CAT. COME ON!!!" One of the lunatics shouted as we all crawled through the vents, our breathing ragged, our hearts pounding.
"WALRIDER!!!"
"DOCTOR WERNICKE!!!"
The three of us continued to sprint. I felt like my heart was going to burst out of my beating chest. We soon found ourselves in a series of rooms with checkered floors, hopping over desks.
The men continued to shout: " WALRIDER!!! WALRIDER!!!"
Finally, the three of us reached the end of these rooms. There was a large gap in between the floor and the next floor over, a wooden plank stretching halfway across it.
"SHIT. NOW WHAT!?" I demanded, hands in my hair, my breath coming out in rapid pants.
" FUCKING JUMP!!!" Miles shouted, jumping across the gap. I feared he wouldn't make it, but he did, and Waylon and I quickly followed. Miles grabbed my hand, helping me up onto the other side of the floor.
" YOU SLIPPERY LITTLE WHORES!!!" We heard the men shout once more. Then, we continued to run.
"THERE'S ANOTHER DOOR! THIS WAY!!!!"
" YOU CAN'T HIDE!!! I WANT MY MONEY!! I WANT MY MONEY!!! I WANT MY MONEY!!" I was beginning to grow tired from all of the running when we came to another desk, climbing up onto it and jumping over the wall, making our way into another room with the same checkered flooring. We kept running as though Satan himself was on our trail, Miles throwing open a nearby door. There was a dumb waiter nearby, and we all made haste towards it as we heard a voice through the speaker on it.
"YOU'RE NOT ONE OF THEM, ARE YOU!? QUICK!!! GET IN THE DUMB WAITER IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!!!" The male's voice shouted. Miles yanked open the grated covering of the dumb waiter; the three of us cramming into it against each other as the two men that were chasing us burst into the room, running over to it.
" DAMMIT!!!" They shouted as the dumb waiter rushed upwards. The three of us were exhausted, sweating, and breathing hard. But we were relieved to still be alive. Our relief was short lived, however, once we reached the top. Standing outside of dumb waiter was a man, who looked as though the top layer of his skin had been completely peeled off, leaving nothing but his muscles underneath. He was almost completely nude, only a dark colored apron was wrapped around his waist, reaching to his feet. He had strange looking glasses on, a mask covering his face from his nose down, exposing part of his mouth, wires wrapped around his arm. The top of his head was balding, with gray, stringy hair starting at his ears and coming down the back of his neck.
"You made the right choice here, buddies." He said, punching Miles multiple times. Miles fell to the floor, groaning. Neither Waylon nor I had time to do anything before he punched us as well, us falling to the floor. Then, he quickly injected the three of us with something, and I felt my body growing weak, just like when Father Martin injected Miles and I with whatever it was.
"Hey, you two are those little shit priest's guys, aren't you? His.. witnesses, or whatever. You all must be exhausted. Let's take a break, huh, buddies? The old martini lunch, have a little confab." He said, looking between Miles and I as he began to lift an exhausted Miles into a wheelchair.
"You're heavier than you look. A little cardio wouldn't kill you. Okay, here we go. Arms and legs inside the car at all times." He said, strapping Miles's arms and legs against the wheelchair. He pushed Miles with one arm, while he grabbed both Waylon and I with his other hand, his hand digging into our hair. Whatever he had injected us with was starting to work. My whole body felt like lead. I couldn't move, though I desperately wanted to. We have to get out of here. All of us. Now. I thought as he continued to push Miles, dragging Waylon and I. My scalp burned and tingled and my body ached. There was nothing we could do but accept our fate.
"I love the mountain air up here at night. You three want to head out, take a stroll? Go ahead, I'll wait right here. Go on, run free. I'm in no hurry." He said in a sarcastic joking tone, gesturing to the exit in front of us, rain pounding just outside, thunder booming and lightning flashing. The exit was so close, yet so far away. Tears burned my eyes. Will I ever see my son again? Will Waylon and Miles make it home? I glared at the back of the man's head as he spoke again.
