Chapter 3: Bonds Start To Form
Once the three survivors entered the Hospital, Mono was about to lead when Shadow stopped him. "You might wanna think about letting me walk ahead for a little bit, you know just for safety sake," Shadow told him. Mono agreed and before Shadow walked on… he closed his eyes… brought out the red and purple chaos emeralds… and walked on with them both circling around him. Six and Mono were amazed by this and they both thought there was more to Shadow then they first thought. The two quickly followed him so they weren't left behind. As they walked, Shadow was wondering what had happened to this place. Beds were laid everywhere so it wasn't a typical hospital he'd seen before. When they came to the door and got it open, Mono almost fell down in an area with hanging beds, but Six saved him and pulled him back up. Once that was done, they knew that the only way to keep going was going up. "Follow me," Six said as she began the parkour area. Shadow on the other hand simply jumped up to the top like he did with Mono back in the School trying to escape the Teacher. Once he made it up, he waited for the two kids before continuing. Once they did, they found a power fuse and decided to take it for potential use, which they needed since there was an empty power control which needed the fuse. Once that was done, it opened the door of an elevator… or what used to be an elevator… was now a falling elevator. Nearby, there was a small vent Six and Mono could go through. Once they were through, the elevator began to collapse, but luckily Shadow teleported himself out of there. Once the three met up, Mono found a flashlight which he thought would come in perfect use with this situation. As they continued, the Hospital became more creepy as it seemed like it was a haunted house and someone just waiting to spook you. After a couple minutes of walking, they found a locked cell door. However, there was a vending machine filled with lemonade cans inside and they got one of them to hit the button of the door and get it open. As Mono continued, Six was getting thirsty again… Shadow noticed this. He went back to the vending machine, got her another can of lemonade, opened it up and gave it to the girl so she could quench her thirst. Once she finished, she began to sneeze which didn't sound good. Shadow still remembered she was shivering before she got her raincoat on. He asked her if she was ok, to which she said she was fine, although he didn't think so. They then heard something coming from the next room. Once they looked, they saw Mono again trapped inside of another TV. Just like last time, Six pulled him out and Shadow destroyed the TV. Mono was beginning to wonder what was happening to him. As Six comforted him, Shadow looked at the destroyed TV and began to think that something was doing this… and he was going to stop it at all costs.
Once things calmed down, they began looking around where to go next. They did find an elevator, but they needed to find power fuses in order to go inside the elevator. They also found a locked door which needed a key, which sounded like the first thing to look for. As they explored some more, they came across an x-ray machine and what appeared to be a nursery room. They eventually decided to test all of the toys in the x-ray to see if any of them had a key inside them. Six found a wooden horse while Mono found a stuffed bear. As the two played around with the x-ray, Shadow was by the entrance of the x-ray room… lost in thought about something. He didn't know what it was… but in his mind he saw something big and yellow surrounded by pink light. "What's going on with me? I can't get these images out of my mind," he thought. He soon broke his thoughts when Mono told him that they found the key they were looking for. They soon found an elevator which took them below to what appeared to be a crematorium room. They put the teddy inside the furnace, pulled the lever, and once it was incinerated… they got the key.
After going back up the elevator and unlocking the locked door, the three survivors walked through a spooky room with limbs of bodies hanging up on the ceiling. They then saw lots of body parts on shelves for storage. Eventually they came to a door and Mono volunteered to scout ahead in the next room. Six gave him a boost and he was on his way. Shadow looked around and wondered if this was a mad science lab. Not like the labs he'd seen aboard the Ark, but one of those creepy labs he'd catch a brief glimpse of in horror movies. He could only see a glimpse of them passing quickly by them as he usually would be off doing missions solo or with Team Dark. He then heard Six scream and looked behind him. A few of the prosthetic limbs began moving on the shelves, trying to grab anything close to them. Shadow began using his beam attacks to destroy any limbs that happened to get too close. This was completely new to him as he had faced many enemies in the past, but none of them were as creepy as these. They couldn't see where they were, but they could surely know where their prey was and how to attack. Once he was sure he got them all, he checked on Six… and saw a limb trying to grab her while she wasn't looking. Thankfully, Shadow fired a chaos spear just in time and got the living prosthetic limb. Once it began twitching a little, Six began bending the fingers...just to make sure that it was completely dead. Shadow then heard something coming from a nearby door with the bottom glass broken. He was prepared for an attack, but stopped when he saw Mono emerge with a power fuse. After going back to the elevator, Six pointed to a power fuse nearby. "That looks like a power fuse we could use," she said. Shadow on the other hand had his doubts. "Let's see here", he replied as he walked over to the fuse and picked it up. Upon a closer inspection, the fuse had static going around it like he'd seen when he fought the glitched man back in the woods. Shadow then crushed the fuse in his fist and once it was destroyed, it simply faded away. "I knew it! It's a fake!" Shadow exclaimed. "Why would there be a fake power fuse in this place? How weird," Mono said.
