Alt name; Enter Gorgias
|—
Waylen Whitaker didn’t remember falling asleep on sterile white flooring, in a room of seamless nacre, boxing him inside six walls. He stumbled upwards, slouching into the corner, unmoored by bottles nor bed.
His chest thudded as he scanned his surroundings, this wasn't home, this wasn’t work, this was wrong. There were five other faces in the room, also motioning awake; but his mind snapped back to the seamless cage. The walls were an unbroken shade of pearl, way too white, far too clean. There were no windows, no doors—just an oppressive opaqueness that made it impossible to tell the time. Roused, his heart drummed.
Waylen needed to get out of here. Now.
He tried to ground himself, twisting and turning, he overlooked the other five figures, spying past their rumbling forms. The chaotic beat rapped against his ribcage and inner ear.
Trapped, like tied to an OR table under a surgeon's headlights. Waylen knew the scalpel would come soon.
Breath.
He forced the twitches to stop. He needed to analyze. He had to think.
Reflexively, he saw the time on his phone was 11:59 PM. Odd, he last recalled it being 3:00 AM on a sunday, pacing about his room as he was, aching in his centre back. They were understaffed to the bare bones and every week he was heaped with more duties and the same damn pay. Promise after promise of hiring that never changed anything.
Heave.
Waylen had to stop working up his high blood pressure, he thought while tilting towards the room. The five others in the room looked about as blear-eyed, a few standing more steadily than his own shambling gaze.
He eyed them through the sides of his eyes.
“Well shit.” Shot a tall man in his early forties. He had sharp eyes and a wiry build, housed in military fatigues, leaning against the far wall, arms crossed. He didn't react to Waylen's brief bluster, was he also too shocked to care, or too aware of something else? The man's gaze was too solid, sweeping across the room like a viper, not deigning to linger on Waylen.
“What is this?” Said a young woman, scant steps to Waylen's left. Her dull brown apron was smeared with hues, and head topped with dyed pink hair. Her fingers rictusing.
“Let me the fuck outta here.” She slurred then glared at the rest of them. Voice blasting she doubled down and punched the wall.
The fist met an impassive white wall. It didn’t budge an inch.
The woman immediately recoiled in pain.
“Fuck. Fuck.” Her hands stayed clench. She paced in a tight circle, eyes roaming.
Waylen doubted she was in on this craziness. Her phone was in her other hand, useless? She must have checked.
“I don’t know either, so don’t go ballistic on me kid.” The wiry man exclaimed, earning a few glares but waving them off.
“Please, let me go.” A man beside her in a business suit almost shouted. The wiry man and angered woman turned towards him.
“I have money, however much you need— Ahh, my wallet, it's here.” One of his hands was outstretched with the item, the other dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief, breathing shallowly as he looked up. His suitcase was already splayed open, exposing documents ruffled through. He didn't seem concerned with packing them back up.
All the while curled in the outer left corner, A stocky teenager in a hoodie sat hunched. Manic and frantic, nervously tapping away at his phone. Waylen quickly checked his, no reception or service. Odd again.
Finally, to Waylen's right wall, a woman in construction overalls streaked in grime stood with her back straight, grimacing as she surveyed the cage. Eyes dashing but returning to her opposite wall.
Settling to a furrow, Waylen’s gaze settled on it too, as he did, it clicked. He saw words indented on the seamless wall. A molded message resolving into the surface texture.
“Welcome, Participants. Prepare for your first mission.”
"What the hell is this?" Waylen muttered under his breath. He pushed a hand against the pearlescent wall, half-expecting it to vanish like smoke, but it remained fixed in place. Were the walls see through for some pranksters on the other side? Was he drugged?
The pink-haired woman—Kayla, according to the name stitched on her painting apron—spun to face the others. “What the fucks going on? An escape room? ” Her voice hurried.
The man in the suit let out a nervous laugh. “This… this has to be some sort of prank. Hidden cameras, maybe? A… uh, social experiment?” His voice trembled.
