Pages 6-9

 June 7th? 2025

I think it’s been a day.

I want to say it has, because my body feels like it has. My legs ache in that deep bruised way. My throat hurts. My eyes feel swollen, like I cried in my sleep, which I don’t remember doing but wouldn’t surprise me.

I found a place to hide.

There’s a janitor’s closet on the second floor of the school. The door sticks when you close it, so it doesn’t latch all the way unless you really lean into it. I shoved a broken chair under the handle. It didn’t feel sturdy, but it felt like something. The floor inside was cleaner than the hallway, like no one ever bothered to come in here even when the school was still alive.

I don’t remember deciding to sleep.

I remember sitting on the floor with my back against the wall, notebook in my lap, telling myself I’d just close my eyes for a second. I remember my breathing finally slowing down. I remember thinking I could still hear it moving somewhere in the building, far away, patient.

Then nothing.

When I woke up, the light hadn’t changed.

That’s what scared me first.

There’s a small window high up on the wall, frosted glass. It lets in a thin, gray light, but it looks exactly the same now as it did before I passed out. No shift. No dimming. No brightening. My watch says it’s been fourteen hours. My body says maybe four. My head says time doesn’t work here and I should stop trying to measure it.

I slept badly. In pieces. Every time I drifted off, I dreamed I was still running down the hall, lockers slamming open as I passed, hands reaching out from inside them. Once I dreamed my girlfriend was sitting across from me in a classroom, tapping her pen on a desk, asking why I wouldn’t look at her.

I woke up with my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t scream.

I listened for a long time before moving. The school has its own sounds. Pipes ticking. Metal cooling. Something dripping somewhere far away. It almost feels normal if I don’t think too hard about it.

I moved the chair away from the door inch by inch. The hallway outside was empty. No dragging fabric. No footsteps. No mask waiting for me.

That almost made it worse.

I stepped out and my foot crunched on something. I looked down and realized the papers on the floor weren’t papers at all. They were drawings. Children’s drawings. Crayon and marker, faded but still bright in places. Stick figures. Smiling faces. One of them showed a tall figure in white, towering over a group of smaller shapes. Someone had written HELP in uneven letters at the bottom.

I don’t remember seeing those before.

I’m walking again, slower this time. The fog is inside the building now, thin but present, creeping along the ceiling like it’s testing how much space it’s allowed to take. My chest feels tight. Every classroom I pass has the door cracked open just enough to see inside.

I swear one of them closed when I wasn’t looking.

I keep hearing something soft and rhythmic. Not footsteps. More like fabric brushing against fabric. Sometimes it stops. When it starts again, it’s closer.

I’m trying to tell myself it’s just the building settling. That’s a lie. I know it is.

The air smells like antiseptic now. Like a hospital. Like something clean that’s gone rotten.

I don’t think that thing left the school.

I think it waited.

If this really has been a day, I don’t know what it’s been doing this whole time. I don’t know if it sleeps. I don’t know if it dreams.

I’m at the end of the hallway. The doors ahead lead to the gym. Big space. No places to hide. My legs want to turn around, but something behind me makes that feel like a bad idea.

The sound is closer now. Slow. Deliberate.

If it wanted me dead, I think it would’ve had me already.

That thought is worse than any other.

I’m going to open the gym doors.

If this page ends suddenly, it’s because my hands couldn’t keep up with what happened next.

Next Page:

I didn’t open the gym doors.

They opened for me.

There was a click from behind me. Sharp. Precise. Not like footsteps. Like teeth tapping together or metal striking bone.

The hallway lights flickered and the fog poured in like it had been waiting for permission.

I ran.

I don’t remember which way. I slammed through a side exit and the cold air hit me so hard it felt like diving underwater. The fog outside was worse. Thick enough that buildings appeared in pieces. Corners. Windows. Shapes without context.

The clicking followed me out.

I didn’t look back. I could hear it moving through the school, walls popping and cracking as it crawled or walked or skipped I don’t know. The sound echoed, like it didn’t belong in a space that size.

Outside, the town was alive.

