"Okay, key number one. Let's try... the rusty one."
I stood in front of a heavy steel door adjacent to the reception desk. The plaque on the door read SICUREZZA (Security).
My hands were still shaking slightly from the adrenaline crash of the kitchen fight. The smell of ozone and burnt spirit flesh clung to my clothes, masking the rot of the asylum.
I slid the iron key into the lock. It turned with a stiff, grinding protest.
Clunk.
"Open sesame," I whispered.
I pushed the door open and swept the room with the barrel of The Negotiator.
Clear.
It was a small, windowless room. Dust motes danced in the beam of my flashlight. Along one wall sat a row of metal filing cabinets. On the other, a desk with a rotary phone that had melted into a puddle of black plastic—likely from a fire decades ago. But the most important feature was the door itself. It was solid steel, thick as a bank vault, with a heavy deadbolt on the inside.
"Home sweet home," I sighed, stepping inside and throwing the deadbolt.
For the first time in four hours, I felt a tiny fraction of safety. I wasn't exposed. I wasn't being hunted. I was just a guy in a box.
I set the heavy black case on the desk and sat down on the floor, leaning my back against the cool metal of the door.
"Status report," I said to the camera, resting it on my knee. "It is 11:45 PM. We have cleared the lobby and the kitchen. We have dispatched two Class-A entities—the Head Nurse and the Glutton. Ammo count..."
I opened the case and counted the brass shells.
"I have eighteen rounds of Spectral Buckshot left. Four rounds of Dragon's Breath. And two shells that look... weird."
I picked up one of the odd shells. It was silver, cold to the touch, and carved with a symbol that looked like a weeping eye. A note taped to the side of the box in Uncle Silas's handwriting read: For the loud ones. Use sparingly.
"Silencers?" I guessed, putting it back. "Or maybe it makes them shut up permanently. We will save those."
I tore open a protein bar. It tasted like chocolate-flavored sawdust, but I ate it in two bites. I needed the calories. Fighting ghosts was surprisingly heavy cardio.
I stood up and walked over to the wall above the desk. Beneath a layer of grime was a framed blueprint of the island facility.
"Okay, let's see where we are going."
I wiped the glass with my sleeve.
The map was detailed. It showed the layout of the asylum in terrifying clarity.
Ground Floor: Lobby, Kitchen, Laundry, Administration. (Mostly Clear).Second Floor: Men's Ward, Women's Ward, Hydrotherapy.Third Floor: Children's Ward, Staff Quarters.The Bell Tower: Access via Third Floor roof.Basement: Morgue, Isolation Cells, Boiler Room.
My finger traced the line to the basement. Someone had taken a red marker—years ago, judging by the fade—and scribbled over the basement entrance. They had written one word in frantic, jagged letters:
DIO È MORTO QUI. (God died here).
"Cheerful," I muttered. "So the basement is the endgame. The Doctor is down there."
I tapped the camera lens.
"But I can't go down there yet. If I go to the basement now, the ghosts on the upper floors will come down and trap me. I need to clear the building top-to-bottom. That means we go up."
I looked at the section marked Hydrotherapy on the second floor.
"Hydrotherapy," I mused. "Water treatment. That sounds relaxing. Or drowning. Probably drowning."
Suddenly, the radio on my belt—a cheap walkie-talkie I kept for backup audio—crackled to life.
Static.
I froze. There was no one on the other end. Marco was gone.
Static... Jax...
The voice was whisper-thin. It sounded like it was coming from underwater.
...help... cold...
"Hello?" I grabbed the radio. "Is anyone there? Marco?"
...Jax... behind... you...
I spun around, raising the shotgun.
The room was empty. The deadbolt was still thrown.
But on the monitor of my GoPro, specifically the small screen on the front that showed me what I was filming, I saw something.
In the reflection of the glass blueprint frame behind me, there was a face.
It was a child. A little girl with wet, matted hair covering her eyes. She was standing right next to me, her hand resting on my shoulder.
I looked at my actual shoulder. Nothing.
I looked back at the screen. She was there.
"Okay," I breathed, my voice trembling. "Okay. They can project into the tech. That is new."
I slowly turned back to the blueprint, raising the gun barrel to the glass.
"I see you," I whispered.
The reflection of the girl smiled. Her teeth were made of needles.
See you soon, Jax.
The glass of the picture frame shattered outward.
I flinched, covering my face as shards rained down. When I looked again, the reflection was gone. The map was shredded.
"Children's Ward," I said, wiping a drop of blood from my cheek where a glass splinter had nicked me. "She wants me to come to the Children's Ward."
I checked the map one last time. The Children's Ward was on the third floor. But to get there, I had to pass through the second floor. Through Hydrotherapy.
"Alright, Betty," I said to the gun, snapping the action open to check the load. "No sleep tonight. The kids are awake."
I unbolted the door and stepped back into the silence of the lobby. It felt different now. It wasn't empty anymore. It felt like the building was waking up, shifting its weight, preparing to digest me.
I started up the grand staircase. The wood groaned under my boots, sounding like broken bones snapping in the dark.
"Next stop: The spa," I quipped, though I felt sick to my stomach. "Let's see if the water is fine."