As they continued, they found another area to look for the second one they needed. Once they put the power fuse into the power cable, the automatic door opened and they went inside a corridor. After taking a look around they found a way through in the back. Mono once again said he would scout ahead to try and find the second power fuse. Six gave him a boost and once he was through on his way… Six began to sneeze again. Shadow started to think that after freezing in the rain, she probably got sick because of it… however he knew that he could try and help cure her. He still remembered that he was created to cure an incurable deadly illness that Maria had. He already lost one friend from an illness and he wasn't going to lose a second one. "Follow me." Shadow told her and he began exploring the area looking for any medicine that could be useful with Six following close behind. After a quick search of the place, they found some spare bottles of medicine and some small cups near the elevator. Shadow poured the medicine in one of the cups and handed it to Six. Once she drank it, she began to feel a little bit better. Six suggested that they could spend a little time in the nursery to try and pass the time waiting for Mono. On the table, there were some spare blank papers with crayons to use. Six began drawing ducks, bears, and bunnies on most of the pages. Eventually after Six drew quite a lot of pictures, Shadow thought it might have been best to check and see if Mono came back yet. "It's time to return," Shadow told her. Six folded up a blank piece of paper and put it in one of her pockets and followed him. On the way back, Six thanked Shadow for helping her get cured and he simply looked back and gave a small smile. They had just arrived in the corridor next to an electric chair room… when they heard Mono screaming in the room next to it. Shadow told Six to stay where she was as he teleported himself to where Mono was. Once he did, he saw that Mono was being surrounded by human shaped figures acting like zombies trying to grab him. Shadow had some advantages to this situation. Since his fur was black, he blended in so easily and was undetected. He knew only one thing to do to save Mono. He told Mono to go to the electric room. Mono did so by going through the wooden boards, but looked through cracks to see what was going to happen. Shadow then began glowing red… ready for what he was going to do. "CHAOS… BLAST!" After Shadow unleashed his chaos blast… Mono was checking the room to see what had happened. The room had some little flames from the blast and the figures were on the floor lifeless. Shadow then teleported himself behind Mono and he thanked the Ultimate Lifeform for the rescue. After getting the final power fuse they needed, they went into the elevator and down to the next floor.
