Tabitha looked around with her flashlight.
It was hard to say when the whole hospital was filled with thick fog. The flashlight flashed a dim haze through the milky fog. Aaron clutched the fake Aaron, who was still in a coma, and walked beside Tabitha with his brow furrowed.
They had already been walking on the first floor for about ten minutes, but they still didn't find the staircase to the basement yet. Now that it was the time for them to gather, Tabitha took out the intercom again.
"Beep-- I'm Tabitha. Captain and I are at the hospital lobby now. We can't find the entrance to the basement. Can you guys come to meet us on the first floor? Please reply if you receive this message."
Tabitha was holding the intercom and listening to the occasional static from the intercom, but there was no response from Alfred. Aaron looked around for a moment, and there was only darkness here except the thick fog. He slowly came to a halt and stopped Tabitha, who was still moving forward. "We should rest here. Now that the fog in this hospital is so thick, it would be impossible for us to find anything even if we continue walking around. I think it's better to stay here and wait for them."
Aaron put down the man he had been carrying the entire time. Tabitha reached down and touched fake Aaron. The number of bloodstains on his forehead remained the same. She pried open his eyelids to look at his pupil, having learned it from television shows. She observed for a moment and was convinced that he would not wake up anytime soon. She clapped her hands and sat down beside him.
Although the hospital had been abandoned for years, the floor was not particularly dirty. There was only a thin layer of gray dust which flew away with Tabitha's slapping. The glimmer of the flashlight flashed and went off. Tabitha wondered how everyone was doing, especially Fay. The sound from the second floor kept haunting her.
The girl thought about all the things that happened since she entered the hospital, but she could not completely understand her thoughts. The thing that they already knew was that after the series of suicides, the dean closed the hospital and eventually ended his life here. All the relevant personnel had died and there were only those mirrors left in this hospital. They were only in the hospital for ten minutes when a "replica" appeared... She couldn't help but look at the fake "Aaron" who laid to her side. She suddenly realized what she had ignored. When they first discovered him, she thought subconsciously that he was a "replica," but now, having calmed down, she realized that it was impossible for "Aaron" to be a replica of Aaron. His worn-out clothes proved that he had entered the hospital much earlier than them!
Reincarnation?
Suddenly the word jumped into her mind. She remembered a horror film she had watched earlier, and the heroine in the film continued to meet herself on the ship and she was constantly being killed by herself... Everything resembled that movie...
She tugged at Aaron's sleeve and tried to get him to inch closer. Aaron put his finger up and shushed her. He covered Tabitha's flashlight with his hand and motioned her to look ahead. Tabitha noticed a beam of light flashing from the other side. The glowing milky halo was like a squid swimming slowly through the deep sea in darkness.
Aaron's fingers pressed on the switch and with a noise, the entire hospital hall became totally dark again, they could only see the light that was approaching. Tabitha stood up on the floor carefully, looked around, and moved to the side to hide behind a slightly protruding wall.
She gestured to Aaron. Aaron noticed that the light beam was not proceeding forward very quickly. He pulled up the guy on the ground and dodged nimbly behind the wall. The two people held their breaths as they watched the light beam.
As the distant visitors came closer and closer, the vague figure gradually became clear. It was a tall and thin person.
His gait was light and from time to time, he would look around. There were no weapons in his hands. If he was an enemy, he was unlikely someone difficult to deal with. Tabitha observed the guy carefully and intended to wait for him to come closer and rush out first. Whether it was an enemy or a friend, she needed to make sure with her own eyes. With this in mind, a dark figure swooped downstairs and Tabitha saw the man slip to the side.
The dark figure dropped to the ground and stopped everything except for slowly twisting his body. Tabitha was about to ask if Aaron would go up. Aaron was already aiming at that dark figure. With the blood spreading, that lanky person had rushed over here. Tabitha opened her mouth and raised her engineering shovel. She wanted to strike the person but was stopped by Aaron. "It's Alfred!"
Aaron dropped his gun while he explained to Tabitha. Just then, Alfred had already arrived. Tabitha slowly lowered her weapon and blushed ashamed. She had almost hurt her teammate! Luckily, she had not acted quickly. She secretly scolded herself, but it was hard for her to say something to an unfamiliar man.
"Hey... Ha..."
A subtle voice penetrated into their ears, Tabitha's heart skipped a beat as she waved her shovel to the side into the fog, producing a soft, dreadful sound of a sharp weapon lodging in flesh. Aaron was about to turn around and make another shot. On the other side, a dark figure leaped out, and charged at the unsuspecting man with outstretched arms.
"Get away!"
Alfred's roar came and the dark figure's movement came to an abrupt halt. Aaron took advantage of this opportunity and held the shotgun to kill the invisible monster.
"Whoop... All these things were human beings!" The trio leaned against each other. They waited for the next wave of attacks with their faces looking sullen. Alfred gasped and said to his teammates: "They, they must be the 'faulty goods' from the trial that haven't been dealt with."
"Trial? Did this hospital use living people to do experiments?" Tabitha noticed the crux of Alfred's words and felt disgusted with the truth of the hospital.
"I found a patient's profile in the data room. It mentioned a 'the trial of recovery mirrors,' and it seems like they had used it here to do living experiments on those patients. The patient at the end of the trial..." Alfred paused as if he was thinking of a description. "They seemed like they had lost their souls and became the walking dead."
Alfred's words left Tabitha jolted. She wanted to respond but Aaron just shot forward. Something fell on the ground and made a muffled sound. "This mission and this experiment are definitely related! The only question now is how can we get out from this encirclement? The monsters here... I'm afraid that there are more than 20 monsters around us!"
Aaron fired a bunch of bullets again. After the gunshots, several monsters fell from the second floor. All of these monsters around them stopped moving at that moment. Tabitha increased the brightness of the flashlight in her hands to its highest. The flashlight's intensity rose sharply. The area around was illuminated by the flashlight, appearing like a little sun amid the darkness.
After seeing everything in front of her, the girl could not help but sigh in fear. Her hands that held the shovel were trembling slightly. All the spots that could be seen around her were filled with some humanoid beings. Their bodies; their faces and even their bodies were flowing with fluids that had an indiscernible color. They all had tattered rags on their bodies. Some of them looked slightly better, Tabitha believed that she saw some of them wearing patient clothes.
The brightness of the flashlight illuminated these long-lost monsters. They raised their hands and covered their faces. However, the monsters that had only been quiet for a while stirred again shortly after. Some stronger ones even rushed towards the trio.
"The situation is terrible! It's impossible for us to kill them all!" Aaron shot two monsters that were rushing forward, but apparently, the monsters were already starting to get ready. "I'm the only one with a powerful offensive attack here. Especially Tabitha, you haven't even strengthened your body. If you don't run away now, we will all die here once my bullets run out."
"The only way I can think of now is that I stay here to attract their attention, Alfred, you need to take Tabitha out while I throw a bomb!"
Tabitha's fingertips lodged into the palm of her hand. She wanted to say that it was an awful idea, it was nothing but sacrificing him. Nevertheless, there were no other means to escape.
"If you get out and find Fay, you guys must come back to save me as soon as possible. Otherwise, I will haunt you if I die here."
Aaron noticed Tabitha's hesitation and issued the order jokingly. He looked at Alfred again, "Our lives count on you."
"I know, Captain."
"Then, let's do it!"