“No prank,” said the wiry man. His voice was clipped, harsh like grating sand. “I woke up here just like the rest of you. And unless someone here is hiding a shitload of information, I don’t think any of us signed up for this.”
“Signed up for what?” the teenager asked, finally looking up from his useless phone. His face was pale, his eyes wide. “This… this is some weirdo shit. You all seeing this?” He looked like he was about to throw up.
“We must keep our heads,” the grim jawed woman said firmly. “Name’s Maria. Let’s start by introducing ourselves and pooling what we know. Anyone?”
“No. Fuck you. Free me.” Alan yelled back, his eyes had searched the room and found no open weapons. He gripped his suitcase like a hammer, eyes rampant.
“Dean. Retired staff Sergeant.” The wiry man said.
He stepped forward, and approached the suitcase carrier.
Like a Cobra, Dean stared down the businessman. He loomed over the suitcase carrier, straight posture and harsher faced, until the other man’s arms wilted.
Dean’s mouth flattened and nodded towards Maria. “Got no clue what’s happening here, but we need to stay calm.”
The fist clenched woman crossed her arms. “Kayla. That’s all the shit you'll get. Seriously, someone better explain fast.”
“Ya…Y.” The teenager stumbled over his words.
“Out with it kid. Now.” Dean silvered.
“Yashin.” The kid said, gulping down the bile. “High school. Uh… I don’t know anything.” He weakly gestured, his voice barely above a whisper.
The businessman retired into the corner, but managed a tired frown. “Alan Hayes,” he said, then looked at Dean. “I’m in home insurance, Kalmino and Associates. If this is a nightmare, I’d really like to wake up now.”
They all turned towards Waylen, the last one, like usual.
Waylen hesitated before speaking. “Waylen Whitaker. I… I’m a forklift operator for warehouses. That’s about it.” He was surprised at how steady the words came out, albeit a stumble.
It was damn weird, all of them were kidnapped, and no one was a panicking shamble, even himself. Waylen didn’t ever wake up and feel this clear eyed a minute up.
Maria nodded approvingly. “Good. We’ve got names. Now we figure out what the hell this is.”
Before anyone could respond, the wall text shifted, the words reshaping into new ones:
"Mission: Survive.
Objective: Escape the manor.
Time Limit: 2 hours.”
Kayla stepped back, her voice rising. “Manor? What manor? We’re in a…” Her words faltered as the light died and the room vomited out of itself.
The walls hurled, their pristine surfaces surging inward like paper sucked into a vortex.
In an instant, they stood inside dark wooden walls dripping with decay. The blistering change almost took Waylen off of his feet.
The air clotted heavily with the scent of mildew, like the place hadn't been cleaned in decades. And the cloying taste of must in the air almost made him puke.
Where Way–
“Holy shit,” Yashin screeched, clutching his phone like a lifeline. He gagged, and then immediately puked on the floor. Brownish pustule-like shapes mired in sickly syrup filtered over the dead wooden flooring.
“Goddamn it kid. Tighten up.” Dean shot at Yashin. The rest of them moved away, scrambling from the transition and viscous location.
Yashin crouched over a nearby wall, still heaving. Even a distance away the rotten peach textured fluids bled down, marking the ground. The manor already stank of milled roadkill. The oppressive stench of their new surroundings quickly drowned it out.
Waylen wasn’t the only one reeling from the sudden change, pulped fluids, and deathly remnants. Alan and Kayla both gagged but held it in, Maria grimaced, and Dean seemed unfazed.
Waylen scrunched backwards to process the change, leaning against a broken lamplight in a grand yet decrepit foyer, dotted with decayed bits like chair legs.
Some of the wall wood was cracking off and the ceiling indented like a budding lake bed, but shock took over.
His heart sped with every breath.
With heaves he hoped were subtle, he tampered down on his breathing and studied the details of the mystery manor.
