Chapter Text
Miles looked on as he watched the scene play out.
“You crazy bastard,” he muttered, turning away from the cameras. “One upping Jesus Christ himself.”
While she wasn’t looking, he sent the Walrider to grab the twins, locking them in one of the bay rooms. Everyone he needed was there, all except Walker.
He was too big, too uncooperative. He needed to be contained, but he figured until he made his appearance at some point that the Walrider could take care of him.
He just had to hope he didn’t get to the girl.
He took a moment to look at all the files of the patients, including Walker. He also had a picture of Violet pulled up, seeing her happy face on screen.
Each patient had a photo, from before they were administered for project Walrider.
He looked at Walker’s picture, seeing his blank face staring at the camera. Mid-thirties, short blonde hair, skin fully intact from before his self-mutilation. Green eyes. He sighed, setting the photo down. He then looked at Violet, her happy face a stark difference to what he saw on the cameras.
She had light skin, hair dyed brown to hide the blonde, freckles, two moles, and green eyes.
“Wait a second–”
He picked up Walker’s picture again, pulling it up next to Violet’s picture. A little bit different, but not really, besides the hair.
“No fucking way,” he thought to himself as he leaned back in his chair.
“No fucking way.”
He scoffed.
They both had a round face, same colored eyes, even the same nose.
“Holy shit.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, guffawing.
“Walker, you bastard,” he murmured. “This guy has a fucking kid.”
~
Violet sniffled as she looked up at Father Martin’s burning body, his disciples crying and moaning around him.
“I’ll tell them. I’ll tell everybody,” she said, standing up. “The whole world will know your truth, and I’ll save you and everyone else that I can.”
She remembered his instructions, going to the elevator. He said that it would guarantee freedom; an exit out of this place. She just had to find it. The twins had vanished, leaving her behind.
She made her way through a vent, going down the hallways to find the elevator, once again dodging the big guy in the hall, whilst dodging him, and looping around him to get to the elevator. She stood in the elevator car, looking back on her journey through here.
Dodging crazy people, nearly strangled to death, her finger cut off by a crazy doctor wannabe. The list could go on and on, but she found solace in the few moments she had to herself.
Like the twins.
They were nice, cordial, albeit a bit odd and probably psychopaths by nature. And the fact that they didn’t wear clothes, she realized, was a better camouflage to sound as they stalked the halls. An element of surprise, even scaring her in the process.
She understood now.
Her role in this.
A savior in disguise.
Had the madness gone to her head, a sort of religious psychosis? Or was this her purpose?
Was it fate? Fate that Miles had sent that email? That she agreed to help him?
Or was it her own pure naivety and innocence?
She didn’t know.
The elevator continued down, stopping at the first floor where she came from. But the doors didn’t open. Instead, it lurched, continuing downward, past the first floor.
“Was this what Miles meant? About the base floor?” She thought as she tilted her head.
The wood paneling turned to cement and concrete, slowly shifting until it came upon an entrance, stopping entirely as the doors opened. She stepped out into white light, squinting her eyes to adjust to the brightness, versus the darkness from the asylum.
It looked like a hallway, the walls chiseled stone, like it was intentionally built this way.
And it was quiet, all for a slight buzzing she heard in her head. Her footsteps echoed off the walls. It was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop.
Still, she continued on, just like she did when she started. Just like in the other parts of the asylum, just like when she saw Father Martin die in front of her eyes.
In front of the doors, was a symbol on top of them. The same symbol she had seen scrawled on the walls in blood.
And inside, was a front desk, trails of blood leading in different directions. It all looked so nice, so professional. A white collar business, with a dump of a place placed on top of it, hiding its secrets from plain view. And once again, she saw that logo.
Murkoff Corporation
“What has this company been doing to cover up its operations down here?” She thought as she walked around.
A decontamination room was stuck, pulling out her flashlight to navigate in the dark. Until it became light up ahead. Moving down, there were pipes embedded into walls, crates covered in tarps, palettes strewn about on the floor. It was so odd to see such a stark difference to the interior and scenery from the asylum.
Another set of doors, and inside it was stained with the familiar odor she knew well.
Bodies.
They lined the floors, organs, innards, making it look like the people exploded from the inside. It was numbing, at this point.
