Archive of Our Own

Evelyn had a gun.

She didn’t like having it. It was just something she felt like she should have, a mandatory measure what with the news of a paranormal stray stalking and slaughtering the people of her hometown. She would feel her pulse spike every time a houseguest would meander near the drawer she kept it in, as if anyone who came over would just go throwing open her cabinets for no reason, and she would have to explain herself. It would be an understandable reason, logically, but the anxiety of someone learning that she had a gun was sharp and invasive. It just didn’t fit her.

She felt almost exempt when she found out that it had strictly eaten children that first Halloween. A sort of disconnection from it all-“Well, I don’t have any children, so it won’t come after me.” Like a forced apathy response. Yes , it was horrible, but only families had anything to worry about. Teach their kids to come home at a reasonable hour, and nothing had to change for anyone else.

Then their parents went missing, and the operator had hung up on her.

The phone was still in her hand, her twisting the cord around her opposite wrist. There’s an incessant knocking on the door and several pairs of red eyes peering at her through the parallel window. She just got done screaming, throat left raw, but now she’s got no one coming and four intruders who have apparently been given the okay to continue whatever was happening here. She puts the phone down on the secretary, slowly, as soundlessly as possible, and turns towards the kitchen. It was a stupid place to keep a gun, but her house was pretty small and she really didn’t want it anywhere she would be sleeping, god forbid. She pulls the knob and enters the code into the safe-there’s dust collecting on the top.

She kept it loaded. A choice wildly advised against, but if she was theoretically being attacked and already had to run to her kitchen and enter a code to retrieve it, she really didn’t like the idea of fumbling with a magazine with a demon at her back. It was a completely irrational train of thought, but a lot of rationality was lost across a lot of people as soon as that thing showed itself.

She pulled the hammer back and carefully made her way back to her bedroom. She hadn’t lived in this house for very long, but she did know where the floor creaked well enough in the past few years especially. She opens the closet delicately, slips inside, and shuts the door in front of her carefully. She’s sure she barely made any noise if only for her own breathing. 

She hears footsteps inside the house.

She didn’t even hear any glass shattering or the door opening-although maybe it was muffled through all the doors? She pulls the gun upwards, and aims towards the front of the closet door. There were four of them-hopefully the sound itself could shock the others enough for her to get away if needed.

She hears them approach closer-they’re not even talking to each other. She thinks she can hear them all move as one conglomerate, not splitting up to search for her at all. Well, that was unfortunate. She hoped they would assume she would try to leave, or at least only have her need to deal with one at a time.

She hears them approach her bedroom. She wonders if they’d check under her bed, and she almost laughs at the thought. The monsters checking under the bed. She hears shuffling, nearing dangerously close. Her hands shake.

The closet door opens, she pulls the trigger, and it jams. 

__________________

Alex fiddles with their hair in the near-dark. The only thing standing between them and pitch-black is their overhead light, and even that’s about to go out with how decimated their car has gotten over the years. One side has already met it’s end and the other is clinging on for dear life, taking several seconds to completely flicker on when activated. They’ll get it fixed. Eventually. For now, the sun won’t rise for another 6 hours, and the lights from their coworker’s house are too far away to make any impact inside the car.

“God, my hair is fried .” They mumble, running their highlight through their fingers. They think about pulling down their sunshade to see how bad it looks overall before realizing they don’t want to start out their shift that way.

“It’s not too bad.” Jess comments from the backseat. “I think it’s just the lighting. Not that anyone looks good in their work uniform anyway.” She’s got her goggles sat around her neck, nicely clean and polished to shining. She was always put together exactly as a model employee, ripped right out of the orientation packet-even when Alex picked her up at ungodly hours of the morning or night. Her hair was always in a military-grade ponytail, part of a rule about long hair that was greatly emphasized but less so enforced, given Alex was consistently permitted to walk around with theirs down. They hear her lighter activate.

“Can you stop fiddling with that in my car?” They turn around and swat their hand at her. “Do not set my car on fire.”

“I do it all the time, it’s fine.”

“ In my car ?”

“Yes! Your driving makes me anxious!” She waves her hands dramatically and they reach over and close the top before anything hot can make contact with the backseat. 

“Not any more anxious than you would be if you were inside a flaming vehicle. Who’d give you a ride then?” They ask, and she sighs dramatically. “You’ve been lucky so far for us to have all the same shifts.” They jolt when they hear their other coworker open their backseat door.

“Thank you so much .” Nina says as she tosses her purse into their car. She climbs in quickly and waves at Jess as soon as she closes the door. “Literally thank you so much, I promise my car should be fixed soon. It just would not start.” She wrestles a hairband out of her jacket pocket and starts to wrangle her significantly shorter hair into something restrained.

“I’d pass by this exit anyway. I promise it’s not a big deal.” They wave their hands and start the car once she’s buckled in. 

“Again, thank you.” She says. “God, I feel so bad asking this when I just started for real.”

“Things happen.” Jess responds. “You can’t control it, and as long as you get to work, it doesn’t really matter how you did it.”

Nina nods, then turns her attention to Alex. “I know I’ve only been around one or two days a week so far, but I feel like I haven’t seen you specifically around-what do you do?” She asks politely. 

“I’m like…” They try to find the words as they back out of rough gravel, car jumping lightly. “Just kind of whatever needs doing? I’m called an assistant, but I kind of do a little bit of everything. What about you?”

“I’m a nurse! Sort of. I just make sure everyone is comfortable!” She says. “Make sure they have water and food and are calm-ish.”

“That’s nice.” They remark. She giggles lightly.

