Chapter Text
We’re not the only victims here, not by a long shot. We watch a man wait to burn to death, the most painful death imaginable, rather than stay in this place.
—
I’ve said it before, but fuck this place. I’ve still got those fingers left.
The rain hammered down on them in sheets, relentless and cold, soaking everything in the courtyard to a slick, glistening sheen. The night was thick with shadows, broken only by the warm, goldenrod glow from asylum windows and the occasional, electric stab of lightning tearing across the sky. Miles adjusted his camera, its night vision humming softly in the dark.
Beside him, she moved forward with grim determination, her steps labored but steady despite the slick pavement and her injured ankle. They followed a narrow, winding path deeper into the courtyard, past a cracked stone fountain filled with dirty rainwater. A dead security guard sat on a nearby bench, body slumped sideways, hands resting lifeless in his lap like he’d simply dozed off and never woke up.
Up ahead, a set of concrete steps led up toward an old brick wall. There, scrawled in blood that ran like tears down the soaked surface, were the words: How alive are you. The rain blurred the letters, making them appear as if they were melting.
She scanned the surface for a moment before bending down at the top of the stairs, retrieving something tucked into a crevice near the wall—a small plastic bag, taped shut to keep the contents dry. She peeled it open, eyes narrowing at the piece of paper inside before wordlessly handing it to Miles.
He pointed the camera at it, scanning the jagged handwriting.
“I don’t even know your name. But I’ve come to think of you as one of my blood, my Paul, I hope you don’t mind. And I hope you don’t let her encourage you to indulge the vanity of self-pity, the fear that your suffering is more than others. Or that you let her lead you astray. We all must endure this, and you are nearly done. There’s no way to heaven but by the cross. And every man needs another to help drive the nails in. I am here for you. I am waiting ahead.”
She let out a scoff, the sound more bitter than amused.
“Oh, fuck this guy,” she muttered, shoving wet hair out of her face. “What, he thinks he’s Jesus now?”
Miles folded the note without another word and tucked it away into his pocket, the chill in the air not entirely from the rain. Not anymore.
She rolled her eyes beside him before testing the gates that flanked the top of the stairs. Both were padlocked, immovable. No choice but to turn around and find another path.
As they made their way back down, the world burst open again—another sudden flash of lightning. In that instant, ahead of them, barely ten feet away, something hovered above the courtyard’s cracked pavement.
A shadow. Tangible. Almost human.
But not quite.
Its form shimmered like heat on asphalt, flickering in and out of existence. It had no shape—just limbs that shouldn’t bend the way they did, a body that pulsed with darkness like a living, writhing ghost. And eyes—if they could even be called that—glowed dim and lidless, focused entirely on them.
The air dropped. The cold turned cutting. Miles could see his breath now.
It circled them slowly, its edges flickering like static on an old television screen. Its body wasn’t tethered to the ground, weightless and full of silent, crashing fury. A million voices whispered all at once, not from around them—but inside them. Words they couldn’t make out. Whispers, pleas.
She stepped back instinctively, gluing herself to Miles’s side. Her hand found his, trembling. She clung to him like he was the last real thing in the world.
And then, as suddenly as it came—it vanished, flickering out like a faulty lightbulb. Gone. The whispering died in its absence, but the weight of it lingered.
She sucked in a shaky breath, shaking her head like she could shake the moment off entirely.
“Don’t think about it,” she said tightly, her voice raw and fast. “Ignore it. Just—ignore it. It’s not real.”
But it didn’t sound like she believed it. It sounded like she was trying not to fall apart.
She dragged Miles forward again, limping faster now, toward the far end of the courtyard. After what felt like an eternity navigating through trees, hedges, and concrete paths turned into rivers by the storm, they finally found it—a side gate, half-open, leading to a narrow corridor,
She pointed. “We can cut through here.”
Miles nodded silently, casting one last glance at the courtyard behind them before following her.
The rain showed no sign of relenting. It poured like the sky was trying to drown the earth itself, drenching them through to the bone. The wind howled between the crumbling walls and cyclone fences of the courtyard, and thunder rolled somewhere just above the clouds, impossibly close.
They stopped in front of the chain-link gate just beside the outer wall. There—built squat and solid into the corner of the asylum’s crumbling perimeter—stood a maintenance shed. It looked like it had been there for decades, brick-lined and windowless, rust creeping up its hinges. The door was locked tight, a heavy padlock anchoring it shut.