Open gilded doors dominating a once opulent foyer invited him into twin streams of shadowed halls. A massive chandelier hung above, its crystals dusty and cobwebbed. The floor some feet away was covered in a faded red carpet, and twin staircases curved upward into those gaping doors.
A deep, echoing creak cut through the silence as the massive wooden doors behind them gnarled and knotted together like living wood, the sound reverberating through the mansion.
“Fuck” Dean cursed, kicking and shouldering the wood. While Waylen was still adjusting, he must have sprinted to the doors.
Inspecting the warped wood, his stomach sank when he saw no visible handles or locks. Just deeply scarred but unyielding wall, and a mysterious socket, shaped like a pocket watch.
“This isn’t real,” Alan said, his voice crumbling. “It can’t be real. Houses don’t just appear out of nowhere. Did you fuckers spike me?”
“Focus,” Dean barked, his sharp tone snapping. “The objective said to escape. Let’s assume it’s serious. We need to find a way out.”
“Escape from what?” Kayla asked. “There’s nothing here except creepy decor and bad lighting.”
“For now,” Maria said grimly. She pointed to a grandfather clock at the base of the stairs. Its pendulum swung with agonizing slowness, and the hands were frozen at midnight. Beneath the clock face was a timer, glowing faintly:
1:59:45
The countdown was real.
“We’re being timed,” Maria said. “And I don’t think whoever’s behind this plans to let us just walk out.”
Waylen’s eyes darted around the room, most everything looked like normal antiques but ever so slightly malformed, except the monstrous door and time-thieved grandfather clock with the timer.
Looking at it from the sides, or any odd angles had the timer disappear, but straight seen, there was no doubt it was real.
The mansion felt alive, the oppressive silence broken only by the faint sound of skittering from the shadows. He’d seen horror movies, and this felt different, too detailed, too visceral.
An optical illusion, advanced tech, or maybe augmented reality implants were all considered, and discarded for sake of time, too many things didn’t add up, this situation was insane.
After a seething yell from Alan and Kayla about this fucking with their work scheduling, a thorough few minutes of picking, findangling, and bashing any available surface yielded nothing. No key for the weird doors, no window able to be busted or budged, the grandfather clock unable to be tipped over.
His instincts screamed at him to move, but he was trapped.
Waylen persisted through cluttered breathing, like under a pile of bodies.
They looked towards the dark. The only way out was through.
“We go in pairs,” Dean said, his tone brooking no argument. “Cover more ground. We’ll regroup here in twenty minutes.” He turned to eye each person, one by one. "Comms to the outside are down but timers should be operational. Set it up on your phones. Vibration if possible."
“Split up?” Kayla’s voice rose. “Are you serious? You go alone, if you have to. Hell no.”
“Staying together would make us all safer.” Alan intoned. “Let’s just wait for a rescue, someone is probably searching for us.”
“Staying together might get us all killed,” Dean countered. “We don’t know what we’re up against, but if we waste time arguing, we’re dead anyway.”
Maria stepped between them, her voice firm. “It's not a bad idea. We pair off. Nobody goes alone.”
“Fuck that.” Alan said.
“I don’t care what military detail you’re from, if you want to bark orders, I need answers. I’d bet you know as much as we do, unless you're in on this damn charade?” Alan silvered at Dean.
Dean paused, staring straight faced back at Alan. The wiry man chuckled, stepped forward, and drew a gun to Alan’s head.
Kayla yelled to stop. Yashin bleated as he ducked down. Waylen stared at Dean. And Maria stayed silent.
“Don't shoot!” Alan screamed. “By God. Please don’t shoot.” He pleaded with pulsing hands. Panicked, his voice trembled in shallow gasps.
The pistol was steady in Dean’s grip. He would aim true. Unperturbed. But then his eyes wavered and grew fiery.
“You piece of shit. Do you want to die?” Dean growled, his voice cutting. “Disorganization will get us all killed.”