Once they got there, Shadow brought out the red and purple chaos emeralds while Mono brought out the flashlight and they went through another spooky room. After Mono and Six climbed a rope through some cell bars and Shadow teleported through, they heard a noise coming from one of the drawer doors as it started banging. Six tried to hold it while Mono grabbed a pipe ready to get a moving hand that just appeared behind him. Eventually another moving hand in the door broke free, knocking Six unconscious for a few seconds. Once Mono got one of the hands, Shadow squished the other hand trying to sneak up behind Mono underneath one of his air shoes. Once Six began to regain consciousness, the three survivors continued on to the next room. Once inside, they found hanging masks on the wall looking like they were almost ready to be finished. Six didn't know why, but she felt like she would see one of those heads in time. Shadow looked at them and wondered if this was a part of his theory with the TVs or if it was a rival to whoever started all of this. The three survivors then heard a noise coming from the next room… and they saw something moving on the ceiling. This monster appeared to have huge teeth visible from swollen pairs of gums and pale, distended flesh that seemed inflated. He also was wearing a dirty buttoned overcoat with black trousers and matching black shoes. Mono and Six started to try and sneak past the Doctor, with Shadow keeping an eye on them, ready to jump in at any second. When the two kids hid under the beds, sneaking past him in the next room, Shadow waited by the entrance keeping an eye on what was happening here. They soon found an automatic door and they needed something to push the button. Mono saw a cube and knew that that was the only way they could get the button to open the door. He looked at Shadow and pointed at the cube, which Shadow simply nodded. Mono tried to sneak under the beds and get the cube while the Doctor was distracted with looking after lifeless patients lying down on each of the beds. When the Doctor was about to lift up the bed Mono was under, Shadow threw a nearby limb onto one of the patients, which the Doctor heard and instantly went to tend to it. In the distraction, Mono got the cube and once he snuck back, he threw the button which opened the door. The Doctor heard the door and saw the two kids and tried to grab them. Shadow then appeared in front of the Doctor and got into a scuffle with him. The Doctor tried pushing him out of the way… but he was having a tough time trying to move Shadow. Shadow looked back and once he saw Six and Mono in a hiding place, he teleported away which caused the Doctor to lunge forward onto the ground. He soon began consciousness and returned to his rightful place on the ceiling. As he was on his way back to his work, he began to wonder what just happened. "Who or what was that thing? It wasn't anything that I created", he thought. Once the coast was clear Six and Mono remerged and went into the vent by climbing, while Shadow went in the direction the Doctor went… ready for the next round.
In the next room, Shadow kept an eye on the ceiling to see if Six and Mono made it through ok. Once he saw they made it, he joined them to continue finding their way out of the place. After a quick search, they found a door which needed a key to unlock. There was a tray leading into another room and Six helped get Mono in there while Shadow kept an eye out for the Doctor. Once Mono got the key, he signaled Six to help pull him back. Once that was done, they opened the door and continued onto the next room. There were loads of bodies on shelves and Shadow began to wonder if the Doctor was raising the dead. Mono saw a vent that he and Six could go through. After they did a little bit of parkour, the two kids made it through the vent and the Ultimate Lifeform teleported to catch up with them. Once they got back together in the next room, they saw another door that needed a power fuse. They also heard something in the next room and after a quick peak, they saw the Doctor once again at work. Mono and Six tried sneaking past him once more while Shadow kept an eye on things in the other room. After Six gave Mono a boost into the next room, she ducked by the nearby cabinets to keep low. She then looked at Shadow who made sure the Doctor wasn't going near her location. The Doctor was getting closer to her and Shadow was just about to attack when a noise came from the room Mono was in. "My Patient! What's going on around here?!", he shouted. The Doctor knew that something must have gone wrong and went to fix the situation he found his patient in. Mono then emerged and after a little shelf hunt, he found the power fuse they needed. Once he put the power fuse in, the door opened. However the Doctor heard this, saw them running, and the chase was on.
While Mono and Six were running, Shadow kept firing chaos spears at the Doctor in an effort to slow him down, teleporting further in front to keep the attack going. Once Shadow made sure Six got through the beds, he saw that Mono had tripped on the ground and the Doctor tried pushing multiple shelves on him. He was about to get the kid, when Shadow caught the shelves and tried pushing them back toward the Doctor. "Go!" he told Mono. Six had seen the whole thing and once she and Mono kept going, they tried to find a way to help him. Shadow seemed to be having the upper hand as he easily was pushing the shelves against the Doctor's strength. The Doctor groaned in pain as he felt the weight of the shelves against him. He wasn't used to something stronger than him. Six called Shadow and told him that there was a furnace ahead to trap the Doctor in. Shadow then teleported away and the Doctor lunged forward and began picking up speed. He was soon locked into the furnace never to be let out again. He then began banging on the door shouting"Let me out of this infernal cage!" Once the three survivors had a quick break, they soon got a nearby elevator working and were ready to continue the journey. However, nothing that Shadow's been through so far… will prepare him… for what is about to happen.