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The abandoned psychiatric center on the edge of the county was supposed to be a dead end. Literally and figuratively.
For months, Hange had been obsessing over the old St. Sina, cluttering their apartment with yellowed newspaper clippings, thermal imaging cameras, and half-drained energy drinks. They had a theory about a specific frequency of energy—something about how traumatic deaths could fold space back on itself like paper, trapping whatever was left behind in a perpetual loop of agony.
Levi, a disgraced former homicide detective who now made a living keeping reckless idiots from dying, had told them it was bullshit.
"It’s mold, Hange," Levi had said three nights ago, sitting on their couch while Hange pasted another map to the wall. "It’s black mold and rusty pipes giving people hallucinations. You’re going to give yourself lung disease."
"It’s not mold, Levi!" Hange had shot back, eyes wide and manic behind dirty glasses. "The cold spots aren't uniform. And the sound recordings—there's a pulse to it. Like a heartbeat, but backward."
So, Levi went with them. Because that’s what he did now. He followed Hange into rotten, pitch-black buildings, carrying a heavy flashlight and a concealed firearm that he knew deep down wouldn't do a damn thing against a ghost, just to make sure Hange actually made it back home to eat a proper meal.
He had lost sight of them for less than five minutes.
Five minutes. He’d stopped in the collapsed lobby to check a weak floorboard, and Hange had slipped down the corridor toward the sub-basement, chasing some spike on their electromagnetic reader.
"Hange?"
Levi’s voice echoed off the peeling wallpaper and wet concrete. The air in the basement was impossibly cold. Not just winter cold—it was a heavy, suffocating freeze that made every breath feel like swallowing crushed glass.
"Hange, stop screwing around. We're leaving."
No answer. Only the sharp, rhythmic drip, drip, drip of water somewhere deeper in the dark.
Levi clicked his flashlight higher, the beam cutting through a fog so thick it felt greasy. He stepped over rusted metal gurneys and shattered glass, his heart starting that familiar, terrible thud against his ribs. He’d seen plenty of bad things as a cop. Dead bodies, cruel people, things that made you lose faith in humanity. But the feeling crawling up his spine right now wasn't human. It was greasy. It felt like cold oil sliding down his neck.
"Hange!" he shouted, dropping the professional quiet.
Then he heard it.
A sound that made his stomach drop into his boots. A wet, choking gasp, followed by the terrible, frantic sound of someone dragging themselves across concrete.
Levi ran.
He threw his shoulder against a heavy steel door at the end of the hall. It gave way with a screech of rusted hinges, slamming open to reveal what used to be the hydrotherapy room.
The air inside was practically solid. The flashlight beam flickered violently, the LED dying down to a dull, sickly yellow.
In the center of the room, curled on the slick, black tile, was Hange.
"Hange!" Levi sprinted across the room, dropping to his knees so hard the impact vibrated up his thighs.
He reached out, grabbing Hange by the shoulders, and the pure horror of what he was looking at hit him like a physical blow.
Hange was shivering violently, their skin a translucent and sickly gray. But it was their face, their body that made Levi’s blood turn to slush.
Thin, black, thread-like veins were writing themselves across Hange’s skin, squirming right beneath the surface like living worms. They spread from Hange’s collarbone up toward their neck, branching out like dead tree roots. Where the black lines touched, the skin was bruised a deep, rotten purple, swelling as if cooked from the inside out.
Hange’s right arm was bent at a sickening angle, the coat sleeve torn open. Their fingers were clawing helplessly at their own throat, leaving bloody trail marks.
"L... Levi..." Hange choked out. Their voice didn't sound like them. It was raspy as if their lungs were filled with silt.
"Don't move. Don't touch it," Levi rasped, his hands shaking as he pulled Hange’s fingers away from their neck. "Look at me. Hange, look at me!"
Hange’s right eye was completely bloodshot, the white wiped out by a pool of dark, suffocating red. Their left eye—the one usually full of bright, irritating curiosity—was blown wide, staring at the ceiling in sheer terror.
"It's... inside," Hange gasped, a bubble of dark, thick blood escaping their lips and rolling down their chin. "Levi... it’s... it’s taking the space..."
"Shut up. Just stop talking." Levi pulled them off the cold floor, hauling Hange’s top half into his lap.
He wrapped a arm around Hange’s back, pressing them close to his chest, trying to force his own body heat into their impossibly cold frame. But touching Hange felt wrong their skin was prickly, humming with a static charge that made Levi’s teeth ache.
The shadow in the corner of the room moved.
It wasn't a shadow caused by light. It was a patch of darkness so dense it swallowed the wall behind it. It didn't have a face, but Levi could feel it watching them. It felt heavy. It smelled like sulfur, copper, and damp earth from a fresh grave.
