"This hospital was originally the largest private hospital in this city. Eighty years ago, a doctor who worked here committed suicide in the hospital. Within the next six months, medical staffs and patients began to commit suicide one after another. Eight months later, Dr. Mile, the director of the hospital decided to close it and this seemingly endless series of suicide accidents finally came to a stop. However, after one year, the people who survived the series of suicides started dying for different reasons. Without being able to do anything, Dr. Mile returned to the hospital and tried to set fire to the dean's room. People found his body in the office, but the building somehow escaped the disaster. Since then everyone related to the hospital has died, and this hospital has been left abandoned here."
Aaron told the background story of the mission at the doorway. His expression was very serious. Obviously, he did not really have the confidence to challenge a D-grade mission, but the chance to find a treasure was so important that he thought he should take the risk. On the other side, Tabitha frowned while she listened to the story. It was obvious to her that Dr. Mile knew the truth about the deaths; otherwise, he would not have chosen to close the hospital and even try to burn it in the end. But he was already dead for 79 years, how could they possibly find the truth by simply searching this abandoned building?
"As you can see, it's an extremely large building. Let's split into 3 groups to do some rough exploration first. Return to the hall before half an hour is up."
As Aaron explained and made the arrangements, the group arrived at the gate of the hospital. Under the gloomy sky, the old iron gate was making a dissonant noise with the wind blowing. When Tabitha looked back, the only thing she could see was the thick fog, and the cottage had already disappeared.
"Tabitha, you are a newcomer, just follow me. Carol, you go with Alfred. Fay and Hale will be another group. Remember, no matter what happens, when the time is up, return to the hall. Take these fire flares in case of any emergencies. Here is a flashlight and a flash bomb for each group. Let's check the time now."
After Aaron said that, all of the team members extended their arms and each one of them wore a military-grade waterproof watch on their wrists. Tabitha took a look at her wrist, which had nothing on it, and felt depressed. All she could do was wait for the others to adjust the time.
"Tabitha, this is yours."
At this time, Alfred took out a watch from his pocket. "When I previously redeemed these watches, I thought that there would be a sixth member joining us one day. So I exchanged for six watches. Now, this one is for you." Tabitha was deeply grateful for his act. She put the watch on immediately and gave Alfred a thankful smile.
With everything settled, the team was ready to go. By opening the iron gate that was already covered with rust, Tabitha started her second mission.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
How many mirrors have we passed? Tabitha walked past another mirror and everything in front of her looked identical. She raised her wrist and looked at the watch. It had only been ten minutes and she was already starting to feel a bit absent-minded.
It was hard to explain why the hallway of this hospital was full of mirrors, which were in different shapes and sizes. Sometimes, when her eyes met her reflection in the mirror, she felt that the mirror would pull her in. As Aaron mentioned, the hospital was extremely large. The corridors were dark. A heavy fog rushed into the building from an open door, slowly blending into the deep darkness.
Tabitha looked at the end of the corridor that filled with fog. She believed that there were many countless black figures moving closely together; even she knew that she was hallucinating because of the endless darkness. She frowned and could feel that something was wrong with the hospital. Although the whole Rubik world was quite weird, the hospital... She recalled the strange feeling she had when she heard Aaron narrate the background of the hospital. She shook her head uncomfortably.
"Are you okay?" Aaron happened to turn back and saw Tabitha shaking her head. He was worried. "Exploratory missions are generally scary. You're new, and I know most girls can't stand this kind of atmosphere. Do you need some rest? We can stop for a while if you need to."
The sky was completely dark at this time. In this huge, empty abandoned hospital, Tabitha and Aaron could only see things by a glimmer of light that from the flashlight that they had in their hands.
Tabitha shook her head in response to Aaron's concern. "No, it's just the hospital's background... I keep feeling like we're walking into a trap..." Tabitha answered vaguely, she couldn't tell what was exactly happening for the mission. Yet she wanted to say that it might be the darkness making her thoughts run wild. And at that moment, she saw a figure running towards them at a high speed!
"Aaron! On your right!" she shouted. Aaron was surprised but he did not doubt her at all. He drew his gun and shot to the right. The shotgun was extremely powerful. They heard two 'squeaking' sounds as a monstrous humanoid hissed and fell to the ground.
Both Aaron and Tabitha ran over and saw a human lying on the floor while breathing heavily. Aaron took the flashlight and illuminated the face of the "thing." As though it had never seen light for an extended period of time, it subconsciously covered its face with its hand before slowly lowering its hand.
The light of the military flashlight was pretty bright, and it cast a small halo on the tiles floor of the hospital. Aaron and Tabitha were shocked momentarily when they saw its face.
Although that face was covered with mud and blood, the facial features were still legible, and that face was actually identical to Aaron's! Looking at the clothes, even though it was tattered, there was nothing different from what Aaron wore.
Tabitha immediately turned wary against the two "men" in front of her. She gripped the shovel that Aaron had previously given her before for self-defense. She two steps back from both "Aarons."
Suddenly, they heard a bang from the second floor. Tabitha groaned but still didn't dare to go closer to "Aarons." She took the wireless intercom out carefully from her trouser pocket.