“I don’t really get how what I do is different from the caretakers though? I’ve never been asked to wear a uniform like that. Can’t imagine it’s easy to move around with all those things on them.” 

Alex and Jess’s hearts both freeze a little. They share a sparse glance in the rearview mirror and think about how to approach the topic that makes them sound at least a little like they have any clue why bandaged oddities are just walking around. They don’t, of course, but they don’t need her knowing that and asking any further questions they can’t answer.

“I think they’re just a more elite version of what you do.” Jess comments first, and Alex exhales with relief. “Like they’re specifically meant to de-escalate if anything happens. I think they mainly escort patients to where the hallucinogen is stronger if they’re not calming down. Like a crisis team.” 

Nina thinks for a second. “Hmm. They’ve come in a few times while I’m talking to someone and I just kind of…stand there? At least until I get to a good stopping point. I hope I don’t get in trouble.”

“You’re allowed to acknowledge them.” Alex says. “The only rule that’s actually enforced is you can’t interfere with what they’re doing, but you don’t have to pretend like they don’t exist. Nodding at them or whatever is fine.” 

“Yeah, I’ve said ‘hi’ to them a few times, but they don’t say anything back. Just get out of their way as soon as possible.” Jess comments. 

“But they really told me not to interact with them in the tapes…” Nina says, and Alex grits their teeth. Poor thing, they think. She’ll learn where she can push back eventually.

“It’s mostly theatrics. They have all these rules or whatever, but it’s too much work to actually get everyone to follow all of them. Me and Jess have been there since the opening and basically just being as respectful as we can. It’s not something you’ll be reprimanded for.” Alex adds. “Not that anyone would want to talk to them anyway. They are weird .” 

“Oh definitely.” Jess agrees. “They have a sort of smell to them-”

“They do!” Alex exclaims before suddenly jerking the wheel to the side, both girls yelping. “Sorry, I thought I saw a deer.” 

“Hmm.” Nina comments, and that ends that conversation. “How did you get hired?”

“My story is kind of weird?” Jess thinks of how to organize her experience. “So I used to work at that grocery store on Squire-”

“Oh I hate it there-everyone always looks so miserable.” Nina comments.

“Oh, we were .” Jess rolls her eyes. “But I found out I was pregnant, but obviously I wasn’t going to say anything at work until I had something else lined up, but…well, I didn’t figure it out before I started showing. Hours started to get cut and all that.” 

“I’m sorry.” Alex says, even though they knew this story and have said it several times.

“Oh no, I’m fine now! Anyways, I got this pamphlet talking about the foundation opening in my mailbox, thought I would submit an application and…well, they promised they would keep me even though I would need maternity leave pretty soon. Wasn’t even that bad of an interview when I mentioned it. I digitize patient notes and make sure everything’s organized and up to date. It’s nice getting to sit down all day.”

“Wait-When did you start living here?” Nina asks. “I never got a pamphlet, and I’ve been a nursing student!” 

“Five years ago.”

“Really? I’ve been here for seven!” 

“Huh. Weird.” Jess looks off to the side. “But yeah, Lankmann and everyone else was willing to work with me, and I appreciate it a lot.” She turns to Nina. “What about you?”

“I-um-” She looks off to the side. “Well, okay, I was a nursing student, and wanted to get an internship or something before I graduated, but…” She sighs. “I don’t know. I wasn’t doing very good grade-wise-” Her voice suddenly rises. “But I promise I know what I’m doing! I can absolutely take care of people! Anyways, I…left school, and sort of freaked out, but my position got upgraded to full-time, and today is technically my first day as that. I was only here for two months, but they still liked me. So I stayed.” She wrings her hands and looks down at her feet. “I’m glad though. I still get to at least do something adjacent to what I wanted-” The car suddenly swerves violently. 

“Sorry. I forgot this is where the exit was.” Alex says casually as if they didn’t just almost sling the two in the back out the window. The girls look at each other before Jess laughs awkwardly.

“That’s real.” Jess mutters and looks back out the into the dark. There’s never much to actually look at, especially with how dark it gets so early, but she liked catching glimpses of still-changing leaves and frost building on grass.

“Alex, how did you start working here?” Nina asks, climbing slightly out of her place and grabbing the back of the driver’s seat. Their brain short-circuits for a second.

“I was one of the witnesses from the original Halloween incident.” They say. Nina waits for them to elaborate more while Jess already knows they won’t. Nina eventually lets go of their seat and sits back down. The two nearly go flying again as Alex turns with an excessive amount of vigor into the parking lot. Nina is actively catching her breath as they pull into a spot.

“Thank you so much again.” Nina says as she gathers her things.

“Thank you. Can you get me on Saturday too?” Jess asks as she does the same.

“What do you think?” Alex jokes and stays in place, significantly less ready than the other two. They both emerge around the same time and start walking towards the building. Nina runs up behind Jess and grabs her on the shoulder before whispering harshly.

“Do they always drive like that?”

She laughs. “I mean, yeah, but they have a car and I’ve known them a while, so-”

“Oh my god, I feel like my back has been thrown out!”

“No same here, I have whiplash every time I ride with them.”

Meanwhile, Alex pulls down their sunshade and opens the mirror to get somewhat put together. Oh, Jess was right, it’s not that bad. Was certainly nice to get ready without the constant feeling of eyes on them every waking moment. After being under witness protection for so long, the sensation of never-ending observation stayed with them, deep in their cells. If it wasn’t someone else, it was them staring at themself in a mirror or some other reflective surface. Some way of keeping themself in line out of habit, they guessed. 

