Chapter Text
The Patients know Dr. Wernicke is dead. One asks me, ‘what kind of experiments does a dead doctor perform on living patients?’ What is PROJECT WALRIDER?
The first thing Miles noticed was the smell.
Thick. Wet. Rotting.
It clung to the walls and the water and the back of his throat. The sewers were a tunnel of decay, narrow and oppressive, the ceiling pressing low overhead like the earth itself wanted to collapse on them.
For a while, they depended on his camera’s night vision, which bathed everything ahead in a ghostly hue. Without it, they’d be blind in the dark.
She stayed close. Closer than before.
Her fingers slipped into his without a word, small and cold, and he didn’t resist. His grip was firm in return. Grounding them both.
“This way,” she whispered, leading him forward through the murk.
For now, it was quiet. No footsteps echoing in the distance, no unhinged laughter or slamming doors. Only the steady drip of water from rusted pipes, the low hum of air pushing through ancient vents, the occasional distant groan of the asylum shifting on its foundations.
He let her guide him. He had always been more of a loner, but right now her presence felt like the only thing tethering him to something human. Something sane.
They moved carefully, ducking beneath hanging wires and stepping over ankle-deep sludge. The brick and mortar walls sweated filth. A rat skittered by, half-bald and blind.
Eventually, they reached a pipeline—a wide, rusted tube barely large enough to crouch through.
She ducked, stepping in first. “Head down.”
He followed, the curve of the tunnel pressing against his back as they crept forward. Each step echoed hollowly beneath them, metal groaning with every shift of their weight. There was a light at the end.
Then—a shadow. Not from a human. No. This one was tangible. Three dimensional. It flitted past the tunnel’s end. Fast. Unnatural.
She halted suddenly, slamming on the brakes. Miles froze right after.
She inhaled sharply. “I didn’t think it was real.”
“What?” he asked, voice low.
But she shook her head and kept moving. Her grip on his hand tightened marginally.
At the end of the tunnel, they found the ladder they needed—half-rusted, snapped, fragmented. A ten-foot stretch of metal hanging limp against the wall like a broken spine.
She stared up at it almost incredulously, then laughed bitterly. Her lips pressed into a thin line. “Of course,” she muttered.
He looked around—no crates, no loose piping, nothing to climb on. Just more waste. More stink. And below them, the water ran deeper.
“We’ll have to go further down,” she said. “Loop around. Get into the male ward from a lower level.”
He didn’t like that. But he nodded.
There was no other choice.
They kept moving, and though it was still quiet, the bodies were a different kind of warning. Torn limbs floating in the sludge. A ribcage wedged into the grates. Intestines strung like garland across a pipe overhead.
Something had been here. Something was here. That much was certain.
They didn’t speak again. Not yet.
The quiet was disorienting.
After the chaos upstairs—the screaming, the alarms, the blood—being down in the sewers felt wrong in a different way. Like the silence had teeth. It bit at the edges of his mind, made him hyper-aware of every little sound. The drip of water. The squelch of each footstep. The creak of his arm as he adjusted the camera.
But her presence was a lighthouse among the endless sea. She made the silence even fractionally better, if such a word could exist in a place like Mount Massive. In a strange way, though, in the sewers with her was the most peace he’d felt all night.
It let them talk.
“I was a receptionist,” she says suddenly, her voice low as they walk hand-in-hand. Her eyes sweep every crevice. “Ground floor. Low-level clearance. Didn’t know anything. Didn’t see anything.”
Miles glanced over at her, studying her for a moment. Her face was set with something like fierce determination. “How’d you get stuck here?”
“I got trapped. Like everyone else. Thought I’d wait—hide, survive. . .whatever. It’s been days now. No one’s coming.”
Her laugh was humorless before she added, “honestly? If I make it out, I’m quitting the moment I get signal.”
Miles couldn’t help a quiet laugh. “Assuming we make it out.”
“You’ll make it.” She assures. “You’ve got the camcorder. Makes you the protagonist.”
He let out a short, dry breath—almost a laugh. “Fantastic. Protagonists have a terrible survival rate in horror stories.”
