Chapter Text
Violet sat in her room, drawing as she had her laptop opened, looking at a reference picture.
She worked on her art much more than anyone else, perfecting and crafting her style and design. She had stayed up all night drawing, and then her mother went to work, leaving her alone in the house. A pop up notification broke her out of her concentration, looking up at her laptop.
It was an email from an unknown user.
She put her sketchbook down, sitting cross-legged as she brought the laptop closer to her.
She opened her email, seeing a simple one word response on it.
“Hi.”
She hesitated, looking at the email and then at the message.
She typed out a response on her keyboard, lookin over the message before hitting send.
“Hi! Do I know you?”
There was an immediate reply.
“No, but I need your help.”
She screwed her brow, confused. She typed out another response.
“What do you need help with?”
Another quick response.
“I need to get out of a place, known as Mt. Massive Asylum. My name is Miles Upshur.
Her eyes widened, recognizing the name from the papers.
“You were the reporter that documented the Afghanistan wars.”
“Yes, I was. But that’s not important, I need your help getting out of this place.”
“But why are you at Mount Massive Asylum? I thought that place was abandoned?”
“It was, before a company called Murkoff took it over. Look, that’s not important right now. I need your help. I’m injured, and I don’t know how much longer I have.”
“Why do you need my help? Can’t you call the police?”
“No cell service up here.”
Violet sighed through her nose, looking at the response.
“Is this a scam? Are you trying to get my information from these emails?”
“If I was, I would be asking more personal questions.”
She stopped typing, looking at her computer.
He was right, but that didn’t mean he already had the info from where he was already.
“You said you were at Mt. Massive Asylum. Why?”
“I was investigating a lead from a whistleblower, who told me to look into this place. I got more than what I bargained for, and I’m sitting here now trying not to bleed out.”
The hair on the back of her neck raised up.
“Can’t I call anyone for you?”
“No; it’s complicated. You’re the closest one to the location of the asylum.”
“If I do help you, where would I find you?”
“An underground level of the asylum, where Murkoff did their human testing and experiments.”
“Human testing?”
“It’s a long story, but I don’t want to bore you with the details. Remember, Mt. Massive Asylum, underground level. There’s an elevator with a key in it, to guide you down. You just have to get down here and find me, get me out of here.”
She hesitated, looking at the response.
She could help him, bring him to her mother; she was a nurse, she could help people.
“I’ll do it.”
“Good. I’ll see you then, kid.”
The messages ceased, and the emails disappeared completely.
“What the…”
She clicked on her trash tab, seeing it wasn’t there. Nor in the spam, or the draft folder. It was like it disappeared completely. She sighed, closing her laptop as she sat up, uncrossing her legs.
“What have I gotten myself into?”
She threw on a jacket, and a flashlight.
“Mom’s gonna kill me for this.”
~
Miles sighed, leaning back in the rolling chair.
The Walrider floated, looking at him.
“Don’t worry, as soon as I get out of this place, I’m getting rid of you. I don’t care if I die in the process,” he said.
A whirl of static grew, moaning out what sounded like a response.
“Oh don’t get pissy now. You…saved my life,” he said back slowly, realizing what the Walrider had done for him.
“Saved…me.”
He brushed his hands over his face, wondering the implications of what the creature had done for him.
He looked down at his shirt, riddled with bullet holes. No entry wounds or bullet holes were seen.
“If you can…heal me. What else can you do, I mean, besides kill full grown men in body armor and guns?” He asked.
There was a whirring noise, and the Walrider manipulated the computer screens.
It was the recorded feedback of patients in the morphogenic engine. It sped up forward, and then played backwards.
It played over and over, trying to send a message across to him.
“Reverse wounds? Is-Is that what you’re saying?”
The Walrider nodded its head, looking back at Miles.
“Anything else I should know about?”
It continued, pulling up documents of the patients, highlighted lines of conditions, mental illness, and severe disfigurement due to the Walrider. One in particular made the hair on his neck stand.
“Walker,” he murmured.
There were highlighted lines of documented PTSD, severe manic episodes, and delusions from being in the asylum.
“You’re saying you can…fix this? Take away the…mental illness?”
The entity stood still, waiting for his reply.
He scoffed.
“You can’t just take away that part. It lives with you, for life, once you’ve experienced it. It’s not that easy.”
The screens changed, shifting to that of a black screen, and little green letters highlighted on it.
“Take away the damage inflicted from the engine. Wipe memories.”
“The morphogenic engine, huh? Well, if you could do that, why didn’t you?”
“Not my primary directive . ”
“Then what is your primary directive? Your purpose?”
There was a pause.
“Well?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
He sighed.
“Go figure. I have a hivemind of nanites that doesn’t know its purpose anymore,” he said.
He then thought of an idea.
“If you can…take away the memories of this place, can you do it for all the people here?”
“Somewhat. Past altercations make it difficult.”
“But…you can heal, and take away the effects?”
“Yes.”
He sat, bouncing his knee as he continued thinking.
“I don’t know if I want to do that for these people here. They all have a reason for being here, Murkoff keeping quiet about it. But…if I can do it for a select few, then maybe they can get out, expose Murkoff from the inside.”
He mulled the thought over, the Walrider typing a response on screen.
“And of you?”
“What about me? I’ll die either way.”
“That includes me as well.”
“And?”
The Walrider continued manipulating the computers, pulling up the location and email of the person he had emailed.
A picture was brought up on screen, a photo of a young girl, smiling and happy.
The Walrider pointed at the picture, tapping its finger against the screen.
“What, what? What are you saying?”
It continued tapping on the screen.
“What? That you need a new host?”
It moved its hand away from the screen, answering Miles’s question.
“Oh god,” he whispered. “What’ve I done? Getting a kid involved, and now this?”
He put his head in his hands, mulling over the decision that he had made.
“Say you got a new host, what would you do then?”
“I don’t know, I’d follow my host’s new directive.”
“Jesus…That’s a kid. A child! Do you have any concept of what this place might do to a kid?”
The Walrider had no response, standing still as it continued looking at the girl’s picture.
“God, how could I be so stupid, trusting you? Trusting a literal kid to come to this place, all because I wanted to get out of here.”
He stood up, flinching at the pain on his body. He thought to himself.
“I have a plan. A really, really, stupid plan.”