“This place is like a fucking nightmare,” she said to herself.
Each room had a body, an explosion of blood in corners or places where someone once was. A window, looking out into a hangar, showed part of the outside. It was still dark out, but the rain and thunder had ceased, and was now eerily quiet. The sound of crickets chirping felt like a dream–an end to a nightmare.
Another set of doors, leading out into an empty hall. Containers and oil drums strewn in her way. Jumping over tarp-covered boxes or containers, walking down the hall in silence, up next to a decontamination door in front of her.
And then a light flashed, an alarm went off.
And appeared that dark cloud from before, materializing into the form of a humanoid figure.
“The Walrider.”
It started moving towards her, and she bolted back down the hall, past the obstacles from before, intent on escape, or until it gave up and stopped chasing her.
She looked back, seeing it was much closer now. She saw the doors in front of her, barreling towards them. She pushed the doors open, intent on passing through to escape the Walrider.
Instead she was surprised to see the larger man standing, front and center.
He grabbed her, throwing her back on the ground.
“Little pig, little pig. No more escape.”
Violet looked at him in horror.
He took a few steps forward, and was looking down at her.
“I’ll make the pain go away.”
“Wait, wait! Please! You don’t have to do this! I-I can help you!” She begged, scooting back on her feet across the floor.
“We have to contain it,” he growled, growing much closer to her.
There it was again, that whistling wind, and the sound of buzzing in her ears. She heard it pass her ears.
“Violet…”
Her eyes widened, feeling goosebumps on her skin.
He was suddenly thrown into the wall, once, twice, three times. He swayed, toppling over and hitting the floor–head first. She let out a gasp, breathing through her mouth and out her nose as she looked over at the larger man on the floor in front of her. She slowly got to her feet, creeping over to look at him.
Now that she got a closer look at him, he was robust, and large in appearance.
He had scarring on his face and forehead, as well as no evidence of his nose and lips, his mouth held open by restraints that put his face in a permanent grin.
“Creepy,” she thought.
“Violet…”
She heard a whisper, looking out into the open doors and down the empty hall. She walked past the big guy and past the open doors. It was calm, and she felt her heart beating in her ears. As she walked, she heard the buzzing getting louder and louder.
Passing through multiple doors, a cafeteria, doors that led to machinery and generators. A small crack in the infrastructure, leading to more doors. A decontamination room, spraying mist over her like she had an infection. And out into another hall, with bay rooms in it. And a giant set of doors.
She took a glance inside the rooms, an inhabitant taking notice of her.
It was Trager.
He raced up towards her, banging on the glass. Now that his mask was off, she could see part of his face ripped off, exposing his teeth and muscle.
“You! I’m gonna get you for this! You hear me, you brat? I’ll rip out that tongue of yours and make you eat it!” He yelled.
She just stared at him, blank, unmoving.
“Does he truly need to be saved?” She thought, looking over his features.
“Say something!” He yelled, banging his fist on the glass.
She stayed silent, just staring at him with sympathy.
She then moved on to the next rooms, seeing both the twins inside. She held her hand up to the glass, looking at them. They both noticed, walking up to greet her.
“The savior makes her appearance once more,” Violet said before they had the chance.
They both looked surprised, taken aback.
“You seem more calm.”
“More focused.”
She pulled a small smile, letting her hand slide over the glass as she walked to the next room.
And at the last door, there was someone new. Someone she had never seen before.
He walked up to the glass, a smile plastered on his face.
“My, what a lovely girl you are,” he said, his hands pressed on the glass.
He looked older, maybe in his forties, but it was hard to tell with the scarring on his face, blood vessels had popped in his eyes, giving his eyes a more stark appearance to the icy blue color.
“Who are you?” Violet asked, her voice coming off more tired than intended.
“Eddie; Eddie Gluskin. At your service.”
He gave a sort of bow in front of her, separated by the glass.
“And why are you here?” She asked.
He looked taken aback.
“Pardon?” He said with a nervous laugh.
“What happened to you to end up here?” She asked again.
His smile slowly went away, replaced by a sort of fear and hesitancy. And then anger.
“Why you little shit! I was being nice! How dare you question me and my place!” He yelled as he banged his fist on the glass.
