The floor was cold beneath An's knees. He was still pressing his weight against Thanh's chest, holding the cabinet door shut. The horrifying hiss from within had died, but Thanh was still panting, his eyes glued to the door.
An let go, stumbling back. Khue and Son immediately rushed over.
"He..." Khue hesitated, reaching a hand toward Thanh's face, but not daring to touch.
Thanh had no physical injuries. But his eyes had changed. The abject terror of the man who wanted to go home was gone. In its place was a dreadful stillness. His eyes were vacant, looking right through them.
"Thanh?" An called, his voice still hoarse.
Thanh didn't answer. He calmly stood up, mechanically brushing the dust from his suit, then turned to face the opposite wall.
"Hey! Where the hell are you going?" Son snapped, raising a hand to stop him.
Thanh gently brushed Son's hand aside. "I hear her," he said, his voice calm. "She's sad."
Thanh faced the blank wall, raised his hand, and his finger began to trace a slow, gentle circle on the damp plaster.
Khue took a step back. That voice. It wasn't Thanh's. It was too... calm. Too devoid of emotion. She shuddered. It was just like... just like in the Butterfly Collector case file. When the victim began to speak of their abuser with a strange empathy. They were no longer afraid. They just... understood. Assimilated.
Khue realized. This wasn't madness. This was compulsive empathy. A kind of "psychological infection."
"That's not your sadness, Thanh!" Khue grabbed Thanh's collar, trying to shake him.
"I know what happened." Thanh smiled, a smile that wasn't his. His eyes remained fixed on the wall. "I saw it. You don't need to run anymore. Just go back to the common room, and we'll play a game. She doesn't need to see us. She... hears loneliness."
An recoiled. Hears loneliness. The third rule. Don't look at the eyes. She hears loneliness. Thanh was no longer a source of information. He was a walking trap. He was emitting a signal.
"Out of here!" An ordered. "Now!"
He lunged for the door, pulling it open.
Thud... thud...
The sound was no longer distant. It was coming from just down the hall, not ten meters away.
A tall, thin figure, standing still. The Faceless Nurse. She was clutching the teddy bear. And the sound of the bouncing ball was coming from behind her.
"The rule. Don't look at her face," Khue repeated, pulling Thanh along.
"To the right. There's a door," An commanded, pointing his phone light to the right. "We can't go past her. We're going in there."
They lunged for the nearest door. It was a small patient room, containing only an old, rusting bed, a nightstand, and the thick smell of dried blood.
An slammed the door shut, the sound of the lock clicking into place. The three of them leaned against the door, panting.
"We... we're safe." Son gasped, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead.
"No," Khue said, her eyes already sweeping the room. "We've trapped ourselves."
The room was small, suffocating. The smell of dried blood and rust was overwhelming. Just one old bed, one nightstand. An turned on his phone. 9% battery. He cursed, then shut the screen off. "Save the battery. Only when absolutely necessary."
Darkness enveloped them again, lit only by the faint strip of light from the hallway under the door.
"She... she was here." Thanh's voice rang out, chillingly calm. He had walked past them, standing in the middle of the room. "She loved this room. She... she misses her child."
Thanh turned to face the blank wall, raised his hand, and his finger began to trace a slow, invisible circle on the damp plaster.
"What the hell are you doing?" Son snapped, stepping forward to swat Thanh's hand away.
"Don't!" An stopped him. "Let him do it." An recognized something. Thanh's circle wasn't finished, but it seemed to be holding his attention. "He's busy. Better to keep him busy than to have him attract 'something' else."
Son backed off, leaning against the wall, feeling his own chest tighten. The smell of rust and dried blood in this room... it was too strong. It was pulling him back to another place, another time he had tried to bury.
The smell.
It was always the smell.
Not blood, but the smell of paint thinner and dry pine wood. It was the smell of the workshop, the smell of "home." The smell of Linh.
Linh was ten years older than Son, the first person to see Son's messy tags on the apartment block wall and not call the cops. He'd tossed Son a spray can. "You've got an eye," Linh had said, "but you got no damn technique."
Linh taught Son how to control the nozzle, how to mix colors, how to make a wall "speak." Together, they turned the dilapidated warehouse at the end of the alley into their own "cathedral." Their biggest piece was a giant fire-phoenix, its wings spanning the entire main wall.
"It's a symbol of rebirth, kid," Linh said, wiping sweat from his brow. "One day, you and me, we'll be just like it. Fly right out of this dump."
Linh always carried a silver Zippo, engraved with a phoenix identical to the one on the wall. "To light the way," he'd laugh, "for real fire, and for passion."
That night, they fought. A screaming match. Son wanted to sell one of their pieces to a street art collector. Linh refused. "Art is meant to be given, not sold!"
