I had noticed a small office with the word 'Administration' above it while we were walking inside. I suggested it to Mike and he thought it was worth a try, at the very least. We reached the door but something caught my eye, "hey," I tugged on his arm, "look at this," it was a plaque, with the information for the sanatorium on it.
'THE BLACKWOOD PINES SANATORIUM'
'OPENED 1922'
'MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO'
I read the words out loud, slowly furrowing my brow, I wondered what that last part meant, not remembering my Latin lessons. "Mens sana in corpore sano?" I said those words again, finally remembering, "a sound mind in a sound body....?" I was more than confused, Mike merely shrugged at me.
"Let's just go inside admin," he said, moving away, heading inside.
I followed Mike inside but wondered what that could mean, nonetheless. "I was merely curious," I said gently, not trying to push the issue further. I looked around, trying to see if I could find some sort of keycard, or something akin so we could open the doors to the chapel.
Mike went into a cul-de-sac of a room, finding a safe and a piece of wood on the floor before it. He'd set the lantern down and proceeded to open the safe with the wood because of reasons.
I hadn't even noticed what he was doing until I heard the damn wood snap in half! I'd thought it was his wrist or arm! I quickly spun around and rushed inside the cul-de-sac to find him perfectly safe with two pieces of broken wood on the ground. "Oh, God," I muttered to myself, shifting to kneel beside him, "what'd you find?" I needed a distraction.
"Just something about miners clocking in and the number 30," Mike said turning the thick stack of things over in his hand.
"Huh," I said shrugging.
He put the stack back inside the safe and we stood up, exiting the cul-de-sac and moving toward other areas of this section of the massive sanatorium. We entered another smaller room where I found a newspaper dated January 9th, 1952. I started to read the paper and my lips parted in surprise, "Mike," I said his name and he walked to my side to look over my shoulder.
"What is it?" I shifted the paper where he could see it past my hair, "huh," he began to read a bit from the paper.
My nose wrinkled, "that's horrible," I said waiting for him to be done reading. He tapped my shoulder to tell me when he was done and I dropped the newspaper back onto the table I had found it on.
We left the room and walked some more, then into another small room. This time Mike found something and called me over, I looked around his bicep to see a medical report for a miner. "Dr. Bowen," I said softly, seeing the name under 'attending physician', "twelve miners, mine collapse, subsequent rescue," I read bits out loud as we stood there.
"Things seemed pretty bad here back then huh," Mike said, wincing in the slightest.
"With symptoms of pneumonia? I would think so," a cold chill ran down my spine and it caused me to step forward on impulse right into him, "sorry," I stepped back when he looked down at me in concerned confusion, "cold chill," I simply explained smiling briefly as I rubbed my hands together to warm them up before hefting my bag up onto my shoulders, he merely smirked at me and shook his head.
He turned the paper over and his demeanor changed from lighthearted to dark, "hey, Vee...."
"Yeah....?" I wasn't so sure I wanted to know why he was saying my name.
"Look at this," he held the paper up so I could read what was on the back.
"Tried to bite...." my lips quivered in curious fear.
Mike put the paper down, not wanting to scare me anymore, "come on, let's keep moving," he said, exiting the room as I quickly followed.
There was a staircase to our right, we decided to go down them, there were two of them leading to a lower level of the facility. There was a table holding open a door and the path straight ahead of us was blocked off. We had to open the door and take the right path. So Mike went to do so and a crow cawed at him, startling us both before flying away. We both took a moment to roll our eyes at one another, laughing at ourselves. It was only a mere crow after all.
Mike opened the door and I noticed the machete stuck in the table immediately but we both noticed what it was stuck in other than the table together in the next moment. I felt as if I was about to vomit while he merely muttered 'gross' as he took the machete, prying it out of the wood.
I took the straps of my backpack off my shoulders and unzipped it, "here," I offered the bag and he gently set it inside, I zipped it up until the zippers were holding the machete in place, easy to pull out if there was any danger.
We continued through the decrepit area, the smell excruciatingly hard to handle but we both stomached it and trudged on. We entered an area farther inside and that's when I heard the growl of a wolf, I saw its shadow too. The sound startled me into Mike's back, I grasped onto his bicep and shuddered.
He shifted to look down at me, "you okay?"
"We're not alone," I whispered, "watch it."
He nodded and we continued, ignoring the fact that I was still attached to him. We soon broke away from each other when I decided to head into the room before us and he went down a hallway into another room farther away.
I was curious about something but out of the corner of my eye, I saw a mouse skitter by and it startled me backward, I lost my balance and fell onto my ass, groaning. I rubbed my hip and started standing, slowly, trying not to slip and fall again.
Then, I heard it....
Mike screaming! He was screaming in pain....!
I hurried to my feet, racing toward his screams of agony.
"Oh, fuck, V-Vanessa! Vanessa! Vee, hurry," he groaned through the pain, "Vanessa!" His voice started to crack due to the pain.
"I'm coming!" I shouted as I ran.
Finally, I reached the room he was in and saw that two of his fingers were inside a bear trap.
I gasped at the sight, "oh, shit!" I immediately rushed over, "I'm here, I'll get you out of this thing, just hold on," I had learned how to open bear traps as a child but I was rusty on the memories.
"Oh, man," I groaned.
"What, what?" Mike demanded.
"I've forgotten how to open these damn things!" I screamed in frustration, grasping my hair.
"You forgot what?!" Mike was now a bit pist off with me, "how could you forget? How did you even learn to forget?"
"My father took me hunting as a child a few times, we stopped when I became a teenager," I retorted back, "just give me a second," I told him as I studied the contraption, finding its weakness and where to safely open it without slicing his fingers off.
"Ugh, hurry up!" was all he could reply with due to the pain.
"Okay, okay, I remember," I moved in front of him, placing my hands on the springs on each side of the trap, shifting the upturned gurney back a bit, "now as soon as I get this open enough, remove your hand as fast as possible, got it?"
He merely nodded, in too much pain to protest. I took in a breath and pushed down on the springs as hard as I possibly could, opening the bear trap just enough so he could slip his injured fingers out.
Once he was free, I couldn't hold it any longer and I let go, falling backward onto the upturned gurney before crashing down to my knees and onto my right side. The trap snapped shut with a loud crash as I breathed in and out slowly.
I struggled to crawl away from the place I had fallen, my bag tangled in my arms, I was finally far enough away that I could fix the bag and stand up, taking the lantern with me.
"You okay, Mike?"
He was groaning in pain and muttering obscenities under his breath.
"I'll take that as a 'no' then," I said looking around, "it seems that's the only way out of this deathtrap of a room," I pointed toward the direction I had crawled in, "that, or going back the way we came."
"Ah-ha, okay, then lead the way," he said cradling his fingers in the opposite hand, "I can understand why bears hate those things," he tried to lighten the mood but it didn't exactly work out the way he planned.