The air on the second floor was heavy. It felt less like oxygen and more like soup.
"Okay," I whispered, wiping condensation from the camera lens. "We are up. Second floor. Elevation is good, humidity is bad."
I stood at the top of the grand staircase. The hallway stretched out into darkness, lined with doors that had long since rotted off their hinges. The floorboards here were warped and swollen, buckling under the weight of decades of leaks.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound was constant. It echoed from everywhere and nowhere, a rhythmic ticking clock counting down to something wet and terrible.
"According to the map, the main stairwell to the third floor—and the Children's Ward—is blocked by a collapse," I explained, pointing my flashlight at a pile of rubble blocking the far end of the hall. "So, we have to take the service stairs. And to get to the service stairs, we have to go through... Hydrotherapy."
I shone the light on a set of double doors to my left. They were metal, rusted into a deep, flaky orange. A porthole window in one door was cracked, looking like a spiderweb made of glass.
I pushed the door. It didn't budge.
"Locked. Or stuck."
I tried the master keys I had found in the kitchen. None of them fit.
"Plan B," I grunted.
I took a step back and kicked the door right next to the handle. The rusted metal groaned, and the latch snapped with a wet crunch. The door swung inward.
The smell hit me instantly. It wasn't the copper tang of blood or the sweetness of rot. It was the smell of a stagnant pond. Mold. Algae. Dead fish.
I stepped inside.
"Oh, that is disgusting," I gagged.
The room was tiled in cracked white ceramic. Or, it used to be white. Now it was a kaleidoscope of green and black slime. Down the center of the room lay a long, rectangular pool—the immersion tank. Iron bathtubs lined the walls like coffins.
But the problem was the floor.
It was flooded. Dark, oily water covered the tiles, lapping against the baseboards.
"Okay, Ghost Gang," I said, aiming the flashlight at the water. "I can't tell how deep that is. But the service door is on the other side."
I tested the depth with my boot. The water came up to my shin.
"Manageable. Gross, but manageable. I just hope I don't get trench foot."
I stepped fully into the room. The water was freezing. It soaked through my boots instantly, sending a shock of cold up my legs.
Slosh. Slosh.
I waded toward the center of the room, keeping The Negotiator held high above the water level.
"Just a quick walk across the pool room," I muttered, trying to keep my morale up. "Nothing to worry about. Just some aggressive mildew."
I reached the middle of the room, right next to the main immersion tank. The water here was deeper, reaching my knees.
Suddenly, the water in the tank rippled.
It wasn't a splash. It was a displacement. Something large had moved just beneath the surface.
I froze. "Did you see that?"
I aimed the light into the tank. The water was ink-black. I couldn't see the bottom.
Bubble. Bubble.
A massive air bubble broke the surface, releasing a stench of sulfur so strong my eyes watered.
Then, the water level in the room began to rise.
"What the..."
I looked at the door I had just entered. It slammed shut.
CLANG.
Water poured from the rusted showerheads on the walls. It gushed from the overflow drains in the floor. The level rose past my knees. To my thighs.
"It's a trap!" I yelled. "They are trying to drown me!"
I started slogging toward the exit on the far side. The water was fighting me now. It felt thick, viscous, like I was wading through syrup.
Something brushed against my leg.
I spun around, raising the gun. "Show yourself!"
A hand shot out of the water.
It was pale, bloated, and missing fingernails. It grabbed my belt, yanking me backward.
"No!"
I lost my footing. I plunged into the freezing black water.
It was chaos. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe. The water filled my nose, tasting of salt and sorrow. Hands were everywhere. Dozens of them. They grabbed my arms, my legs, my neck, pulling me down toward the bottom of the immersion tank.
I kicked wildly, my boot connecting with something soft. I broke the surface, gasping for air.
"Get off me!"
I thrashed, trying to bring the shotgun to bear. The entities were clinging to me, weighing me down. I saw their faces now breaking the surface—drowned patients, their skin grey and sloughing off, their eyes milky white. They didn't scream. They just gurgled.
I couldn't aim. They were too close.
"Boil!" I thought. "Uncle Silas said it disrupts fields!"
I didn't aim at the ghosts. I shoved the barrels of the shotgun underwater.
I pulled both triggers.
KER-THUMP.
The sound was muffled, a deep concussion that hammered against my chest.
But the effect was immediate.
The spectral energy from the blast didn't have anywhere to go. It was trapped in the liquid. The water around me instantly flashed into steam.
The shockwave turned the immersion tank into a Jacuzzi from hell. The water boiled violently, white-hot bubbles erupting everywhere.
The ghosts shrieked. The superheated holy water burned them like acid. Their grips loosened instantly. They recoiled, their forms dissolving into the steam.
I scrambled backward, coughing water, clawing my way toward the service door. The room was filled with a thick, white fog. The water was still bubbling, hot against my legs now.
"That works!" I hacked, spitting out a mouthful of slime. "Physics still applies!"
I threw myself against the service door, turning the handle. It opened.
I tumbled out onto a dry landing, gasping for breath, soaking wet and shivering violently.
"Okay," I wheezed, rolling onto my back. "Note to self. No more pools."
I checked the gun. Steam was rising from the wet barrels. It was fine.
I checked the camera. The lens was wet, but the red light was still blinking.
"We survived," I whispered to the lens. "We are wet. We are miserable. But we are alive."
I looked up.
I was at the bottom of a narrow, spiral staircase.
"Third floor," I said, standing up and wringing out my shirt. "Children's Ward. Let's go play."