"Given? How do you 'live' on 'given'?" Son had screamed, furious at Linh's stupid idealism. "I'm sick of this hiding and scraping!"
"If all you care about is money, then get out!" Linh roared, throwing a toolbox to the ground.
Son, in the blind rage of his eighteenth year, did the unforgivable. He snatched the Zippo from the table. "If you don't need money, you probably don't need this, either!"
He sparked it, and threw the burning lighter toward the corner of the room—where they kept dozens of cans of thinner and solvents.
Linh didn't have time to react.
Son only remembered the terrifying WHOOMPH. Remembered a wall of fire exploding into existence. The sweet smell of thinner turning into the acrid stench of burning flesh.
He remembered running.
He remembered standing outside, watching the phoenix on the wall be consumed by a real fire. He hadn't saved Linh. He had stood and watched their cathedral collapse.
The next day, when it was all just ash, Son went back. He dug through the ruins, finding only one thing that had survived. The silver Zippo, blackened with soot, but not destroyed.
From that day on, Son never painted a phoenix again. He only painted soulless spirals. And he always carried the Zippo. Not to light a fire. But as a punishment. A reminder that the fire of creation and the fire of destruction... were only one flick of a thumb apart.
Son flinched, hard. He was still in the hospital room. The smell of dried blood. Not paint.
He gasped for air, his hand unconsciously clenching the Zippo in his pocket. He had just come back from hell.
At that exact moment, a small, weak groan echoed in the room.
Khue flinched. "What...?"
The groan came from under the bed.
Instantly, the hospital bed began to shake. Not a tremor from an earthquake, but a violent, rhythmic rattling, as if an angry child were jumping on it.
"The bed... it's moving!" Khue yelled, scrambling backward.
The bed didn't just move. It growled, like a metal monster. It slid back on its own, then launched itself straight at the opposite wall—the wall it shared with the hallway.
RAM!
The bed slammed into the wall with a horrifying impact. Plaster dust exploded.
An, Khue, and Son covered their ears.
The sound had barely faded when the wall cracked.
A large, straight crack, like a lightning bolt. Not a natural crack. A created one.
"The crack... it's opening..." An mumbled. His eyes were glued to the fissure. The structure is compromised. The scaffolding has failed. He backed away, his hand grabbing Khue's shoulder.
"An?"
"Back up!" An roared. "Get back! That's not a door! That's... a collapse!"
The crack was an omen. It looked exactly like the crack he'd seen on the ceiling just before the scaffolding fell. He knew.
The bed slid back again. It was preparing for a second ram.
"It's not trying to attack us!" Khue shouted, she had figured it out. "It's trying to break the wall! It's trying to let something from the hallway in!"
An looked at Khue, then at the door they had just come through—where he knew the Faceless Nurse was waiting. He understood. "The consequences will kill us faster!"
"The door!" An yelled, pointing at their only exit. "Get out! Grab Thanh! We have to run past the Nurse. Now!"
He lunged for the door, ready to unlock it.
"No!"
Another voice. Not Khue's.
An and Khue turned. Son was standing in the corner, drenched in sweat, but the panic was gone from his eyes. They were sharp.
Son, fresh from his memory of fire and loss, was no longer the cornered animal. He was observing.
"I'm not running back into that hallway," Son said, his voice raspy. He pointed down at a rusty metal grille near the floor, something An (focused on the door) and Khue (focused on the entity) had completely missed.
An air vent.
"When I used to paint in old buildings," Son said, his voice urgent, "I always looked for these to hide from security. My eyes tell me this one is big enough."
An looked at the vent, then at the bed pulling back for its third ram.
An didn't waste a second arguing. He trusted the certainty in Son's voice. "Open it!"
Son lunged, grabbing the grille with both hands, trying to tear it free. "Dammit! It's rusted shut!"
RAM!
The bed hit the wall a second time. The wall cracked wide open. A large chunk of plaster fell, revealing a black void between the two layers of brick.
"It's almost through!" Khue screamed.
"Son!" An roared, rushing to his side. "Together! Pull!"
An and Son threw their weight into it. The metal shrieked, bending.
Thanh, who had been drawing his circle this whole time, suddenly stopped. He turned toward the locked door—the one they had entered—and smiled.
"She... she's here."
An didn't understand what Thanh was talking about. The door was still locked.
RAM!!!
The bed hit the wall a third time. The wall burst open. A massive hole.
But the thing that came through the gap wasn't the Nurse. It was a hand. A pale white hand, with absurdly long fingers, grasping at the air.
At the exact same moment, An heard the click of the lock on the room door.
He spun his head around.
The room door swung open.
The Faceless Nurse was no longer in the hallway. She was standing right on the threshold, staring at them. Faceless. She had been there, waiting.