"No? Alright. Nose to the grindstone, I like that. Okay, then. Right this way." He spoke as he backed up, pulling us all into an elevator, our hopes of escaping fading away. Once we reached the floor this sicko desired, he pushed Miles, pulling Waylon and I along with them. There was a bloody wheelchair trail leading into a dark corridor, where a patient was strapped to a bed, screaming in agony.
"Shh, shh. You weren't putting that tongue to use anyway." The man responsible for capturing us hissed out, glaring in the other patient's direction before he spoke again. "Truth be told, I was just tired of licking my own stamps."
I felt my blood run cold. This sick fuck cut out a man's tongue all because he was tired of licking his own stamps. My heart began to pound, fear pouring into my body. I could only imagine what he had in store for all of us. Finally, we came into a larger room, a door leading into a smaller, darker one.
"Here we are, then. Thanks so much for coming by. We'll begin your consultation in a moment. I'll just need a minute to wash up, and.." He trailed off. This sick son of a bitch was just bitching about how he was tired of licking his own stamps, and now, he was worried about washing his fucking hands? I almost laughed out loud. We heard a static sound, and suddenly, the lights in the room came on. The man soon pushed Miles into the center of the smaller room. There were two more wheelchairs. He quickly strapped me into one, Waylon into the other. I was on the right of Miles, Waylon on the left. I glanced at Miles, who was looking at me as well. I then noticed the blood everywhere. On the floor, on the mirrors in front of us, blood splattered on the dirty sink.
Oh, God, what did we get ourselves into now?
Then, he noticed our video cameras. He scooped them up quickly, placing them on the sink in front of us.
"Oh… home movies!! And, it'll give us all a chance to talk," He said, holding his hand in front of us in a stopping motion. We watched as he rinsed his hands in the sink. Whatever it was that he was going to do; I desperately wished he would get it over with. I was beyond sick of this place. I heard Miles grunt; and I looked at him. He was trying to wiggle his way out of the wheelchair. Waylon and I began to do the same, whatever drug this lunatic had administered to us began to wear off. Thankfully, he didn't give us enough to kill us, just enough to make us weak and unable to fight back for the time being. The man turned back around, looking at Miles and I.
"You know, I'm a bit worried about how much time you two have been spending with Father Martin. I know… I hope you don't let him confuse you with his.. Holier-than-thou talk of gospel. No offense to the man, but I sometimes worry that he might just be a little bit.. Crazy." He spoke, and we watched, petrified, as he walked over to a metal table, picking up a dirty, bloody knife before putting it back down again.
Oh, God, please, no.
He picked up a few other dirty weapons of his, holding each of our hands briefly, inspecting our fingers as he continued to speak.
"It's understandable, people get scared, they're likely to turn to God. However, I am onto a more concrete faith now. Murder in its simplest form, but what happens when all the money is gone? Well, money becomes a matter of faith. And that's what I'm here for. To make you believe." As he said this, he walked over to a dirty urinal, yanking a pair of bone shears out of it. Waylon and I screamed when he walked over to Miles, cutting off the ring finger of his left hand and the index finger of his right, the sickening sound of bone crunching and flesh tearing seeming to echo in our ears. Blood poured from Miles's hands onto himself and the floor. Miles wailed in pain, once more trying to struggle free as the man slapped him, hard, across the face. Tears flowed down all of our faces as we continued to scream, trying to break free.
"YOU PAYING ATTENTION!? DON'T PASS OUT ON ME, THERE'S STILL A LOT FOR YOU TO ABSORB!!" He yelled in Miles's face. Then, he looked at me, making his way towards me. I screamed once more, struggling against my bonds, sobbing.
"DON'T FUCKING TOUCH HER!" Miles snarled, shaking in anger.