Not people. Things shaped like people.

Figures wandered the streets slowly, aimless, bumping into walls and each other. Some were missing faces entirely. Others had too many. One knelt in the road, clawing at its own chest, pulling at something inside like it could dig out whatever hurt enough times.

I didn’t understand what I was seeing. I still don’t. I just knew they weren’t chasing me. They didn’t even seem to notice me unless I got too close. Then they would twitch. Turn. Reach.

I saw her again.

Standing across the street, half-obscured by fog. She looked more solid this time. Closer to right. Her eyes were wet. Like she was crying.

“Alex,” she said, and my chest cracked open.

I took a step toward her before I remembered the hallway. The wrong tilt of her head. The way her mouth didn’t work.

She smiled when I stopped.

Not relieved. Pleased.

Behind her, one of the wandering figures let out a low sound like a moan that had been scraped raw. Its skin was split open in long lines, like it had tried to tear itself apart and failed. I realized then that all of them looked familiar in a way I couldn’t place. Not faces. Feelings.

Guilt. Anger. Regret. Things I’ve been carrying so long I forgot they had shapes.

The clicking started again.

Louder now. Faster. Accompanied by the dragging fabric sound I know too well.

The tall one stepped out of the fog like it had been summoned by my fear. The theater mask was streaked red now. The straightjacket sleeves brushed the ground as it leaned forward, impossibly bent, its neck stretching as it locked onto me.

It screamed.

Not loud. Not high. A deep, shaking sound that vibrated through my teeth and bones. The sad mouth on the mask split wider, cracking more, something dark and wet pushing against it from behind.

I ran again.

The streets twisted. I swear they did. Turns that shouldn’t exist. Buildings sliding closer together. The fog swallowed everything but the ground directly in front of my feet.

I saw an apartment complex looming out of the white. Brick. Multiple stories. Windows like dark eyes. The front door was hanging open.

I didn’t think. I just threw myself inside.

The door slammed shut behind me, shaking the frame. The clicking and dragging stopped on the other side. For a second. Just long enough for hope to form.

Then I heard it moving around the building. Slow. Patient. Like it knew I had nowhere else to go.

I’m hiding in a stairwell between floors. The walls are covered in peeling paint and old notices. I can hear other things moving inside the building too. Soft footsteps. Whispers. Someone laughing far away and then choking on it.

I don’t think the town wants me dead.

I think it wants me to understand.

I don’t know what happens when you do.

The clicking is getting closer again.

Next Page: 

The school was loud. Echoes. Space. This place presses in. The ceilings are too low. The hallways curve just enough that you can’t see the end of them. Every door looks lived-in and abandoned at the same time. Furniture half visible through cracked doorframes. TVs on with nothing but static. Lights flickering in rooms no one is in.

I keep expecting a number to be scratched into the walls like some kind of order, but there isn’t one. Every floor feels like a different version of the same place.

I went up two flights of stairs and somehow ended up in the basement.

The clicking isn’t constant anymore. It comes and goes. When it stops, I almost miss it, because silence here feels like being watched by something that’s holding its breath.

I passed an apartment with the door wide open. Inside, the walls were covered in mirrors. Every surface. Floor to ceiling. I saw myself from angles I didn’t recognize. Some of the reflections lagged behind. Some didn’t move at all. One smiled when I didn’t.

I didn’t stay long.

There are things living here. Or trapped here. I don’t know which is worse.

I saw one crouched in a bathtub, arms wrapped around its knees. It looked human except for the way its skin folded in on itself like it had been worn too many times. When I stepped too close, it looked up and I realized its face was just… blurred. Like someone smeared it with their thumb. It whispered something I couldn’t understand and sank back down into the tub like it was ashamed to exist.

Another one crawled across the ceiling of the third floor, bones bending in ways they shouldn’t, dragging itself silently until it disappeared into a vent. I only noticed because something dripped onto my shoulder and I screamed before I could stop myself.

That was a mistake.

The clicking came back immediately.

Faster. Excited.