She pressed her forehead against it for a beat, rain dripping down her nose and cheeks. Then, without a word, she turned her head. “There,” she said, nodding to another smaller shed a few yards away. This one was less official-looking—more like a tool shack—with a door hanging limply off its hinges.
She limped toward it, one hand braced on her side, the other outstretched in front of her, fingers splayed like she expected something to grab her from the dark at any moment. Miles stayed close, sweeping the area with his camera’s night vision. Rain blurred the lens and added a soft hiss to the audio, but it still worked.
Inside the smaller shed, the light was nonexistent. Just shadows and metal tools on the wall, gleaming wet in the flickers of lightning. She shuffled through them until her hand landed on a cold iron key ring—just one key. She snatched and turned to go, but then—
A flash.
The shadow again. Miles caught it first—hovering just beyond the trees, half-melded with the rain, an impossible blur of limbs and black mist, shifting in ways that made no anatomical sense. It didn’t advance. Just. . .watched. Circling. Like a vulture with patience to spare.
They didn’t speak. Didn’t need to.
She quickened her pace as much as her injury would allow, her eyes darting behind them. Her breath came fast and shallow. At the gate, her fingers trembled so hard she fumbled the key twice before it clicked into the padlock. She twisted it, the metal groaning in protest before snapping open. They yanked the door together, stepping into the shed—
And the shadow rushed them.
It came like a tidal wave of static and shadow, breaking from the trees with a high metallic whine that sounded like a thousand voices screaming all at once. The rain blew sideways with its momentum. Miles felt it before he saw it—an electric, bone-deep chill. The camera lens distorted, flickering with white noise. She screamed, not out of fear but instinct, slamming the interior door shut just as the shadow slammed into it with an unseen force that shook the entire surface.
She reeled back from the impact and collapsed, hitting the cold floor hard and curling inward as if bracing for more. Her chest rose and fell with labored breaths, water dripping from soaked clothes, hair clinging to her cheeks like vines.
Miles crouched beside her, grabbing her shoulders. “What was that? What the fuck is that thing?”
She didn’t look at him. Her eyes were still locked on the door, wide and distant. Her voice, when it came, was thin and raw. “I think. . .I think it’s the Walrider.”
Miles’s stomach turned. He’d heard the name—muttered endlessly by the patients, scrawled in blood on the walls, etched into bodies. Always in whispers. Either reverent or terrified.
She swallowed hard, finally glancing at him. “I don’t know what it is, Miles. But it’s not human. It has to be what they’ve all been talking about.” Her voice faltered. “It’s like a ghost. Or a demon. Or something else—I don’t know.”
Miles stared at her, blinking water out of his lashes. She wasn’t prone to dramatics. If she was this shaken, it was real. It wasn’t good.
But there was no time to unravel it. Whatever the Walrider was, they couldn’t afford to let it break them now.
“Come on,” he said softly, standing and offering her a hand. “We can’t stop here.”
She nodded once, jaw tight, and let him help her up. She swayed a little, but didn’t fall. Her grip on him steadied her.
Behind them, the shed creaked in the wind. But the chill came only from the rain. The Walrider was gone. For now.
They didn’t speak again. There was only the sound of the storm as they pressed forward—deeper into the maintenance shed.
The storm hadn’t let up, but the further they pushed, the more light there was.
Faint orange lamps buzzed to life around the edge of the courtyard, casting warped shadows on the slick concrete and wet brick. The maintenance shed creaked behind them as they stepped out into the open again. No need for Miles’s camera now—the lamps gave them just enough visibility to see, though it did little to make the place feel less haunted.
That was when they spotted the ladder.
It was propped precariously against the side of a nearby structure—rusted, old, but still intact. She pointed to it with a nod, rain streaking down her temple. “We should go up.”
Miles didn’t question it. He helped her first, hands braced at her hips to steady her injured ankle as she climbed. She hissed through her teeth, but didn’t complain. Once she cleared the top, he scrambled up behind her.
The roof was narrow, corrugated metal beneath their feet, slick from the rainwater and rust. They moved slowly, her weight leaning slightly into Miles’s side as they crossed it. He kept a firm hold on her arm, grounding her while she guided them.
When they reached the edge, there was a narrow ledge—barely the width of a boot. Below: a steep drop into the darkness. She hesitated, breath fogging, then moved, clutching the wall. Miles followed, chest tight.
They jumped together—over a gap between rooftops—and landed hard on the adjoining building. She cursed, hands going to her ankle, but recovered quickly. Another crash of thunder above.
Scaffolding loomed ahead.