"Come on, sweetheart, it's your turn. It's only fair." The man said, slicing his bone shears into my left hand ring finger as well. I screamed in agony, my vision going in and out as my blood sprayed onto this sick fuck in front of me. Pain coursed through my body as he made his way to my right hand, cutting off my index finger. I bit back the urge to scream once more, not wanting to give this asshole the satisfaction yet again. I looked at him, fighting the urge to pass out, taking deep breaths in and out slowly.
"And these…" He said, trailing his bone shears down my neck and around both of my breasts. "Do you understand how much these are worth on the black market?" I glared at him, sick to my stomach.
" Go fuck yourself." I snapped, spitting on him.
"HEY, FUCKWIT!! LEAVE MILES AND LOVELYNN ALONE!!" Waylon shouted angrily, glaring at him. When Waylon said this, the man chuckled, walking over to him.
"Don't think I've forgotten you." He said, repeating the same thing on Waylon. Much like Miles and I, Waylon screamed, agonized, sobbing in pain. I was now sobbing again, no longer caring about anything but the three of us getting out of here. The man stepped back, smiling at the three of us, clearly proud of his handiwork.
"There. Better now, right? Do you understand what we achieved here? We made the consumers into the means of production. This thing is gonna sell itself!" He shouted with glee, pushing a metal cart out of the room as he walked away, shutting the door behind him. The three of us began frantically struggling against our bonds; finally breaking free as we stumbled to the sink, retching as we all vomited onto the floor. Once that was done, we all leaned against the sinks, breathing hard, our blood continuing to run on the floor. There was blood everywhere, various body parts littering the floor. I grabbed a dirty knife off of the lunatic's floor, beginning to cut chunks off of the bottom part of my dirty, bloody, wet sweater to make bandages for us. It was better than nothing. I tied them around the bloody parts of each of our hands, my own hands trembling as I did so. I slumped to the floor, holding my head in my mutilated hands. Miles crouched down next to me, placing a hand on my shoulder.
"Blackie-" He began, but I put my hand up to silence him.
"Don't even say it. I know." I said hoarsely, already knowing he was going to insist that we keep going. Miles sighed as he stood up, grabbing his camera. I stood up as well, Waylon and I grabbing our cameras. Then, we all stepped out into the tiny hallway, stopping at a door with a grated window as we heard a man speak.
"Who's there? Is somebody there? Come closer." He said. The three of us exchanged a glance, not wanting to do what we knew we had to do. We walked through the room filled with bloodied beds until we came to one that a man was strapped to. His head was held up by some kind of strange system. He looked horrible, clearly having been through more than what we could probably imagine. The man on the bed began to speak again.
"I'm not a patient. I'm an executive, just like him. Like Trager. But he got the treatment. He's too alive; filled with Wernicke's nightmares. It worked too well. They couldn't control it.. And you can't control it… Nobody.. Nobody… NOBODY!!! HE'LL FIND YOU!! HE'LL KILL YOU!! HE'S COMING NOW!! TRAGER!!! TRRAAAGGGEEERRR!!" The man wailed, thrashing against his bonds, making the bed shake. The three of us quickly scanned the room, each of us quickly crawling underneath one of the many beds here. True to the man on the bed's words, Trager stalked into the room, bone shears in hand, stopping at the bed.
Then, Trager spoke, looking down at the man. "I see what's happening here. You're bored. You want a little attention. Perfectly understandable. Well, I'm here for you. I'll give you very special attention." Then, Trager raised his bone shears, bringing them down into the man, blood spurting from his chest as he wailed in pain. I covered my mouth with my hands, squeezing my eyes shut as I sobbed silently, my body shaking against the cold floor.
The three of us then heard Trager shout again once he'd discovered we were gone.
" FUCK! FUCK! REALLY!? IF THERE IS ONE THING THAT I CAN'T FUCKING STAND, IT'S A QUITTER!! COME ON!!!" I flinched at the animosity in his voice, wanting to stay under this bed and never move again. We watched as Trager walked out of the room, snapping his bone shears.
