Chapter Text
I’m already beat to all hell, picking broken glass out of my scalp, couple cracked ribs. Nearly killed by a deformed giant, looks like somebody tried to fuck-start his head with a cheese grater. He throws me through a wall, knocks me unconscious. I wake up to some doughy old man with a face like an alcoholic kiddy fiddler in a homemade priest outfit. Calls me his Apostle. Not a job I asked for. There are words scrawled in blood everywhere. I’m getting an ugly feeling in my gut that the “Priest” is writing them, and for my benefit—but the only thing I trust so far is the voice over the intercoms that’s guiding me through admin right now. Hopefully she’s actually on my side.
He came back slowly.
Pain first—sick, dull, and crawling like insects under his skin. Then the weight. Every inch of him hurt. His ribs screamed, his back throbbed, and something sharp had dug into the side of his leg. But he was alive.
He blinked blearily.
Above him: shattered glass. The remnants of a second-story window. Farther up, shadows danced against flickering lights, already retreating down some hallway he couldn’t see.
He’d been thrown. No—launched. The kind of throw meant to kill.
He shifted, groaning. His vision doubled for a second, stars dancing on the edge of it. Blood—his?—ran warm down the side of his face.
“Hey. You don’t know me, but I’ve been watching you—helping you.”
The voice crackles to life from the overhead speaker. The same one as before. Female. Calm, but breathless, like she’d been holding it too long.
“You need to get to the west security office. You’re closest to it—it should be just ahead through the admin corridor. You can unlock the main doors from there. Then we both get out. Together.”
Her voice pulls him out of the haze like a tether.
He blinks again. His camera.
Still there. Still intact.
He reaches for it with fingers stiff from the fall, the familiar weight of it comforting in a way that nothing else was. Scratched, a little dented on the side, but functional. Its night vision light blinked green. Recording.
Always recording.
He forced himself upright, one knee at a time, breath hissing through his teeth. The lobby stretched out in front of him—dimly lit, torn up, papers scattered like confetti.
The admin block loomed ahead once more.
“I’m on the east side. I’ll meet you there. Just follow my instructions.”
He gave a shaky nod out of habit. She couldn’t see him down here, probably. But it helped to do something.
He limps forward.
The admin wing was quieter than it had any right to be. A chair sat overturned at the hallway’s mouth. Phones hanging off their hooks. Blood splattered the walls like artwork. But the lights were on—some of them. The hum of power remained—a distant whine that somehow only made the silence worse.
“Left hallway. Past the second door. There’s a safer path around the open lounge.”
He followed.
She guided him like she’d walked it a hundred times. Her voice—crackling and distant—echoed off the walls Once or twice, he passed by figures slumped in corners. Patients. Broken, still breathing. One rocked back and forth, whispering under his breath to someone who wasn’t there.
None of them looked at Miles.
None of them moved.
He kept the camera up, documenting. A hallway littered with shredded files. A bloody handprint smeared across a keyboard. A desk that looked like it had been gnawed through with teeth.
He stopped there once—only briefly—to snatch up a folder near an open office door, pausing for a recording of the half-torn document pinned to the wall. Something about hypnotherapy. Something about brain patterns spiking into seizure-like bursts. He didn’t read all of it. Not now.
“Slow down. There’s someone near the elevator—no, not him. He doesn’t see you. Just keep moving.”
He did.
Not quickly. Quietly. He moved.
And with every step forward, every flicker of that soft voice in his ear, he started to feel something impossible taking root in his chest.
Hope.
After a few minutes of walking, he rounds a corner. The security office is just visible at the end of the hallway—a glass door with a flickering light above it. His heart kicked up in his chest. Almost there.
“You’re close,” the voice came through again. “That’s it. Straight ahead.”
Then her voice cut off. A second passed. Then:
“Shit. Shit. Don’t go through that door. Turn around. Now.”
He froze.
“He’s there. Chris Walker—the big guy who threw you through the window. He’s coming right down the hall. You need to move, now!”
The name sent ice through his veins.
A low, rhythmic thud echoed down the corridor. Heavy. The sound of bare feet slapping the tile.
Miles turned.
There—just at the other end—Chris Walker emerged from the shadows like something dragged from a nightmare. Shirtless, built like a wall of flesh and rage, blood smearing his skin, mouth, chest, hands. Feral eyes lock onto him.
“Little pig—”
Fuck.
