The basement smelled of water, rust, and regret.
Each step Amelia took echoed too deeply, bouncing back warped, as if the asylum replayed her movements wrong on purpose. Pipes crawled across the ceiling like dead veins. Moisture dripped steadily, counting time she no longer trusted.
Her flashlight flickered.
Then steadied.
The hallway widened into a chamber of old therapy cells. Iron doors lined the walls, each with a small square window.
Inside them, chairs sat facing nothing.
Amelia passed one.
A whisper slid through the bars.
"Sit."
She ignored it.
Another cell:
"Tell us."
Another:
"We already know."
Her head throbbed as the voices layered together, forming pressure inside her skull.
She reached the end of the chamber where a large mirror stood bolted into the wall — a confession mirror once used to confront violent patients.
Her reflection stared back.
But it blinked late.
It smiled when she didn't.
The room darkened.
In the mirror, Amelia saw herself seated in one of the cells, wrists strapped, eyes hollow.
"Why did you come here?" the reflection whispered.
"I was investigating—"
"No," it corrected softly. "You were running."
The walls shifted.
The mirror thickened into depth, pulling her vision inward. Suddenly she saw memories that weren't hers — patients screaming, doctors sewing mouths shut, Elias Crowe standing calmly while people were fed into the walls.
Crowe's voice echoed:
"Confession feeds the structure."
A cell door behind her opened.
Slowly.
Metal groaning.
Amelia turned.
Inside stood a man with no jaw, tongue dangling uselessly, eyes desperate. He pointed at her, then at the chair inside the cell.
More doors opened.
Patients stepped out — stitched, hollow, unfinished.
They circled her.
Not fast.
Not violent.
Patient.
Hungry for truth.
"Tell us what you're afraid of," they whispered together.
The lights died.
In the dark, something touched her back.
Something warm.
Something breathing.
Crowe's voice slid through the chamber:
"Every soul must confess before it's worn."
Amelia realized with shaking horror —
Redwood wasn't trying to kill her yet.
It was preparing her.