They were not about to tell poor newly-hired Nina that entire story though. Oh yeah, some guys just showed up to my house and vaguely threatened me to come work for them after I was sort-of involved in the initial demon activity. Entirely too much info for a Thursday morning at 1:30 AM. They all even made them watch the introductory video to the foundation with all of them surrounding Alex, watching them watch this tape as if they even had the option to be convinced to join the cause. It was pretty funny though, now that it was a distant memory and not several people who kept their shoes on inside their house currently standing in a semicircle around them as Alex inserted a VHS. 

They pull some chapstick out of their glove compartment after sifting through pairs of compression socks and various documents that had been shoved and wrinkled. They apply it, then turn downward towards their bag to pull out their goggles before an extremely close knocking sound scares the shit out of them. They shoot back upward, make direct eye contact with Nina, yelp and nearly jump out of their skin. She does the same, hand over her heart and eyes wide. After a second, they open their door.

“Yeah?”

She hands a bill to them. “Gas money!”

“Oh, you-really don’t have to do that. It’s maybe a mile and a half out of the way.” She pouts.

“It’s still out of the way.” She pushes it closer to them. “Take it.” They don’t get a chance to argue any further before she shoves the bill into their chest and runs towards the building. 

__________________

They’re not really sure what to do now.

Jess had her designated station somewhere in the building with a computer, and Alex barely caught a glimpse of whoever Nina was changing shifts with telling her what patient to attend to. Their routine was self-imposed and mainly consisted of beelining to clean whatever needed cleaning unless someone else told them another task needed doing, if they even had to speak to another human being on their shift. With a 24/7 staff though, the floors got bad pretty quick, especially after raining. Oh wait-they hadn’t done mirrors in a while. Every patient had a mirror in their room, which was weird given all they weren’t allowed to have in there. No bedsheets or blankets, no hairties, protocols like that. They were nearly positive they were one-way mirrors meant for observation, but had no way of knowing for sure given they couldn’t think of where said observation room could be.

Whatever. Not their problem.

They’ve got glass cleaner and some paper towels, and they knock on the door of whoever was closest. They hear a yelp on the other side. “Hey-I’m just going to clean your mirror, okay?” They wait for a response, give them a moment to move or whatever, then open the door.

There’s a young man in the corner, shivering. He’s got his arms wrapped one over the other, any attempt to keep warm with the mandated lack of blankets. They’ve seen him before-albeit they forgot his name. Not that they specifically ever had a tendency or reason to know. They smile at him, which freaks him out a little more, unfortunately.

They are very much not trained for what to do in these situations, at least not by any accredited organization. Whatever knowledge they did have was provided in an excessive amount of mandatory training tapes, most of which boiled down to completely ignore the patient and do what you need to . Really revisiting their history as an asylum.

So, they do that, at least as humanely as they can. The mirror faces away from where he’s currently compacted himself, so they get to work. Oh god, whoever cleaned this before them did a horrible job. Looks like they used a washcloth or something with how bad the smearing and clouding was. Now they actually wished their coworkers followed the rules. They click their tongue and try to undo the damage. It’s nice doing something menial. Just a repetitive task, simple and easy. If they were lucky, they could go an entire shift doing things like this or sweeping-oh that was a good idea, actually.

All done. They pick up their spray bottle and towels and acknowledge the patient again.

“I might be back later. Have a good day.” They say, and leave the room with no response. The moment they shut the door behind them, they hear shouting from a short distance away. Oh, that hallucinatory environment was not working, not that it ever seemed to in any meaningful capacity. Well great. Now everyone’s going to be more skittish than usual.

The yelling and arguing approaches and turns the corner ahead of them, a woman being pulled along the floor by her arms by two caretakers. They couldn’t even pull her up by her shoulders? God.

They’re also not doing a very good job at transporting her. She manages to get one hand free and flings part of her body forward, both caretakers switching to grab the arm that was still restrained. She’s in her pajamas it looks like, a matching plaid orange and black set. 

Oh, right. Halloween was coming up.

They’ve got more of a grip on her sleeve than they do her actual arm, and she tugs her arm out, pulls it to her chest, and yanks backward. There’s a weird tug-of-war happening for a few seconds before she looks over to them. They feel their heart freeze over.

“Help!” She shouts. “Please, I don’t know why I’m here!”

They look over her. They’ve got their hands out, trying to motion and about to make some comment about how they’ll help her recover from the veldigun, but-

There’s nothing. Her eyes are completely white and ordinary from what they can see, both those and her mouth completely bloodless. Her skin looks normal, just the right amount of taut as opposed to appearing pulled tight like cling wrap. They get a glimpse of her stomach as she pulls back against the caretakers-she’s got a healthy amount of fat there, so that’s not it. 

Huh. Weird. Maybe the red tint was hiding some skin discoloration? 

They look to the caretakers, still doing a very poor job at whatever they’re doing. She looks back to Alex and pulls harder for a few seconds. They think about freeing her for a second-grabbing part of the free sleeve and tugging it out of their hands. Just as they have that thought, a caretaker slowly turns it’s head towards them, and they dissolve the thought forcefully. They smile at her placidly. The same sort of energy they’d have when talking to a customer at a cash register.

“It’s okay. Just trust us to take care of you.”

They watch something fall out of her eyes, and convince themselves it’s blood. 

__________________

It’s around their time to leave, them just slowly watching the minutes tick down on their watch. They did, in fact, spend most of their shift vaguely helping out wherever they felt capable, which happened to be the simplest tasks. They had a grand total of one interaction with a coworker who advised them to put their hair up, which they did not do. 

There’s suddenly a sharp screaming, and they gasp and jolt up. It’s not yelling words though-it’s just a constant stream of noise, piercing and permeating the air. It’s loud too, not like usual shouting in fear when employees would interact with patients in any manner. This was…something else.