Miles didn’t wait.
He ran.
“Left! Go left, past the records room!”
He bolted, skidding around the corner, camera jostling in his grip. He heard the roar—deep and guttural—and the crash of a desk being flung aside like cardboard. Weightless.
“Don’t stop! Don’t look back. Take the second hallway on your right—go, go, go!”
Miles darted into the hallway she described, nearly slipping on a smear of something too dark to be water. Chris was hot on his heels, close enough now that he could feel the tremor of his footsteps through the floor.
“There’s a maintenance crawlspace ahead—metal grate on the floor. Pull it up. Get inside. Now!”
He spotted it. Just barely.
A square hatch of steel, slightly ajar.
He dove, fingers scrabbling for the edge. It stuck.
Another crash behind him. Chris was close.
He screamed and ripped it open with all the strength his battered body would allow, throwing himself down into the inky darkness as Chris Walker’s snarl shook the walls.
The hatch clanged shut above him.
Darkness.
Cramped, filthy, reeking.
But alive.
“Okay. Okay. . .you’re good. He can’t get in there. Too big.”
“Keep following the tunnel. It’ll spit you out near the back entrance to security.”
A pause.
“. . .you okay?”
He nodded, searching for the camera she’s watching him through. Eyes find it, his nod becomes more assured—whether it’s for her or for himself, he can’t say.
He gives a small thumbs up to the camera in the corner pointed at him.
Another pause on the intercom—then, the faintest breath of a laugh.
“Good. You’re doing good. Just a little farther.”
And he kept going.
The duct spat him out behind a rusted set of lockers near the security office in the west wing. He pushed the grate aside, crawled out, and pressed his bruised body against the cool tile for a moment before dragging himself to his feet.
The security office rested dead ahead—glass-paned, humming with a soft blue light. His reflection looked ghostly in the glass: scraped, pale, wide-eyed. He pushed inside.
Two monitors flickered. Several more were offline. And on the wall: a beige landline phone, suddenly ringing.
He stared at it, breath catching in his throat.
“Pick it up,” the voice—her voice—came through the overhead speaker. “It’s me.”
He grabbed the receiver.
Her voice was clearer now, not filtered through old intercom wiring—just her. Wry. Warm.
Human.
“You’re tougher than you look, camcorder.”
“. . .Thanks,” he muttered, rubbing at his temple. “You watched all that? Start to finish?”
“From five different angles. Not your most flattering shots, by the way.”
He huffed a tired laugh despite himself.
“Okay. Walkie-talkies are charging on the wall. In case this line dies—and with this place, it probably will.”
He glanced over. Sure enough: two chunky radios blinked red, half-charged. He took one and clipped it to his belt. “Got it.”
“Now—onto the fun part.” She rattled off a series of instructions—key commands, override sequences, passwords—while he sat down at the security terminal, fingers flying over the worn keys.
Despite the situation, the tension between them gave way to something lighter. Their banter came easily.
“So. . .you work here?”
“Unfortunately.”
“And you’re not insane.”
“Not yet.”
He cracked a grin, tapping in the final command. “Starting override.”
A loading bar bloomed on the screen.
SECURITY SYSTEMS OVERRIDE — 0% . . . 25% . . . 60% . . . 85% . . . 95% . . .
Then—
“No. No, no no no no—” Her voice came through the landline, panicked before the call dropped. No dial tone. Nothing but dead air.
Then, her voice came through the walkie. It crackled to life. She sounded distant and for some reason that made his chest ache.
“I saw him.” She groans, voice tight with frustration. “Father Martin,” she continued, the name slipping like a curse. “He was at the main power relay—he just shut everything down.”
He stood up, too fast, knocking over the chair.
“Fuck,” she hissed. “Okay. No time to whine about it. We have to get to the backup generator. There’s one on my side. East Wing sublevel—maintenance hallway in the basement.”
Miles glanced toward the hallway outside, heart rate climbing again. “Meet you there?”
“Yeah. We’ll need both of us to restart it. Meet me in the East Maintenance Corridor. I’ll ping a beacon from that hallway’s panel—follow the blinking exit signs. I’ll light the path.”
“How are they still on?”
“Backup power. In case of emergencies.”
Miles nodded, more for himself. “I’ll find you.”
“You better.”
The walkie clicked off.
And Miles stepped out of the security office, into the dark again—drawn forward by the blinking lights and the promise of putting a face to the voice.