“Put the gun down, Dean,” Maria said, stepping closer. “We’re not turning on each other.”
Alan’s voice cracked. “I-I’m not the enemy! None of us are!”
Dean’s gaze lingered on Alan for a moment longer, his jaw clenched tight. The pressure in the room was suffocating, every gasp thick.
Maria stepped between them, her tone firm. “Enough. We don’t have time for this.”
Dean’s finger hovered over the trigger, before he finally lowered the weapon. “Then act like it. Let’s move. Now.”
Alan staggered back, wiping sweat from his forehead. “You’re insane.”
“Maybe,” Dean muttered, holstering the gun. “But I’m alive. Let’s keep it that way. Get moving.”
Waylen’s stomach churned as the group began to splinter. Whatever was going on, staying or hesitating might only make it worse. He needed to grab as much information as possible and position himself to not get done in by whoever, or whatever this was.
He did not know these people, but had to choose. Quickly.
Dean seemed like the most skilled, and had a gun, but was an obvious no go. Waylen wouldn't bet on an opaque trigger finger figure when there were already so many variables in the odds.
Maria seemed like a good choice, albeit cryptic, but it seemed both Dean and her were thinking alike him or whatever agreement they already came to. Their previous rapport in the conversation and his lack thereof cut him out of their handshake as they set off for the rightward door.
“They’re gone, thank god, fuck that guy.” Alan whispered. Kayla continued staring at the way Maria and Dean left, hands in her pockets.
Of the remaining three, Alan was desperate and Kayla, seemingly uncaring, was convinced to set off. That left him with Yashin, the teen in the spotted hoodie. He might be twice as nervous as Waylen was, and half as good at hiding it, but at least he wasn’t a wild card.
Waylen watched the teen still trying to leverage a pocketed pen into the socket. For now, they’ll have to be enough.
They finished pairing: Kayla with Alan, Waylen and Yashin.
“We’ve got to go.” Waylen exclaimed.
The kid paled at his voice, got up, and started walking towards him.
“Can’t we just stay, like they said?” Yahsin muttered, motioning to Kayla and Alan, seen just beyond the doorway, waiting. “like they’re doing.” The teen didn’t want to go, but wanted to be alone even less. A younger Waylen would have understood the feeling. A younger Waylen wouldn’t have made it even this far.
His index finger pointed to the black and marched.
Yashin in an auburn hoodie smeared with dust, and Waylen lugging his scruffy work jacket, approached the hollow ingress to the left.
And so, flashlights on their phones, they entered the shadows.
1:52:02
—|—
Trudging through the intestine like hallways, Waylen and Yashin stepped around poking rustic nails and wet, rattling walls marked with the odd occasional footmark on the ceilings.
By Waylen’s estimations, map scrawled on his app, and timer, they must have split off from the foyer two minutes and seven turns ago. Regardless, he kept as precise a mental map of the halls as he could.
Weirdly enough he stopped hearing the creaks of his weight on the floorboards a mere 10 seconds after splitting. The sound should have carried.
Regardless, feeling their way along the darkness they made a few routes before finding a lamp in the constant black.
There right beside the standing Lamp was a pitted wood door, worn down around the edges, and the first break in the dark.
Stepping up to the side, Waylen listened to the old walls for signs of life, and had Yashin post at the other side. They coordinated like the first person shooters Waylen still sometimes played. It made him feel ridiculous but this madness demanded it.
With a crack he stepped in, opening the door wide to arc across the decrepit sight.
Stained drapes and shattered glass littered the ground as mildew permeated the heavy air. Staining over the negligent sight a pair of pitted lamplights illuminated the rooms in yellow streaks.
Sidestepping the rotting wood and cloistered vase, Waylen found a porcelain plate with rose floral motifs, and a shattered fork. Searching around the only other item of note was a steak knife hidden between the drawers, and a rustic lighter.