Well, they don’t have anything else to do. 

They make their way past darkened rooms and slowly turn the corner of a claustrophobic hallway, right where they’re sure the noise is from. Their head just barely pops around the corner before they see the same woman from earlier on the floor, four caretakers restraining one limb each. They’re shuffling her along the floor, two of them pressed against the back wall and the other two attempting to pull her forward down the hall. Alex can’t see her face, but they can hear her loud and clear for sure.

Something ignites in them, annoyed at how roughly they’ve got her held. She doesn’t even have a gown on yet-so she just got pulled in in the dead of night and dragged into some dark hallway right from the start? They nearly emerge from around the wall before they feel a hand on their shoulder. They just barely avoid yelling, narrowly, but turn around with the most adrenaline they’ve ever felt in their life. 

It’s Nina. Her ponytail is somewhat destroyed, large clumps of hair hanging around her shoulders and the hair band holding on for dear life. She looks them in the eyes, then looks down towards their arm as she grabs the hem of their sleeve. 

She’s also got her goggles off.

 She looks and sounds like she’s been crying, taking few short, shuddering breaths in. She looks up at them and goes right up to their ear. 

“Don’t interfere.” She says. They hear the patient gasp behind them and continue shrieking.

“Okay-” They grip both of her shoulders. “They are not going to fire me specifically. They kind of have to keep me here.” They think of how many details they could reasonably give. “I have…immunity, sort of, so if anyone could get them to stop dragging that lady like that-”

“Please just don’t.” Nina sounds so defeated. The sun is rising outside. The screaming persists.

“She doesn’t even seem to have anything wrong with her!” They whisper harshly. “Like, she looks fine.”

“She is.” Nina says, and then puts her hands over her mouth. They raise their eyebrows.

“What?”

 “Leave it alone. Please. Please.”

She takes a breath in.

“It isn’t worth it.”

__________________

“TEN HOURS?” Jess exclaims. “Oh my god, I mean I get it, but-”

“I know. I know. It’s a lot.”

“No offense, but like-if he’s worried about a bunch of victims rolling in, why am I specifically needed for ten hours?!”

“Lots of reports, I guess.” They respond. She groans loudly and lightly slams her fist on their window. 

“Well, now I have to find a babysitter for that long! Her dad has to leave that morning- urgh .” She sighs. “I doubt anyone would want to be anywhere other than their house on Halloween. Can’t imagine any trick-or-treaters out.” 

“Well, in the county, there won’t be many. I hear some people are driving their kids like an hour or more away.” 

She sighs. “Maybe I can ask my parents to take her for those two days. They love spoiling her-they’d be happy to take her out.”

Nina opens the back door and holds her purse close to her chest. “I’m sorry, they have to order a part or something-”

“It’s okay, I promise.” They try to reassure her. “We’re all going to the same place anyway.” They try to catch her eye and give her a smile in the rearview mirror, but she just sort of shuffles into her place and buckles her seatbelt. 

“Oh hey-you probably have it worse than us two. How long are you on for the Halloween shift?” Jess asks.

“I start at 4pm and go until the next day at 8am.” Nina replies.

“Holy shit-how many hours is that?”

“16.”

“Holy shit .” Jess repeats. “Do you have the rest of the week off then?”

She shakes her head. “But Lankmann already said we could sleep in some of the unused rooms when we don’t have anything to do.” 

“Jesus christ.” Jess puts her head in her hands. “All hands on deck, I guess.” 

They try to think about how to start the conversation they wanted to-would maybe go a little differently with Jess in the car, and she could pry for them if Nina wasn’t willing to answer them specifically. 

“Nina,” They ask, and immediately she perks up in a way that signals they are probably not going to get the info they need. “where exactly do the caretakers take the patients who are super disruptive? I’m just curious because we’ll probably have a lot of people freaking out.”

“Oh wait, I’m nosy too.” Jess adds. Perfect. They thank her mentally.

They feel like they can visibly see her cold-sweating. She wrings her hands. “Just like. Somewhere else.”

“But where else?” They push. They see Jess’ eyes bore into Nina from the rearview.

“I don’t know. Just a change of scenery, I think.”

They know she doesn’t ‘think’-She knows . Whatever happened to that woman, she knows. Actually-where did she even come from when they were dragging her? Did they just try to take her to a quiet corner of the building that wasn’t near other people? An isolation tactic, maybe? Whatever. They weren’t going to get anything out of Nina. 

They pull into the parking lot, and watch the two of them get out. They immediately follow suit, and wait for the two of them to separate enough physically to ask Jess something without Nina hearing.

“Hey-I wanted to ask something.” They put their hand on her shoulder and she turns her head around. “There was a woman who came in two weeks ago-she was like 30ish?” 

“What time?” Jess asks. 

“Somewhere around 2 to 3 in the morning.”

“Hmm.” She puts her hand to her cheek. “We had a guy come in three days ago sometime in the evening-sure it wasn’t him?”

“No-She just got dragged in still in her pajamas.”

“Hmm. That guy is the only new person I can think of. What about her?” Jess asks. “Do you know her name?” 

“No, I just…was curious why she was here. I saw her being restrained but couldn’t actually locate any veldigun symptoms.”

She thinks for a moment. “She might have skin discoloration under her clothes, or someone noticed her acting strangely. Catching it early is good.”

“I mean…yeah.” They say. “Yeah.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine eventually. Although it is weird I don’t remember her. I get so used to staring at the same descriptions I usually notice when new people come in. Maybe someone else digitized her notes.”