She flinched, taking a step back.
“I should gut you like the rest of the others and mutilate you! You bitch!” He continued yelling.
Violet backed off, walking away.
“Wait! Wait! Come back, please! I beg of you! Please, I can make you so happy!” He called, but she didn’t listen, instead, walking up to the giant doors as they slowly opened.
There was a monitoring room, filled with computers and tech, a glass window separating her and what was on the other side. A machine, large and imposing, with large circular tanks that either held water, or blood. Against the exterior of it, there were TVs, lined around it as it played visual inkblot tests.
“So you came,” she heard echoing in the room.
Violet stopped, plastered to the spot. She turned towards the source of the voice.
A man, leaning back in a chair, cameras set out in front of him, monitoring everything from the safety of this room.
“Miles,” she whispered. “Miles Upshur.”
“About time. I was scared you weren’t gonna make it.”
“I went through a lot…to find you,” she replied.
“I watched you, on the cameras. So I know,” he said back.
As Violet got closer, she could see his clothes riddled with holes, and he was missing two fingers.
“Are you…injured?” She asked, walking closer to him.
She was standing a few feet from him now, looking at him closely. He looked her up and down, taking in her disheveled appearance.
“I could ask the same for you,” he replied, scoffing. “Yes, more or less.”
“How are you still alive?”
He chuckled, coughing suddenly. She instinctively went to him.
A black cloud-like humanoid stood next to him, appearing over his shoulder.
She stopped, taking a step back.
Miles continued to spit up blood.
“Come on, I want to show you something,” he said, getting up from his seat with a grunt.
He continued down a staircase, which led to the machine up front, about a hundred feet from the monitors in the other room. The buzzing became more apparent, and the whispers got louder and louder as she looked up at the machine. She flinched, turning her head away from it.
“Not a fan, huh?” He commented.
She shook her head.
“This right here is the Morphogenic Engine, the birthplace of the Walrider,” he explained. “Used in dream therapy and psychosomatic episodes, to pinpoint the consciousness of the human mind. To create the perfect conditions in order for the patient to achieve what they called lateral ascension.”
She looked up at it, seeing the TV screens play inkblots, over and over.
“How do you know all of this?” Violet asked.
“Because I learned all about it when I came in here, just like you,” he replied, looking back at her. “Although, I have all the files, so learning what they did here wasn’t that hard. Autopsies, dream therapy; all that bull.”
“And they did all of this? Right under the asylum?”
“Yep. Hidden from the world under the guise of a good charity,” he said.
He shifted his feet, taking a wheezy breath. Violet eyed him, seeing blood trail out of one side of his mouth.
“You’re dying,” she merely said.
He nodded, grunting.
“I am,” he replied with another wheezing cough.
“We can still make it. I can save you, Father Martin said so,” Violet replied.
He shook his head, spitting blood on the floor.
“No, you can’t. I’m sorry, but you can’t.”
"But I-"
He suddenly took her by the shoulders, now facing her directly.
"Violet, listen to me. Don't listen to any of what he said. Martin is dead. He was delusional and he suffered from dementia. He was just an old man who needed help. Do you understand?" He said, tilting his head down at her.
“Then why send me here if you know you’re dying?” She questioned.
“Because I need you for something else.”
Violet took a step back from him, wary of his intentions now.
“And what reason?” Her voice was low, but not threatening.
He swallowed.
“This is a lot, and I know you know that, but I need you for something. Something big, bigger than me, bigger than them, bigger than what was told to you.”
He took a breath, continuing.
“You’ve seen the Walrider. You’ve experienced pain, torture, saw countless dead bodies in here. Horrors that make Pandora's box look like a joke. You’ve had to go through so much…pain. Just like I did.”
Violet stared at him.
“What’re you getting at?”
He sighed.
“The Walrider thrives off the misery of people. Sometimes choosing a host based on the right conditions. An individual must be so traumatized by what they experienced that it makes them the perfect host to inhabit. Such as myself, for instance. I went through the same things that you did. Look, Trager even cut off my fingers.”
He held up his hands for emphasis, a finger missing from each hand.
She screwed her brow, taking another step back.
“What are you even saying?”
He took a step towards her, his eyes set on her.
“You are the next host for the Walrider.”