Focusing on the window he saw it reflect nothing but stark dark, echoing across the night. It had no handles or levers, but the few shoulder pegs, leveraged knives, and jacket cloaked punches he gave it showed the same uncanny resilience the rest of the mansion had.
Waylen scavenged the tools, petty as they were, and opened the lighter to confirm its long since emptance.
Getting up to leave the room, with Yashin poking empty space in tow, Waylen saw a pin between the floorboards, glinting.
Finally a spat of shitty luck in a shittier situation.
Immediately straining to pick out the nails and leveraging his legs, he uprooted the board.
A plume of must dust exploded over his face.
“Bleuh” Waylen spat on the ground, the taste stayed.
Stuffed inside the crevice was a small ornate chest clasped close with aged iron. Immediately Waylen pulled the thing open, facing away from him. With Yashin watching from behind his shoulder.
The clasp was a trial to open, rust irritating his skin and nicking his finger.
Finally, he opened the damn thing, containing a crimson jar, a preserved locket, and a letter, sealed with a kiss.
Quickly studying it, the note was hastily written, He didn’t have time to read all the words, the dated italics scrawled with the occasional word in a language Waylen couldn’t parse.
It had a few stained dots with faded streams.
Tears.
Clutching the note, Waylen’s place in this seemed all the smaller. Was this really some elaborate social experiment with cutting edge augmented reality, or a horribly bad drinking dream, or was this something else. This felt too layered, too personal.
Picking up the canister, Waylen inspected viscous liquid within. Something unseeable shook within. Cautious, he wouldn't open it until he was with the group and found something approximating gloves. Hell to the chances of him spilling acid on himself.
The heart-shaped locket held an embossed iron cross within the left compartment, and a faded picture of a woman on the right. She was pale like a ghost, but her deep blue eyes and stringy blonde hair framed her smile kindly. Regardless, the iron cross painted a grim picture.
Thinking back to the note hinted at something under his thoughts, and it put a nasty taste in his mouth. It stirred something unspoken in his mind—a fragment of a history lesson, a whispered warning. It felt heavy in his hand, a valuable relic, sometimes to the wrong type of collector.
These items had to be more than met his eye, but they didn’t have time, only about eight minutes remained before they convened and he wanted to inspect at least one more place, maybe he’d find a potential exit.
Marching out the door, Waylen couldn’t help but notice the way Yashin’s hands trembled. Waylen understood the worry, even though the smell of vomit still wafted his way sometimes.
1:39:19
Back to the chills of the everdark hallways, he soon came across a long hall of semi functional sconces. Casting long, twisting shadows that seemed to shift with every step.
“This can’t be happening,” Yashin murmured under his breath. “It’s a nightmare game? There's a screen clock. I tried saying ‘menu?’, ‘options?’ ‘help’? What are the commands?”
Yashin kept walking, muttering more.
Keeping the pace, they continued through the bowels of the manor.
After two right turns they reached a different section stained with splotches of red. Each creak of the floorboards echoed like a gunshot in the cavernous halls, their shadows stretching and twisting with every flicker of their phone flashlights.
Waylen’s jaw tightened. If it was a nightmare or VR, it felt far too real. The creak of the floorboards, the damp chill in the air, the feel of eyes piercing his neck—no amount of psilocybin, virtual reality, or lucid dreaming could produce this feel.
Finally catching sight of another door, his–
Bone-dry, guttural screeches resounded through the walls.
Its noise penetrated his eardrums like a megaphone, and struck his heart like a hammer. Something primal, an instinct too deep to even describe, that he didn’t know existed, was absolutely certain whatever that was, would attack.
“What was that?” Yashin whispered. He hitched and almost hit Waylen's arm.
Waylen froze. The sound came again, deep and ragged, echoing from the bowels of the mansion. More than lionlike, but It wasn’t anything he could name. His gut screamed, he couldn't stay the course.
He grabbed Yashin and immediately started jogging back to the Foyer; he needed more eyes for this threat. They needed to group.