"Beep-- I'm Tabitha. I just heard a bang from the second floor. What happened? Please answer," said Tabitha while her brain raced to figure out the situation.
Aaron had never left her sight since they entered the hospital. There was no chance of him getting lost. Unless she was hallucinating from the moment she entered the hospital, it would be impossible that Aaron, the one, who was partnered with her, was a stranger.
In this case, Aaron, who was hit in the belly, was definitely "fake," but what was his purpose? Obviously, he did not intend to impersonate; otherwise, he would not have attacked in the first place. Tabitha could not help but think of the mission. To find out the real reason why the hospital was abandoned... The sudden appearance of this fake "Aaron" was definitely related to the mission. They had to keep him alive!
Tabitha only spent a few seconds thinking through everything. The intercom in the hand did not respond. There was no time for her to pay attention to the situation of her teammates now. She held the engineering shovel in her hand and cautiously leaned forward to "Aaron." Although the power of the shotgun was great, it was shot from a great distance away after all. The round was insufficient to instantly kill "Aaron."
Tabitha sized him up. She found that the previous attack had already caused fake "Aaron" to fall into a coma. He lacked any threat for now. She took a light breath and relaxed a little. Tabitha asked Aaron to take a climbing rope to tie the comatose guy into a "blind man."
She glanced at the blood under fake Aaron's body. She frowned and contemplated for a moment before finally reaching out her hand to use her ability. It could be because of her therapeutic ability but once she touched the fake Aaron's body, she could clearly see a greenish-yellow bloodline on his forehead. When she used her ability to recover him, the value of his health bar was slowly restored.
"Tabitha, what are you trying to do?"
Before Aaron gave a single explanation, Tabitha had already started a series of actions. Although he did not stop her, he was filled with doubts. As the one being "replicated," his surprise and fear were severalfold Tabitha's.
While Tabitha tried to get a sense of the condition of fake Aaron's wound, she explained her thoughts to Aaron. After she made sure that the man had stopped bleeding, she patted her knees and stood up.
Aaron didn't have time to speak when the intercom suddenly came alive: "Call... Ta hissing-bitha... I'm Alfred, I'm underground… I found a patient... I think I've probably... a clue to this hospital. Where are you...where?"
The voice from the intercom was intermittent; they could even hear static in between the sentences. Tabitha and Aaron frowned and looked at each other, but at this time they were not sure how to respond.
Tabitha pursed her lips. Her fingers rubbed against the intercom that was now silent and said: "This fake Aaron must know some clues about this mission, but staying here to wait for him to wake up is a waste of time..."
She recounted the clues that Alfred had mentioned earlier and the loud noise on the second floor. She was unable to decide which was the better place for them to be.
"I can go piggybacking him. In his current state, he won't be able to hurt me even if he wakes up." Aaron pointed to the person who was lying on the floor as he said, "Alfred is now in the basement, so there is a high possibility that it was Fay and Hale that met something on the second floor..." His speech trailed off for a moment as he seemed to hesitate about the choice of the next destination. "I'm confident of Fay and Hale's combat effectiveness... but the situation on the second floor is not clear now. It's hard to say if we might encounter some serious problems..."
Obviously, he had already made the decision. Tabitha was still a little hesitant as she worried about the teenage girl who had saved her in the forest but now, it was clear that the clues Alfred had found might be related to the mission. Standing still for a moment, she nodded.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Alfred, who was in the underground data room of the hospital, put down the intercom and looked at the patient's records in his hand. Under the illumination of his flashlight, it could be seen that the photo posted on the yellowed paper was taken after the patient was admitted to the hospital. The man dressed in the patient garbs was thin and all bone. His skin was dry and clinging to his bones. He had extremely large eyelids and it was hard for people to read his emotions.
"On the 25th day after admission, the patient participated in "the trial of recover mirrors"... On the 37th day, the patient developed symptoms such as obvious anorexia and fear of light..."
The writing on the data was quite sloppy. Alfred read with knitted brows. Was the hospital having a human experiment on the patients? What was the experiment named "the trial of recovery mirrors?" He flipped back through the records. After he skipped over a bunch of different photos, the patient in the last photo had completely lost his shape. This was a full-length photo. The patient was still wearing patient garbs. All of his joints were twisted in an unnatural way, his mouth slightly agape, as if he had become an unconscious living dead.
Alfred put down the record and looked outside through the small window on the data room door. The hallway of the hospital was dark. A long-forgotten place like this always made people uncomfortable. The corridor exuded an old smell that was difficult to describe. Suddenly, he noticed that someone to his left was staring at him. He turned his head immediately but realized that it was only a mirror. His image seemed twisted in the mirror. Alfred walked to aside; he had an indescribable aversion to the mirror.
He looked at his watch. They had been in the hospital for more than fifteen minutes. The captain had said that they would come to meet him first previously. But... he thought of Carol, who had had her head and body split apart by an ax… What happened to this hospital? He couldn't help but think of the hallway that was full of those mirrors. What exactly was the experiment that was mentioned in the patient record? What had the people in this hospital actually done?