Alex stares directly into the streetlight. “Yeah. Maybe.”

They head inside together. As Jess waves and turns the corner, Alex adjusts the band on their goggles just before Nina comes barrelling into their vision. She puts her hands on both of their shoulders and pulls them in.

“Give up. Please.” 

__________________

Well. Those were pretty much the only two contacts they had. Given they didn’t have any set role within the facility, they didn’t have anyone else they spoke to on a consistent basis. At least they had some sort of a start-this woman’s integration was distinctly unusual…and that was about it for now. 

They sigh and fumble with their key to their house. They hated how little they knew about how the patients were treated when they couldn’t see them. Nina’s reaction to whatever reason she had to hide the woman’s treatment meant she had empathy, but god could some nurses be cold sometimes. It was still unusual just how petrified the patients were of literally every staff member, though. They were unassuming-at least, they thought so, and tried to speak as gently as possible to absolutely no avail.

Oh, shit. They do have an idea though. Those ten hours were going to be long. They open the door and instantly head to their kitchen.

They open their junk drawer and shift around long-dead batteries and mystery cables to search for something they weren’t sure they even had anymore. Thankfully, though-they find it. They pull it out and hold the power button, hoping that it still works after years of going unused. It’s not a big deal if not, they could buy another, but-

The camcorder turns on. 

__________________

They’re on hour eight of Halloween Hell Shift, as Jess had dubbed it. It should be early morning by now, although only four more patients have been brought in to their knowledge. Not that they were asked to do anything with them. Thankfully, now they had the time to do this.

They stand outside the room of the woman they saw before. Her room was a stark outlier, given its location fairly far away from others whereas everyone else was compacted as tightly as possible. They can’t hear anything from inside. They knock on the door.

“Hey.” They say gently, and they hear her gasp. “Can I come in?” They ask. There’s several moments of silence.

“It doesn’t matter.” She only says in response. They take that as the only agreement they’ll be getting, and open the door. She’s sat up on her bed, posture poised and tense. Her knees are locked together, and her hands fiddle with the end of her gown-so they finally got her one.

“Hi.” They say softly. “What’s your name?” 

“Evelyn.” She answers instantly, to their surprise. She does speak with all the apprehension of a cornered animal, but at least she’s coherent. That was all they could hope for.

“Evelyn?” They repeat, and she nods.

They hit record.

“Can I talk to you?”

__________________

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” and she’s screaming and sobbing and they can’t calm her down and there are caretakers trying to restrain her and they’re looking at them. They can’t tell if they’re angry or just curt or if they have any emotion in them at all.

They’re outside the room now, and Lankmann shuts the door behind them. He’s got such a wide smile, it’s so unnerving. Sprawling and unnaturally stiff. He looks ecstatic at the idea of catching someone doing something they shouldn’t. Alex is completely convinced the best case scenario is them just straight up getting fired right now. 

“What were you doing?” He asks with an eerie amount of joy. They’re stunned dead silent. Their mouth opens to come up with some sort of excuse but absolutely nothing comes out.

“You shouldn’t be filming our patients.” He talks at the pace of a boa constrictor wrapping around it’s prey.  “We have a duty to maintain confidentiality.” 

“I-I know-I’m sorry.”

“So why did you do it?” A chill runs up their spine.

“I-uh-research.” They say. “I want to document the healing process.” Whatever. It’s something. They kind of just want him to tell them to not come back in his typically fanciful way of speaking.

The weirdness in his smile dissolves a little, although they can still see all his teeth and most of his gums. “Really?” He asks, and they nod. 

“Yeah, I…I like what we do here.” They cannot bear to look him in the eyes while lying through their teeth, so they stare at the floor instead. “I think it would be good to show people how there’s hope. Even with… that running around.”

“Hmm.” He remarks. “Yes, just our presence won’t be enough to reassure the people that there is a chance to recover.” They look up a little and see his hand on his chin, thinking. “You should make sure to get any necessary consent forms signed before filming patients though. Being told verbally doesn’t cut it in most cases.” 

Oh, now their consent matters. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”

“Just be smart about it.” Lankmann has seemingly reverted back into his standard mode, significantly less ecstaticism present.

“Yes sir.” 

He nods, turns on his heel, and walks away. Alex waits a few seconds, frozen in place, before running to the bathroom to throw up.

__________________

It’s been two and a half months.

Halloween and all the following holidays sped by in an anxiety-riddled blur, no distinct memories to pull out from any of them. It’s like their family wanted nothing to do with them as soon as they found out what they did for a job. Like they would drag in a contagious malady that would befall all of them if they so much as sent a letter or any sort of invitation. Not much PTO anyway, and asking for time off sounded like a nightmare of a process. 

They’ve got their TV on with the interview with Evelyn, a near daily habit at this point. Trying to get any sort of new perspective or understand what had happened to her. They’ve very vaguely entertained the idea of showing it to Nina. She’s gone from warning them to their face to outright avoiding them at work though. They’ve made eye contact with her as she got out of someone else’s car before she immediately looks the opposite direction and hurries to literally anywhere they’re not. They considered showing it to Jess as well, but the fact that Evelyn wasn’t even in her records could out their meddling.

They think the tape is haunted. They hear whispers resonating out of their TV.

They see something in the upper left corner. They creep closer to the screen, peering through all the static. They do not hear the knocking at their window. It’s a camera. It’s a small security camera in the upper right corner of the room, one tiny pixel on the screen depicting a red blinking activation light. 

There’s no way they didn’t see it. They've been there for over a year now, been in patient rooms countless times, and all they assumed was present was the mirrors-what did they actually need the cameras in the rooms for? Weren’t the overall nightmarish conditions enough, caging people who had something horrible happen to them? 