The lights went out all at once. Not a flicker. Just gone. Emergency lights snapped on seconds later, bathing everything in a dim red glow that made the bloodstains on the floor look wet.

I can hear the tall one moving between floors now. The fabric of the straightjacket scrapes against the walls. Sometimes it stops right outside a door I’m hiding behind, and I can feel its shadow through the wood like a pressure.

I think it’s her fear.

No... mine.

I think that’s what these things are. Pieces of me that I never dealt with. They don’t attack unless I acknowledge them. When I panic, they get closer. When I stop and breathe, they hesitate.

That scares me more than anything.

I found a stairwell with a broken exit door that leads to a courtyard in the middle of the building. Dead plants. Cracked concrete. Fog hanging low like it pooled there and decided to stay.

I’m sitting behind a dumpster right now, writing with my back pressed against cold metal, trying to slow my breathing. My hands won’t stop shaking but I can still write, so I guess that’s good.

I can hear something humming somewhere above me. A familiar tune. One she used to play when she was nervous.

I don’t know if it’s a trap or a memory or if those things are even different here.

The tall one just screamed again. Closer than before. Angry. Like it lost track of me and doesn’t like that.

If this place is trying to teach me something, it’s doing a terrible job of explaining it.

I’m going to move again. The courtyard feels too exposed. I need walls. Corners. Somewhere I can disappear for a second.

Next Page: 

I shouldn’t have moved.

The apartment complex started changing again while I was walking. Doors that were open before were closed now. Hallways stretched longer than they should’ve. The red emergency lights dimmed until everything looked bruised.

The clicking stopped.

That was worse than hearing it.

I turned a corner and almost ran straight into it.

She was huge. Not tall like the other one... wide. Built like a wall. Muscles stacked on muscles, shoulders hunched forward like she was used to taking hits. Her head was encased in a metal helmet, welded looking, thick, with spikes jutting out at uneven angles. The metal was dented and rusted and slick with blood that ran down in thin lines.

The helmet covered everything except her mouth.

Her mouth was... 

Too wide. Stretched. Lips split and raw. Blood pooled at the corners and dripped down her chin. Her tongue lolled out, long and dark, twitching like it had a mind of its own.

Click. Click. Click.

That sound wasn’t teeth.

It was her tongue snapping against the metal inside the helmet.

She leaned down so her mouth was level with my face and inhaled. Deep. Greedy. Her breath smelled like iron and rot and something chemical underneath it all.

For one horrible second, she smiled.

Then she charged.

The floor shook when she ran. Heavy. Fast. Every step felt like it rattled my bones loose. I bolted down the hall, slipping on something wet, nearly falling. The clicking sped up behind me, frantic now, excited, like she was laughing without making a laugh sound.

I didn’t think. I smashed through a fire exit and tore outside into the fog.

Cold hit me hard. The fog swallowed the apartment complex behind me almost immediately, like it was embarrassed to be seen with me. I ran until my lungs burned, until my legs screamed, until I saw another building loom out of the white.

Concrete. Institutional. Squat and ugly.

The doors were already open.

I slammed inside and kept running, didn’t even look back to see if she followed. My shoes squealed on tile. The air inside smelled sharp. Clean in a way that hurt my nose in a familiar sense that I can't quite place.

I ducked into the first hallway I saw and pressed myself against the wall, choking on my own breath, notebook clutched to my chest like it could protect me. My bag still on my back.

It was quiet.

The lights here are different. Fluorescent. Buzzing softly. The walls are pale green, peeling in places. Doors line the hall, all with small reinforced windows. Some have thick scratches around the handles. Some have numbers instead of names.

I just realized what this place is.

There’s a sign above the door at the end of the hall. Half the letters are missing, but I can still read enough of it.

—AVIORAL
—ENTAL HEALTH
—ENTER

The fog hasn’t followed me inside. Not yet. But I can hear it breathing at the entrance, pressing against the glass like it wants permission.

Somewhere deeper in the building, something just screamed.

Not like a monster.

Like a person.

I think this place remembers things.

I don’t know if it remembers me yet.