“Yeah, but you’re with the final girl.” She quipped. “Improves your odds.”
They moved forward, squeezing through a narrow, rust-caked pipe that forced them into single file. It spit them out into a larger chamber, and the smell hit first—stagnant water, rot, mildew. Ahead of them, the tunnel lead to an open hatch. It was flooded to the top, reeking.
She stepped forward, peering into the murky water as if she could make it disappear through willpower alone. “Shit,” she muttered. “This is the junction to the male ward. We have to go down.”
Miles leaned past her, staring down at the murky, motionless water below. “We’re not swimming through that, right?”
“Nope,” she said, already turning back to a stained, peeling map bolted to the wall. “Not unless you want sepsis.”
A pause as she studied the map. “We have to flush it. There’s two valves, one for the male ward, one for the female.”
“Of course. Why not make it easy?”
She didn’t smile, but she looked like she might have under different circumstances. “Come on. The map says the female valve is this way.”
They didn’t make it ten feet before a sound stopped them cold.
A thump. Then another. Measured. Heavy.
Then the screech of something massive squeezing through a gap and joining them on their lower level.
Walker.
She grabbed him without a word, yanking him down behind a pile of rusted metal crates slick with mold. They crouched, pressed side by side, barely breathing.
Miles angled his camcorder over the edge. Chris Walker lumbered into view—ever towering, massive, his breathing ragged. His footfalls echoed off the sewer walls like war drums.
They waited. Seconds ticked like hours.
When Walker passed by, she mouthed “go.”
They slinked through shadows and ankle-deep filth, ducking beneath hanging pipes and hugging walls until they found the valve tucked behind a maintenance hatch—faintly marked FEMALE WARD.
She pointed. “There. That’s one.”
Miles lowered his camera and turned it, the valve groaning in protest.
“One down,” she said. “Now we just need the male ward valve.”
He killed the night vision and let himself breathe. But even as they stepped away, the nearby echo of Walker’s footsteps rolled through the tunnels again.
You — The Sewers
The second valve was close—closer than you’d expected.
The path curved hard to the left, and tucked behind a chain-link gate and some busted shelves was a door, barely clinging to its hinges. You and Miles slip inside, and sure enough, mounted to the wall with faded paint above it: MALE WARD — MAIN DRAIN VALVE.
You almost smile. Almost.
“Bingo,” you whisper.
You watch Miles turn the valve before returning your attention to the door. The old metal screeched and groaned with effort, then gave way with a hard thunk. Somewhere down the tunnels, you could hear the rush of water being forced out—clearing the flooded junction.
You two had done it.
You turn and give Miles a triumphant look, just as the sound hit your ears.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Then the familiar clink and rattle of metal.
Your stomach turns to ice. You reach for Miles’s arm and whisper urgently, “back. Now.”
You spun him around and dove into a row of lockers just as the door behind you open with a metallic shriek. You barely had time to shut the locker door.
You and Miles were cramped between two walls of sheet metal. Chest to chest and peering through the openings in the locker door.
You don’t even breathe.
Chris Walker’s snorting breath filled the small space, heavy and close. The locker groaned under the weight of both of your bodies pressed into it, your fingers clutching the fabric of Miles’s jacket. You could feel his breath too, shaky and silent against your skin.
Walker stomped through the room.
Something crashed just out of sight. A shelf, maybe. A pipe clanging against the wall.
Then—finally—you saw him exit the room, thundering steps receding.
The moment the silence returned, you and Miles stumble out of the locker, breathless.
“He knows we’re here,” you mutter. “Or close.”
Miles didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. You could see the look on his face—frustration, fear, exhaustion. It was written all over him.
You straighten, pulling yourself together even though your hands still shook with lingering adrenaline. “We can’t sneak past him again. He’s waiting for us. I’ll distract him. You go.”
Miles looks at you like you’ve lost your damn mind. He’d seen what Walker could do—the thought of it happening to youmade him want to vomit.
“Again?” He’s incredulous, then, “no.” He responds almost immediately.
“You have the camera. You have to document this, right? Someone has to. You get out, you show the world what’s happening here.”
“Would be nice if we both got out,” he bargained.