They jump backwards once they get to the point of Lankmann slamming the door open. They can’t make him out in the dark. 

__________________

It’s another cold, late evening, just barely skirting past midnight. They were specifically told to be available 24/7 for the job(not that they really had a choice), but they had a tendency to get put on late nights or super early mornings. They guessed it was easier to have the hostage work the graveyard shifts.

They start peering around during their shift, poking into patient rooms wherever they notice their coworkers aren’t present. They wander back to her room, eventually. Horrendously awful idea, but they knock on her door. They’re mainly banking on Lankmann assuming they wouldn’t try the same thing twice. It’s silent. They knock again, a bit more assertively, only to more silence. They brace themself, hope she’s not just asleep or something, and open the door.

Her room is empty. It’s cleaned up, everything properly made up as though this area has already been cleaned. They enter further and shut the door behind them. They look upwards to the left corner of the ceiling.

No camera.

Wrong corner, maybe? They turn to the right, then again, then make a full 360 only to find nothing anywhere. Was it temporary, maybe? That was a lot of effort and rigging for something that was only in place for a short while. Their stomach drops. 

They have an idea.

They step outside her room, take a deep breath in. Their eyes dart around, watching a lone coworker turn a far corner from them, leaving them alone compacted between two concrete walls. Their hands shake as they rise to their face. They feel the indents around their eyes as they lift the goggles up and off their eyes, praying whatever they saw wasn’t immediately incapacitating-

Nothing. Except more color, of course. It was a little more difficult to see now, their pupils dilating to the dark. They blink a few more times, eyes dart around. All they could see was everything they always have. Shitty carpets and wood-spintered doors. They get another theory, though-They open the door to her room again, and step inside quickly to avoid anyone else’s eyes.

They turn to the ceiling. A red light blinks at them.

__________________

They straight up left during the middle of their shift and came back with the camcorder. Not that anyone noticed their absence, or said anything to them. They’ve got cold hands and cracked lips and proof to get.

They turn the corner of the same hallway, still empty, thankfully. It was almost too easy, not that this was any more secured than the rest of the building. They made their way to the dead-end she was getting dragged from last time, and removed their goggles. Two 6’s are plastered against doors installed on a previously brick wall. They stand there, hands shaking and short breaths going in and out. Whichever poor soul saw this tape was going to have to skip past them trying to choke down their unease to get whatever answer lay beyond the door. 

Whatever it was, it was why she was here. Whatever it was set her off so badly she couldn’t contain her terror and she was seemingly disposed of in some way after their interference. Guilt congeals in their chest.

It’s forcibly dissipated by…something. Something that seems to empty them out and impart apathy onto their entire being. Commanded by an unknown force, bigger than them or her or this entire facility, they turn their body towards the door, put their full weight on the handle, and push. 

__________________

“Looks like someone wandered somewhere they aren’t supposed to be.”

Oh, of fucking course he would have been following their moves. Right after they made direct eye contact with what was maybe the only security camera in the entire facility, if she was such a special subject. He sounds significantly less joyful than last time, though. His sentence still has a laugh trailing at the end, but the pure giddiness is mostly gone. He’s still in the dark from where they’re standing, the light not reaching him, only reflecting off his goggles. They can still hear her pleading in the recesses of their mind.

“Come back here.” He commands, and what choice do they have? Run even further into the pocket dimension they just uncovered? Their feet move on their own, not comprehending anything other than their own lack of willpower. 

They come back into the hallway, and see his face. 

They’re silent, heart frozen and blood vessels narrowed to nothing. Air doesn’t travel anywhere in their body, all of their functions paused to use all of their energy to understand what they’re looking at. His expression is unreadable with how much his features have been decimated.

“I…” They can’t say anything.

“How about you put those back on?” He suggests. They’re astonished he can even speak coherently with whatever condition he’s in. But, they comply. The band around the back of their head suddenly feels too tight. They look back up, and he’s a completely ordinary semi-elderly man who’s got a smile meant for a stage and not this place. 

“Were you curious?” He asks them. They’re silent. 

“Are you satisfied?” He pries. “Likely not. Don’t worry. Just keep doing what you always have. This can be erased.” He taps their shoulder twice, a stupidly amicable gesture for the situation. They don’t even register the touch.

“Why?” They finally get out just as he turns his back. He turns back around, a frightening grin growing once again. As if their fear could nourish his elation.

“I still have use for you yet.” 

__________________

It’s been two months. Everything is fine. 

Nothing changed, actually. It was like they’d always followed protocol and simply never took their goggles off or walked directly into a circle of hell. They weren’t discouraged from going into patient’s rooms or meandering near where they had discovered room 66, just left to their own devices.

They did start wearing their hair up, though.

Then there was a sudden influx of people after another reported attack from the smiling snatcher. 6 more patients had been admitted, half on the brink of death and half seeming completely fine. More patients put everyone on edge, especially the unruly ones. More screams meant more rage to go around, and Alex felt like they had overheard more tense conversations than usual. Everyone seemed to have a more demanding air to them.

Jess comes up to the driver’s seat window and taps on it. They roll it down.

“Can you pop your trunk open?” She asks. “I need to put something in there.”

“Sure.” They say, and hit a button by their knee.

“Thanks.” She says, and runs back inside. She comes back out a minute later hoisting a box full of...are those tapes? 

“What are those?” They ask, turning their neck around to watch her pack them into their trunk. She ignores them and runs back inside again. After three more trips and a few attempts to fit them all in their trunk, she shuts it and places herself in their passenger seat.