Just thinking about the screech sped his heart. That sound was too loud for a smartphone to produce, or any human to make.
“What the fuck.” He heard from his side.
Waylen didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the darkness ahead, where the faint outline of another turn loomed . Whatever lay buried in this mansion, he had to figure it out to survive—and fast. Before this insane situation swallowed them whole.
—|—
Waylen and Yashin burst into the foyer, their breath ragged. The hallways stretched farther and weirder than he noted, but his mind dashed from that issue. The oppressive silence of the mansion felt heavier now, as though the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Waylen’s grip on the crimson jar tightened as his eyes darted toward the timer beneath the grandfather clock. 1:33:12. They’d lost nearly twenty minutes.
“Where is everyone?” Yashin whispered, his voice shaky.
“They’ll be here,” Waylen said, though he wasn’t sure he believed it. He scanned the twin staircases, the gaping hallways, and the still-sealed entrance doors. His gut churned. Something was wrong.
A sudden, sharp clatter echoed through the hall, the sound of hurried footsteps. Waylen whirled toward the source just as Dean and Maria emerged from the shadows, with Maria fireman carried on his back.
“Help her!” Dean barked, his voice harsh. Maria bobbed into the light, clutching her side. Blood seeped through her construction overalls, staining the fabric a deep crimson.
“Shit,” Waylen hissed, rushing forward.
Dean softly lowered her, as she immediately collapsed to her knees. Face pale and slick with sweat. “Ambush,” she rasped. “It wasn’t….”
Dean dropped beside her, his face grim. “Keep pressure on the wound,” he said, tearing a strip from his shirt and pressing it against the gash.
“What happened?” Waylen asked, crouching beside them.
“We found a room,” Dean said, his eyes flickering to the darkened hallway they’d come from. “Fuck. Thought we were alone. Then it came out of nowhere. Fast. Too fucking fast.”
“It?” Yashin asked, his voice barely audible.
Dean didn’t answer. His jaw bolted shut as his gaze fixed on the hallway.
The air grew colder. Waylen felt it first—a subtle, chilling draft that carried with it a faint metallic tang.
Immediately a presence settled around his neck, like a constrictor, immaterial, and invisible, but poised to pierce flesh like paper.
Something had arrived.
Only a scraggly mess of black, at first. Draping a figure that drank in the shadow around it.
Then, from the darkness, the body of the beast emerged. A pallid paleness, wearing shred leaf like rags, finally cut through the molded emptiness with red-lidded irises.
The man—if he could still be called that—stepped into the light with a slow wobble. His body was emaciated, his ribs jutting against ragged, dirt-streaked skin. The fingers twitched around a gaunt frame, and his face was a mask of scars. Sunken eyes, black as the void with that central hint of cooled cinnabar, darted across the room, unblinking, then focusing.
On them.
Waylen felt the constrictor tighten.
Its lips were scrap cracked, teeth jagged and yellow, and gait erratic, like a puppet with fraying strings. Sloven, and saliva dripping, it gangled with a deep longing. Smiling, wider than would cause a tear.
“Can’t… run…” it wheezed, voice a guttural rasp. “Sealed… like steel…”.
Maria gasped, her eyes widening. “That’s him. That’s the thing.”
Dean shot to his feet, pulling his gun. “Stay back,” he ordered, his voice steady despite the tension in his stance.
Yashin let out a strangled whisper, backing into the shadows. Waylen froze, his fingernails breaking as he gripped the edge of a half-felled table. Even Dean, gun raised, seemed to hesitate for a split second.
Dean’s hands tightened on the gun, knuckles white. “I said stay back!” he barked, leveling the barrel at the creature’s head.
The thing stopped. Its head tilted, its lips curdling into a grotesque grin. Then, in a blur of motion too fast to track, it lunged.
Dean fired, the gunshots deafening in the confined space. But the creature moved like smoke, weaving through the air. In an instant, it was upon him.