It wound up the side of the next building like a skeletal staircase. They took it slow, rain pinging off the metal pipes and wood platforms, climbing higher and higher. More rooftops, more scaffolding. Miles’s legs burned, but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t. Not when she was moving so surely on an injured ankle.
Eventually, they reached a roof with a narrow alleyway on the other side. A fence stood between them and it.
She looked at it, then up at Miles. “Help me over?”
He nodded, crouched, laced his fingers together, and boosted her up. She grunted softly as she pulled herself over the wet chain-link, landing on the other side with a wince.
He climbed over after her, dropping down with a wet slap of shoes on pavement.
They stood in silence for a moment, catching their breath, rainwater dripping from their clothes and hair, eyes scanning the empty corridor.
Then she took his hand again.
She didn’t say anything. Just laced her trembling fingers between his. Tight. Like she needed it. Like she somehow knew he did too.
They moved together, quiet and slow.
On this side of the gates, the rain soaked everything in silver. The air felt heavier. Too still.
They passed a handful of variants.
A man curled up against a bench, arms folded over his face, whispering, “Have to get out of here. . .have to. . .”
A second stumbled across their path, eyes hollow. He paused mid-step, stared past them like he saw something else. “I can see his ghost,” he murmured.
They kept walking.
Then a third—this one kneeling in a puddle, head bowed like in prayer—lifted his chin just enough to rasp, “How do you know you’re not a patient?”
That one made them stop.
Her fingers twitched in Miles’s. He didn’t say anything. Just kept walking, this time pulling her along with him. Behind them, the variant started laughing.
They ignore the variant, continue walking hand in hand through the endless tangle of overgrown paths and broken stone. The deeper into the courtyard they pushed, the quieter the world seemed to get. The storm didn’t relent, but even the thunder felt distant now, like it was echoing off the mountain, muffled by the weight of the asylum pressing in from all sides.
Still no sign of Martin.
The priest remained elusive. A flicker in the corner of their eyes. A shadow behind windows just out of reach, but never there.
They rounded a corner, soaked to the bone and shivering, when she caught a light ahead—just a faint orange glow leaking out from beneath a pair of heavy metal doors. A tunnel.
It looked like an artery into the guts of the building.
“Come on,” she said, her voice barely above the rain.
Together, they pushed through the doors, stepping into a long, dim tunnel that sloped downward before rising again. At the far end, a gate waited—massive, rusted, flanked by security lights flickering sporadically overhead. On the other side: another courtyard, but this one was different. Tighter. Enclosed by tall, cracked walls.
And looming beyond it—
The female ward.
Her steps slowed. Hesitant.
In the center of the courtyard was a fountain. Or it had been. Now, it was an overflowing basin of blood, the waterline eclipsed by bloated bodies slumped over its edge. Some of the corpses were missing limbs. Some were face down. Her hand twitched—barely—but neither of them moved to help. They just stared.
Rain struck the blood like ink on wet paper.
She finally looked away first. “Jesus. . .”
Miles didn’t say anything. He recorded it.
Inside the female ward, the light was sickly yellow, buzzing fluorescents humming in the ceiling above. The air was colder than it had any right to be. The hall ahead was lined with broken doors, and red arrows had been drawn across the walls, looping and twisting through like veins under skin. More directions. More signs.
Martin.
“He’s been here,” Miles murmured.
She nodded, but didn’t look relieved. She looked haunted.
“I don’t like this,” she whispered, voice tighter than usual. She didn’t let go of his hand. “This place. . .this wing. It’s worse than the rest.”
She paused, eyes fixed on a cracked window across from them where shadows seemed to shift just beyond the glass.
“When I first got here, I heard things. Things the male nurses said when they thought no one was listening.” Her voice was low. Measured. “They moved all the women in the female ward out right before everything went to hell. Patients and employees. Transferred them to another facility.”
“Why?”
“The engine,” her voice trembled on the word. “The. . .morphogenic thing. I don’t understand how it works or what it is, but it started causing phantom pregnancies. Like—false symptoms. Pain. Bleeding. It was like their bodies were reacting to something that wasn’t there. Every woman in this ward was affected. Some of them went crazy. Violent. Some just. . .stopped talking.”
Miles’s jaw clenched, eyes sweeping the corridor ahead.
“I don’t think any of them survived the ‘pregnancies,’” she finished quietly. “And I don’t want to be here. But. . .”
She looked at him, eyes searching.
“This is where he led us. I think he actually wants to help. I don’t know why, but I do know we’re out of options.”