“You never want to ride up front.” They remark. She doesn’t respond to that, just buckles herself in.

“I want to talk to you.” She says. They put the car back in park.

“Huh?”

“No, go ahead, start driving.” She waves her hands and they do so. They pull out of her driveway and start heading down the road. Their headlights sprawl out on the road and do nothing against the eerie forest lining both sides.

“Alex.” She says. “I’m going to die today.”

“What?!” They exclaim and turn to her, car veering slightly to the right.

“Eyes on the road.” She says calmly. “You really need to stay focused. I don’t want you running me off into a ditch. Please just listen before you say anything.”

They make several argumentative noises that die into wordless sounds, her shushing them. They turn their head back to the road and try not to start dry heaving.

“I wrote suicide notes for everyone in my life. Please don’t let anyone think it was anything else. I don’t want them getting involved in this.” She says, and they choke down a sob. “I just threw every existing tape I have a copy of in your trunk. It’s all the orientation tapes plus several other things.” She shifts her body weight in a way they can’t see, tears clouding their peripheral. “I have things about that girl you were asking about too. Just be careful when you watch them, okay?” She leans over to them. They take a shuddering breath in, and nod. 

“I promise they shouldn’t know you have them. You have some sort of…immunity, I guess.” She says, and they sob. Of course that would come back to bite them.

“Is it because of me?” They ask through tears.

“No, no, not at all.” She reassures. “I mean, I know what you did, but that isn’t why.”

“Then why-”

“I’ve been collecting things Lankmann doesn’t want me to have.” She answers. “He caught me sneaking tapes out of the facility already but let me go the first time. I told him I wanted to show them to my daughter when she was older, and he just…believed me. Or pretended to.” She tucks her hair behind her ears. “There’s something really bad in there, and I don’t know if I want to tell you what it is. But it’d cause a pretty massive scandal.”

They laugh. “I’m pretty sure I know about the massive thing.” They say almost instantly, and put their hand over their mouth in shock at how fast they came up with that. 

“Oh, well then.” She throws her hands up. “You already know.”

“Yeah. I came across it two months ago and Lankmann told me to get out of it’s room.”

“You saw him?”

“Yeah. It was…something.”

She laughs dryly. “Jesus. Okay then. You know.” She folds her hands in her lap and quiets.

“Why am I being left alive then?” They ask. “Since I actually saw the thing.”

“Don’t call him that.” She interjects. “I don’t know. You’re important and I’m not. I just got…told to figure things out before today.” 

They feel a lump in their throat again. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“Do you want me to…do anything?” They ask. “Aside from watch all the tapes?”

“Just make sure anyone who asks think I committed suicide.” She answers. “Say I always seemed depressed in the conversations leading up to my disappearance if anyone asks.”

A tear falls down their face. “Okay.” They whisper.

“And make sure to spread them. Or pass them off to someone who can.”

“Of course.” They say, voice finally breaking.

“The speed limit is 55.” She says as she notices them moving at a solid 30.

“No one’s around. It’s fine.” They argue. She puts her elbow on the window and leans her chin in her hands.

They make it to the parking lot, after several intentionally missed turns. They also proceeded to re-park several times to make sure they were absolutely centered between the lines. Their shifts both start in 3 minutes. 

“Thank you.” She says. They get out of the car with her, and the pair walks to the entrance together, taking their time. Alex stops them about halfway there, running in front of her and blocking her path.

“What if we left?” They say suddenly. “Please, let’s leave.”

“And how do you think that would end?” She answers, and lets them take that in. She continues around them. All they can do is follow.

They’re in the main lobby now. She turns back towards them.

“Thanks for all the rides. Make sure to take in everything.” She says. “Oh! Something I really want to know about-” She runs up to them and drops her voice. “Apparently room 66 is also where the music is coming from?” She says. Their heart drops.

“Huh?”

“Yeah, I guess also try to find out what that’s about.” She says. “I trust you.” She smiles at them for the last time, and heads to her station. 

…so what was she talking about earlier?

__________________

It’s March. A lot of the bitter cold has metered out to cool breezes, and things have started to bloom again. Although not anywhere near the facility-all of the ground around it was either too loose or smothered under concrete. No conditions fit for life.

They’ve noticed they’ve always got someone directly behind them when they pull into the parking lot now. The day after Jess was…gone, they got blinded by the headlights behind them through the rearview. And then every day after that. And pretty much everywhere else they went. They had a guy just so happen to end up in every aisle with them at the grocery store, and then coincidentally right in line behind them. And then at their pharmacy. They went to the dentist and had someone sit right next to them despite the entirely empty waiting room and still be there when they came back out. They want to chalk it up to paranoia so badly, but it almost felt like home, being put under a microscope. It was familiar, unpleasant as it was.

“Alex.” Someone calls for their attention as soon as they walk in, and for a second, they’re mainly just astounded that there’s someone left in the foundation that even knows their name. 

“Yeah?” They respond. He looks quite a bit older than them, and is wearing both gloves and a face mask. His goggles seem to be fogged up.

“I’ve been told you specifically could help me out with something. Could you come with me?”

“Sure.” They say. He leans in and drops his voice to a whisper.

“The...patient in room 70.” He says, and they almost instantly roll their eyes. Of course there are more hidden rooms. “Do you know where that is?” They shake their head, and he clicks his tongue.

“Right. Follow me.” He waves them along. They’re coming up on room 66 now, but they pass that hallway and head towards an office of some sort. There’s protective gear scattered everywhere, vaguely organized by the body part it's meant to protect.

“You’ll need extra protection when entering. You need to wear shoe covers, a mask, hairnet, gloves, and some sort of clothing cover. We’ll throw away everything afterwards.”