Before Waylen could react, the creature's claws blitzed through Dean's arm, shredding flesh and bone like mache.
Dean grunted from his bowels, his weapon clattering to the floor from the pulped arm, but with the other hand rolling to draw something from his boots.
“Shit!” Waylen yelled, pulling Yashin back as the creature closed the distance.
“Dean!” Maria raged, scrambling to rise despite the blood seeping through her overalls.
“Fall back” Dean muffled, struggling, torso resisting, “take Maria—”
The creature didn’t stop. With an inhuman growl, it sank its teeth into Dean’s neck, tearing a canyon open.
Hot sanguine sprayed across the foyer as Dean’s orders turned into gurgles.
“Fuck!” Waylen shouted, grabbing the nearest object—a broken chair leg—and rushing forward.
Kayla and Alan, who had just returned from the opposite hallway, froze in horror.
“Help him!” Waylen barked, swinging the chair leg at the creature. The wood splintered against its back, but the fucker didn’t even flinch.
Yashin stumbled back, his phone still clutched in his trembling hands. “We have to go!”
Maria, bleeding and pale, tried to crawl toward Dean, but the creature snarled and swiped at her, forcing her back. Its focus remained on Dean, who was now limp in its grasp, his blood pooling.
The creature made a motion down, tongue extending like a cat as if to lapp up the ichor.
Kayla snapped out of her shock, ran and grabbed a broken table leg, swinging it wildly. “Get off him!”
The creature finally turned its head, its black eyes locking onto Kayla. For a moment, Waylen thought it might attack her next. But instead, it opened its mouth, revealing blood-stained fangs, and let out a pained laugh.
“Scurry now,” it whispered, “Lit… Little red meats.” its voice distorted, as though layered with an echo. “Run while you can.”
Waylen didn’t need to be told twice. “Move!” he yelled, grabbing Yashin and pulling him toward the nearest hallway.
Kayla and Alan followed, dragging a barely-conscious Maria between them. Behind them, the creature’s laughter grew louder, more unhinged, more pained.
They didn’t look back.
Waylen’s legs burned as they sprinted down the shadowed corridor, the sound of their footsteps echoing through the mansion. He tried to focus on a sensible direction, but the thoughts flitted away. They didn’t know where they were going, only that they needed to get as far as possible.
“What the fuck was that?” Yashin panted, his voice breaking.
“No idea,” Waylen said, his heart pounding. “But we’re not sticking around to find out.”
Maria groaned, her head lolling against Kayla’s shoulder. “It’s… a vampire.”
Kayla’s eyes widened. “A vampire? Are you serious?”
“She’s delirious,” Alan said, his voice trembling. “That thing wasn’t human, but a vampire? Come on.”
“Does it matter what it is?” Waylen snapped. “We need to focus on surviving.”
They turned a corner, the dim light from a flickering sconce casting long shadows on the walls. Waylen slowed, his breathing ragged.
“We can’t keep running like this,” he said, leaning against the wall. “We need a plan.”
“A plan?” Alan hissed. “You saw what it did to Dean! We’re fucked!”
“Shut up,” Kayla snapped. “Panicking isn’t going to help.”
Waylen glanced at Maria, her face pale and slick with sweat. The bleeding hadn’t stopped, and her breathing was shallow.
“We need to stop her bleeding,” he said. “Find somewhere to hide, regroup, and figure out what the hell we’re dealing with.”
A distant sound echoed through the corridor—a bone-dry, guttural screech.
“We don’t.. time.” Yashin rasp whispered.
Waylen nodded, gripping the crimson jar tighter. Whatever was in it, or this fucked up hell house, he hoped it would be useful. Because if– when– that thing found them again, death would be salivating on them.
The grandfather clock, far back in the foyer, chimed, the sound hollow.
Waylen’s eyes darted to the timer, hiding on his phone screen, obscured with a streak of crimson.
1:29:56.
The countdown crested the first half hour, three to go. And only five people remained.
—|
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