You touch his shoulder. “We will. You first. I’ll find you.”
His jaw clenched. “That’s not a great plan.”
“None of our plans have been great so far,” you say, half-laughing. “It’s all improv. But they’ve gotten us this far, right?”
He hesitated. You knew he wanted to argue more, but there wasn’t time.
You give him quick directions for how to get back to the junction, and—once in the junction—how to find the ladder to the upper level. “You’ll see a light,” you explain. “It’s faint, but it’s there.”
You look him dead in the eye. “I’ll find you, camcorder. I always do.”
Before he could respond, you slip past the door and into the tunnel.
Chris Walker loomed nearby.
You pick up a loose pipe and slam it against the wall. “Hey!” You shout.
The sound makes you flinch, echoing like a gunshot.
You turn just in time to see Miles slipping away, his silhouette swallowed by the dark.
Then you run.
Heavy footsteps thunder behind you.
You sprint blindly, heart hammering against your ribs. You duck haphazardly into corridors and dart around corners. The air is thick with rot and rust and your own adrenaline. You could hear him behind you—snarling, growling, crashing into things too small for his frame.
Finally—blessedly—you find a narrow tunnel. It’s barely wide enough for your shoulders, let alone his.
You throw yourself into it, scraping your arms and your sides, but you don’t stop until you crawl halfway through.
Walker’s footsteps stop at the edge. Then silence.
You stay still, barely daring to breathe despite your protesting lungs, and wait.
He couldn’t follow.
When you were sure he was gone, you kept going. The tunnel dipped down, cold and slick beneath your palms, and it throws you out into the lower junction. Dark. Wet. Empty.
You stand, wipe grime from your face and let out a breath.
“Coming, camcorder.”
Miles — Lower Junction
He followed the directions she’d given him, counting turns by memory and watching for cues she’d mentioned.
The water drained, but the floor was still slick, and his shoes echoed in the tunnel louder than he liked. He kept glancing over his shoulder, half-expecting to see a massive shape lurching after him, but there was only dark. The only light came from his camcorder, cutting the black with grainy vision.
Ahead—a ladder.
He didn’t let himself hesitate as he reached for the rusted rungs, not until he was halfway up. A noise above him made him freeze. Heavy breathing.
Then, from the dimly-lit opening, the pale face of a variant appeared. It watched him.
It didn’t speak. Just stared.
Miles’s hands white-knuckled the rungs. He looked down, debating if he should wait for her. But he had to trust that she was coming. He had to keep moving.
So he did.
By the time he reached the top, the variant was gone.
He stepped into the next section of the tunnel, heart pounding like it was trying to claw out of his chest. He turned in a slow circle, camcorder raised. Nothing but dripping concrete and rusted pipework. No variant. No movement.
And no her.
He waited.
Every second dragged. Every drop of water echoed, mimicking footsteps and making him hope he’d see her.
He gripped the camera tighter, scanned the area again and again. The idea that she might have died was just starting to fester in his mind when he finally—finally—heard the soft shuffle of footfall behind him.
She emerged from the tunnel, breathless, grimy, but intact. Mud smeared her arms. Her hair stuck to her cheeks.
“You’re late,” he muttered, more relief than sarcasm.
“Got a little held up,” she said, voice dry.
He didn’t ask questions, just nodded.
There was a gate to their immediate left. Its bars were rusted, but intact. And behind it—out of nowhere—screaming. Miles flinched, startling.
It sounded like hell had opened up just beyond the grate—screeching, manic laughter, words that weren’t really words.
“Don’t look,” she told him, not even glancing at the source. “Don’t listen, either. Your sanity will go with theirs if you do.”
He swallowed and kept his head down. They moved on.
The tunnel narrowed, winding again, and the smell grew worse. Miles didn’t want to know why. A foul mixture of mold, sewage, and something biohazardous coated the walls and his throat.
“We’re almost out of here,” she told him quietly. “The exit is nearby. It’ll take us up into the male ward.”
“Bummer,” he muttered, “because this place was starting to feel cozy.”
She gave a soft, humorless laugh, but stopped abruptly as the opened the door to the next chamber.