I looked at Miles and Waylon. Miles was under the bed to my left, Waylon under the one to my right.
"We have to leave," Waylon whispered, eyeing Miles and I.
"Yeah, no shit." I whispered back, agitated with our situation.
"I know one thing. And it's that we have to get the elevator key from Trager. We won't be able to escape him until we do." Miles whispered, sounding like he dreaded this just as much as Waylon and I.
"How are we going to do that?" I whispered, looking at Miles.
"We have to leave this room. I know that's dangerous for us to do, but right now, we don't have a choice. Then we have to find that key." Miles responded. The three of us quietly crawled out from under the beds; peeking around them to see if Trager had come back. Luckily for us, he hadn't, and we all stood up, sprinting through the open doors. We hadn't gotten far when we heard Trager call out to us, his voice filled with a twisted form of glee.
" BUDDIES!!!" He yelled, chasing after us.
We ran, hearts pounding, turning left and right until we came into another room with checkered floors, a bed underneath an open vent, blood dripping from it.
" COME ON!!" Waylon shouted, helping Miles into the vent, then pulling me into the vent as well. We heard Trager cursing to himself as he walked away, mumbling.
"I should have cut their feet off first. Amateur move." He said, the three of us watching as he headed back into the other direction, shaking his head. We all crawled a little further into the vent, sitting beside each other as we slumped against the vent's walls, trying to calm our racing hearts and catch our breath.
"Well, that asshole doesn't have the key on him, we know that much." Miles groaned, looking down at his bandaged hands, blood already seeping through. Waylon and I's hands were the same, even through the bandages. I really hoped that none of us would get an infection. Had I known what Miles and I would have been getting into here; I never would have agreed to this job. I was worried that I would never make it out of here alive to see my son again. The thought pained me to my core, and in that moment, I felt truly hopeless. I wanted to believe that we would all be okay and that we would all get out of this forsaken place. Now, however, I didn't. I didn't want to move from this spot. I wanted to stay here, and let whatever came my way come. The only thing that made me want to keep going was the continuous thoughts of Noah. I had to keep going, no matter how hard this was, for him. He needed me, and I needed him.
"We need to get that key," I said weakly, looking between Miles and Waylon. Waylon sighed.
"I know we do. But there's a chance we won't even make it to wherever that damned key is." Waylon replied, sounding as hopeless as I felt.
"That's a chance that we just have to take." Miles said somberly, staring at the opposite wall of the vent.
"Lead the way, Sherlock," I said, forcing a small smile onto my face, though we all knew it was fake.
"Will do, Blackie. Let's go." Miles replied, and we all crawled through the vent, dropping into another dark corridor. To our right, there was a grated door, with yet another metal wardrobe in front of it, looking into the room we'd just found the vent in. Miles and Waylon both pushed the wardrobe out of the way of the door, opening it as quietly as they could.
"There. That way, we can come back through here to the vent if we need to." Miles said, looking at Waylon and I.
"Good thinking. Hopefully we won't need to." Waylon responded.
"Let's go," I said, as we crept quietly down the dark corridor, stopping when we saw Trager come out of a room across the hall, bone shears in hand. He hadn't spotted us yet. We all backed up against the wall, pressing our backs into it, watching Trager carefully.
"Now what?" Waylon hissed quietly.
"Now, we have to go into the room across from the one Trager just came out of." Miles whispered.
"I don't think all of us need to go there. Look at the end of the hall." I whispered, and Miles and Waylon followed my gaze to the double doors, blocked by one of those metal wardrobes. I didn't like what I was about to say.
"One of us needs to bait him. Lure him into the room across from the one he came from. The other two need to run like hell to those doors and push the wardrobe out of the way." I whispered, looking between Miles and Waylon, who looked astonished and fearful.