The black veins under Hange’s skin twitched, pulsing in rhythm with a low, agonizing hum that vibrated through the concrete beneath them. Hange let out a high, strangled cry, their spine arching wildly off the floor as the black lines crawled higher, reaching toward their jawline.
"Stop!" Hange wept, tears cutting clear tracks through the grime on their face. "Please, make it stop, it hurts it hurts so much—"
Levi felt something inside him snap.
It wasn't the logical, precise mind of the ex-detective. It was something older, something dark and buried deep within his chest that he spent every single day trying to suppress. A raw, animal rage that flushed the cold out of his veins and replaced it with liquid fire.
He tightened his grip on Hange, pressing his face into the side of their neck, right over the spreading corruption.
"Hold on," Levi growled.
He didn't care about the cold. He didn't care about the flickering light or the thing breathing down their necks in the dark.
He lifted Hange slightly, cradling the back of their head with one hand, his thumb resting against their jawline to keep them still. He looked down at the mangled arm, the black rot crawling up their neck, the terror bleeding out of every pore of the person who was usually so loud, so alive, so annoying.
The stoic, quiet man who never raised his voice, who never let anyone see him bend, felt his hands tremble with an emotion so violent it terrified him.
Levi looked up, staring directly into the suffocating pitch-black corner of the room. His gray eyes, usually dull and bored, were pinned, reflecting the dying yellow light like an animal caught in high beams.
"Who did this to you?"
The question didn't sound like a plea. It wasn't a cry for help. It was a promise of complete, absolute annihilation.
The shadow in the corner shifted back, as if startled by the sudden wave of absolute malice rolling off the man on the floor.
Levi didn't wait for an answer. He looked back down at Hange, his breath hot against their ice-cold skin.
"Listen to me, Hange," Levi hissed, his voice trembling with a terrifying mix of fury and desperation. "You are not dying in a goddamn basement. You hear me? You don't get to leave me here alone."
He pressed his hand firmly over the highest cluster of black veins on Hange’s neck.
A sharp, violent shock ran up Levi’s arm. The dark energy tried to bite into his skin, trying to drag him into the same freezing abyss. But Levi didn't pull away. He squeezed harder, leaning over Hange, physically blocking the rest of the room from their view. He became their entire world—a shield of pure, burning rage.
"Give it back," Levi growled into Hange’s skin, leaning into the pain. "Leave them the fuck alone!"
Whether it was the heat of Levi’s skin, the sheer force of his refusal to let go, or something darker buried deep inside his own blood, the dark veins under Hange’s skin suddenly stuttered.
Hange gasped, a deep, ragged sound, as if breaking through the surface of deep water. The black lines stopped crawling toward their face. Slowly, painfully, they began to recede, pulling back down toward their chest like frightened worms hiding from the sun.
The heavy, suffocating pressure in the room broke with a sound like shattering glass. The darkness in the corner collapsed in on itself, dissolving into ordinary, empty shadows.
The flashlight on the floor flickered back to full brightness, bathing the room in stark, white light.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Hange lay limp in Levi’s arms, breathing in shallow, terrified hitches. The black veins were gone, leaving behind deep, painful-looking purple bruises across their neck and chest. Their right arm hung unnaturally at their side, broken, but the unnatural cold was fading. Hange’s skin was finally starting to feel human again.
Levi’s chest heaved. His knuckles were white where he was clutching Hange’s coat, his whole body shaking with an adrenaline crash so severe he felt sick.
"Levi..." Hange whispered. The red in their eye was still there, but their focus was coming back. They raised their left hand, weak and trembling, and touched Levi’s cheek.
Their fingers were cold, but they were real.
Levi closed his eyes for a split second, leaning his face into the touch just enough to feel the warmth coming back to Hange’s skin. Then, he opened his eyes, the murderous rage fading back into his usual, sharp glare—though his bottom lip twitched slightly.
"You're a complete idiot," Levi muttered, his voice hoarse. "A genuine, certified dumbass."
Hange let out a weak, breathless laugh that immediately turned into a wince as their broken arm shifted. "I... I got the data, though.."
"Shut up," Levi said, gently shifting his arms so he could lift Hange off the wet floor. He stood up slowly, cradling Hange against his chest as carefully as he could manage with a broken bone. "We're going to the hospital. And then I'm burning every single notebook in your apartment."
"You wouldn't..." Hange mumbled, resting their head against Levi’s shoulder, their eyes fluttering shut from pure exhaustion.
"Try me," Levi whispered.
He carried Hange out of the hydrotherapy room, stepping over the debris and out into the dark hallway. He didn't look back at the shadows once. He just kept his arms tight around Hange, holding them close enough to feel the slow, steady hum of their heart beating against his own.