A figure stood in the room. Dead center.
Miles’s camera caught him before his eyes did—his face twisted, eyes wide but oddly clear. A variant, sure, but not like the others. He didn’t lunge, didn’t scream. Didn’t murmur incoherencies.
She cursed under her breath, hand twitching toward Miles’s sleeve.
But the man didn’t flinch.
“You don’t have to be scared of me,” he said. “I can tell we’re all the same. You still know what’s real.”
His voice was hoarse, ragged, but lucid. Like someone who hadn’t spoken in years, but still remembered how.
“The doctor’s dead, you know that, right? Dr. Wernicke. Died before he even started working here.”
Miles focused his camera, recording.
“We should go,” she whispered lowly, tugging at his arm.
He didn’t move. Couldn’t. If they made it out alive, this was prime material for his exposé.
The variant tilted his head. “What kind of experiments does a dead doctor perform on living patients?” His eyes locked onto the lens.
“That’s the question.”
The variant’s words hung in the air even after he went still, retreating back into the darkness like a shadow tucking itself away.
They didn’t linger.
She pulled him through an open hatch that led down—again—further into the bowels of Mount Massive. The path to the female ward was blocked, collapsed in on itself with bent pipework and old debris. Water still flowed through the grates beneath them, but it wasn’t clean. It ran red.
Miles learned better than to ask, so they press on.
He tried not to think about what could dye that much water the color of blood—but the idea that it was indeed blood didn’t seem so farfetched after everything he’d witnessed. He tried not to slip as they crossed the narrow walkway, her hand catching his elbow whenever he stumbled.
Then something hit the ground in front of them. Hard.
A body. It made a sick, wet sound when it landed—dumped unceremoniously from one of the large drainage openings above. A variant. Miles didn’t need to check if he was alive. No one landed like that and walked away.
They both froze, startled, breath caught.
But nothing followed: no footsteps. No laughter.
Stillness and the sound of running water.
She moved first, jaw tight. “Come on.”
He followed.
There was a door on the left, but when he tried the handle, it rattled—locked from the other side. Of course.
Instead, they crawled through another narrow pipeline, this one more claustrophobic than the rest. It bent sharply in places, a winding metal artery deeper into the dark. He led with the camcorder again, its night vision the only way to see.
She kept close behind, offering soft directions. Left. Right.
The pipe spit them out into a rusted maintenance chamber. The grates creaked below them as they landed, protesting beneath their weight.
She gave him her name a few seconds into their new path. No pretense or preamble. He didn’t say much, but he repeated it in his head.
He told her his. “Miles.”
Just something to fill the quiet. Something to keep the dark and silence form swallowing them whole.
But something had shifted. The air felt charged. Dense.
Inhuman.
There were no footsteps, no echoes of breath—but they weren’t alone, that much was obvious.
Miles could feel it. It was tangible, domineering.
The water had risen again. Waist-deep now, slowing their movement. They waded through the corridor hand in hand, the sound of sloshing water too loud, too exposed.
Every gate rattle. Every splash that wasn’t theirs. It all pulled tight in their chests.
They didn’t speak about it—couldn’t, not with the tightness in their throats—but they both felt the demanding presence of something watching.
The word Walrider repeated in his brain. Haunting.
They couldn’t see it. Couldn’t name it. He wasn’t sure if it was the Walrider—whatever it was—or if he was finally losing whatever shred of sanity he’d managed to hold onto thus far.
It was down there with them, though. Miles could picture it creeping up onto them and tearing them apart like it had the guards in the footage Father Martin had shown him.
But it didn’t.
Finally, they found a ladder. Rusted, but in one piece. A faint draft from above promised something other than the stench of the sewers. They climbed with her leading.
At the top, an open hatch led them into a tighter space. Pipes lined the walls and a flickering light buzzed overhead.
There were signs. Bent, corroded, but legible.
Male Ward →
They may as well have ran, relief bleeding from them in beads of sweat and steadier breathing.
A staircase led them up. The air changed again—dryer, if not cleaner. Not exactly safer, but further from whatever burdened the dark below.
They don’t look back, because they know the only way out is through.