"Oh, hell no, Blackie. We all stay together." Miles snapped quietly. I'd already made up my mind.
"We can't." I whispered to him. Then, before Waylon or Miles could stop me, I charged forward, shouting at Trager.
" HEY, DICKHEAD!!! I'M RIGHT HERE, YOU DUMB SON OF A BITCH!!" I shouted, taunting him as I bolted through the double doors of the room, weaving in between fallen hospital beds and chairs. Trager followed close behind me, snapping at me with the bone shears. I jumped out of the way.
" Is that all you've got? YOU MISSED!!!" I shouted, laughing at him as he tried desperately to stab me, while pleading Miles and Waylon mentally to hurry the fuck up. It was then that I tripped over an overturned table, my ankle twisting painfully as I fell onto the floor. Trager was now towering over me, me pulling myself away from him as quickly as I could, my ankle pulsing with pain.
" YOU'VE BEEN A PAIN IN MY ASS FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME!" He roared, raising his bone shears above me, intending to bring them down into my head. With one last effort, I lunged forward, wrapping my arms around his legs as I knocked him to the ground. How he managed to hang onto his bone shears was beyond me, but I wasn't giving him any chances to use them. I brought my knee into his face, the bones of his nose cracking as he began to pour the blood. He howled angrily, and I jumped up, running back out into the hallway, my ankle protesting painfully as I did so. Miles, Waylon, and I almost smacked into each other, as they were making their way back to me.
"Lovelynn-" Miles began.
"Talk later. FUCKING RUN!!" I shouted, and we all ran for the end of the corridor through the now open doors, slamming them shut behind us. Trager was hot on our trail, slamming the doors open, following close behind us. We reached the end of the corridor, hopping up on another bloody bed and into a vent above it, rapidly crawling through it. We dropped into another checkered floor room, coming to a stop at a smaller room, an open section in the wall looking into it. There, on a billboard was the elevator key, gleaming it all its golden glory as it hung there.
"There's the key," Waylon said, sounding ecstatic. We all jumped into the room, Miles grabbing the key quickly, shoving it into his pocket. Our joy was short lived when Trager began stabbing his bone shears through the closed door in front of us.
"SON OF A BITCH!!" Miles shouted, ushering us out the open section in the wall and back into the huge checkered room, where each of us crawled underneath the first beds we saw. We all waited in silence as Trager came into the room, walking rapidly into the back of it, looking under the beds.
" NOW!!" Miles hissed, and we all bolted out from under the beds, charging into the small room and through the now open, destroyed door.
" MY BUDDIES!!" Trager shouted gleefully, following behind us. We ran, legs pouding, hearts thumping, until we all reached the elevator. Miles quickly opened it with the key, all of us rushing inside as the iron door began to come down. However, Trager had reached us, trying desperately to push his way inside, stabbing at us with his bone shears. Miles rushed forward, grabbing Trager's arms, pushing him back away from us as the iron door came down, crushing Trager in between it. Trager wailed in pain, thrashing around until his body finally went limp; the elevator coming to a stop. We all slumped onto the floor, breathing heavily, our brains trying to process everything that had just happened.
"How to make Trager juice: Squeeze." Miles commented. Waylon and I looked at each other, the both of us bursting into uproarious laughter, our bodies shaking with the adrenaline and joy of us surviving.
"You two have lost your damn minds." Miles commented, before joining in with us, laughing loudly as we all grabbed each other in for a group hug. I was so happy and relieved that we were all still alive, despite everything we had just endured.
"Don't you ever recklessly put yourself in harm's way again." Miles said, squeezing me tightly. I smiled, squeezing him back. I was glad to have met both of them, despite everything we had all gone through.
"Guys, the only way out of here is that vent." Waylon said, pointing at the closed vent above our heads. We all stood up, Miles yanking the vent open, the three of us helping each other inside. We continued onward, wondering what else we would run into before we could get out of this hell.