They’re too apathetic to care about wherever they’re going, so they suit up with this guy and head back to the dead-ended hallway. He stops them in front of a particularly wide wall between two other patient rooms.

“Be very careful where and when you take your goggles off.” He emphasizes. “Make sure to only do it when there are no other employees around. I probably won’t be the only one to ask you to come around here.”

“Of course.” They mumble. He takes his red goggles off, and they follow suit. Sure enough, there lies a door in front of them previously unseen. 

“You saw the biohazard sanitation tape, right?” He says as he hands them a pair of clear safety goggles. “We just keep all of the materials in there because it’s easier.”

“I…did not.” They answer, fear starting to spread throughout them. They can feel their heartbeat in their brain as the safety goggles pressed against their face.

“I mean, usually the nurses deal with patients bleeding on themselves, but this one specifically is bad, obviously.” He says while putting on his own eye protection, and they already feel like gagging. “Right then.” He says, opens the door, and motions for them to walk inside.

They walk in, and are instantly hit with the smell of iron through the face mask. It’s significantly darker in this room than outside, almost entirely devoid of light aside from one overhead light hosting one lonely lightbulb. They can barely make out smears of some dried liquid against the wall, streaked against gray brick.

They look forward, towards the bed.

There’s a person, and they are sick . His skin is pulled so, so tight around his body, several openings scattering his chest, some open and some dried. He looks up-well, ‘looks’. There’s nothing in his eye sockets except for viscous fluid mixed with blood dripping down his sunken cheeks and past his mouth. His lips are cracked dry to an obscene degree, and as Alex is staring at them, he coughs wetly, blood and phleghm scattering inside his bony elbow. They jump back, and try to ignore the burning in their nose.

“Wh-” They say. “How long has he been here?” They ask, and their boss for the day places his hand on their shoulder.

"You don't know?" The man comments, and Alex suddenly has the overwhelming comprehension about how little they know about anything here, even after all their meddling. They don't even know these two men's names.

“That’s Kenneth Kruger.”  

__________________

It’s April, and they are done with this job.

They then proceeded to see Kruger several more times, along with being let in on quite a few other of the foundation’s disturbing secrets. Patients left to rot alive for the sake of research, refused salvation if only to be poked and prodded just a day more. Scraping irises out of skulls while being pleaded with to drive the scapel they were holding directly into their skulls. 

Among other things.

They’re only spoken to to be given orders. Not to have anything explained to them. Just told where to go and to find out what needs to be done.

They have officially made their way through every single tape Jess left for them after a grueling few months poring over every single word spoken and everything recorded and trying not to be sick at all they were involved in. God.

They think they have a plan now, though. Kruger was, thankfully, the most coherent out of the roster of concealed victims, having been there the longest. They despised the idea of using him for their own goals, but if anything, maybe he and all the others could be freed if they played their cards right.

They’ve got a camera set up in front of them. They feel a little weird speaking directly to it, but they have to just get over it and get the words out. They’ve got a little script sitting right beside it, bullet points to help them go over the timeline in a way whoever watching this could understand.

They take a deep breath in, and hit record.

“My name is Alex Williams.” They start, and everything else just flows. They don’t hear their door opening behind them.

__________________

They actually complied pretty readily, although it took several caretakers restraining them and then subsequently getting shoved into a trunk for that to happen. They’ve got their wrists pinned behind their back and four caretakers total surrounding them as they’re escorted through the building. There’s a few coworkers they recognize, although they all look away once they realize what’s happening. They just barely make eye contact with Nina, and catch her eyes widening before she looks at the ground.

“So.” They hear Lankmann say. “How was your ‘research’?” He taunts. They grit their teeth and just barely suppress the urge to spit in his face. 

Actually, fuck it. They do that, and are promptly slapped across the cheek as a result. They just barely grit their teeth in time and let their head hang, hair obscuring their face.

“ Jesus .” Lankmann comments. They laugh dryly as they stare at the floor. They wish they could see his face.

“Well, you’ll get to know, now.” He says, and motions for the caretakers to follow him. They get dragged across a few floors, and head back to room 66. The numbers loom over them.

“Don’t leave until they’re completely gone.” He commands the caretakers. None of them even acknowledge they heard him. Alex barely hears his footsteps echo down the hall, noise reverberating off the walls. One of the caretakers opens the door in front of them, and the other three push them forward. 

They’re a little satisfied that they’ve done all they can do. The tapes are ready, and from what they’ve seen, the caretakers didn’t go for them, all they grabbed was the camera they were recording on. They hope they didn’t hear them mention it-but even if they did, there’s no way to know who’s got them now. They bite their cheek. Someone’s going to do something. Eventually. Their feet plant on soft, dead grass. It’s almost like they’ve still got the goggles on with how red the entire room is. They’re grabbed by their scalp and made to look upwards, right into the thing’s eyes. They didn’t actually look at it directly last time-the only time they saw its face was through the TV or camcorder. They feel dizzy, being forced to perceive this thing in all its being. The thing looks like it’s been hacked away at, some of it’s viscera dripping down it’s chest. It’s got darkened eyes and a heaving chest and shaking fists, somehow. 

“Oh no…” They hear someone say, and they just barely push through the mental static to recognize it as Jess. They start darting around, trying to locate her, but their head is locked in place and it sounds directly in front of them but she’s nowhere to be found. 

They can feel their voice, separate from them, pleading something. They can’t recognize what it’s asking for, all they can do is follow it, try to hold it, and hope someone else can hear it. They savor it’s last few moments before they throw out the last hope that it will be heard somewhere again, far away from here, and are consumed.