Their footsteps echoed off the narrow stone stairwell, each step a hurried beat against the silence that pressed in around them. Behind, the grotesque chorus of the creatures' screeching and scraping grew fainter, but the terror remained sharp. Tina was in the lead, her flashlight barely cutting through the darkness, while Stacey gripped Jake's hand tightly, pulling him up the stairs as if she could physically drag him away from the nightmare below.
"We're almost there!" Tina called over her shoulder, though she wasn't sure if she believed it herself. The stairway spiraled upward, a seemingly endless climb into shadow. The air was colder now, thick with the scent of damp and decay. Every breath felt heavier, like the darkness was alive and pressing down on them.
The stairs eventually led them to a narrow corridor that branched off into several rooms, each one bearing the jakes of age and violence. The walls here were smeared with old blood, handprints trailing down as if people had tried to claw their way out. The doors hung on broken hinges, some ripped off entirely, revealing dark voids within.
Tina swept her flashlight over the corridor. "Which way?"
"I don't know," Stacey whispered. Her mind raced. It felt like every inch of the building was trying to push them deeper into its madness. "Let's just… keep moving."
Jake, breathing heavily, looked down the hallway. "What if we're trapped?"
Tina shook her head. "We can't stop. If those things catch up to us—"
She didn't need to finish. The threat of what awaited them if they hesitated was all too real.
As they moved deeper into the corridor, they passed doorways that opened into old patient rooms, their interiors cluttered with rusty hospital beds and broken equipment. Some of the rooms were filled with abandoned files, scattered across the floor like fallen leaves. Others were piled with debris, blocking further entry.
Stacey's eyes darted nervously toward one of the rooms when something caught her attention. It was a mirror, cracked and leaning against the far wall of the room. The glass was old and clouded, but there was something about it that made her pause.
"Wait," she said, tugging Tina's arm. "Look at this."
Tina hesitated but followed Stacey's gaze. In the dim light, the mirror's surface shimmered faintly, like it was reflecting something that wasn't there. Stacey stepped closer, her pulse quickening. The mirror wasn't reflecting the room as it should have. Instead, it showed something else — a different place, shrouded in mist, with shadows moving unnervingly in the distance.
"What is that?" Jake asked, his voice shaky.
Tina stepped closer, shining her flashlight directly on the mirror. The beam of light should have hit the glass and bounced back, but instead, it disappeared into the reflection, swallowed by the strange mist within.
"I… I think it's showing us something," Stacey whispered, mesmerized by the shifting shadows. As she stared, one of the shadows took shape, solidifying into a figure — a man in a long coat, his face hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat. He stood still in the mist, his presence heavy and ominous.
Then, the figure moved, slowly turning toward them. Its eyes, glowing white and devoid of any emotion, locked onto Stacey's reflection.
She gasped, stumbling back, breaking the strange hold the mirror had over her. "We need to go. Now."
Tina nodded, pulling Jake with her as they quickly left the room. The strange pull of the mirror still lingered in Stacey's mind, like a cold hand gripping her spine, but she forced herself to move, leaving the unsettling vision behind.
As they hurried down the corridor, the building seemed to change around them. The walls creaked, and the air became denser, filled with whispers that slithered through their ears like dark, unintelligible voices. The farther they went, the more the corridor seemed to stretch, the doors they passed multiplying, each one identical to the last.
"It's like the building's alive," Jake whispered, fear breaking through his voice. "Like it's keeping us here."
"No," Stacey said firmly, though doubt crept into her words. "We just need to find the exit. We'll get out."
But as they reached the end of the corridor, the truth became harder to deny. The hallway opened up into a larger room, an old operating theater. Metal gurneys were scattered across the floor, their surfaces rusted and covered in what looked like dried blood. Old surgical tools hung from the walls, sharp and cruel-looking. And in the center of the room, there was an old surgical chair, its leather straps still intact, stained with something dark.
Stacey felt her stomach churn at the sight, but it was what hung above the chair that sent a chill down her spine. Suspended from the ceiling, hooked into the rafters by thick chains, was a figure wrapped in what looked like barbed wire. Its body hung limp, blood dripping slowly from the wounds where the barbs pierced its flesh.
But then, the figure twitched.
Jake screamed, and Stacey felt her legs lock in place. The figure jerked violently, the chains rattling as it pulled against the barbed wire that held it in place. Its head lifted, revealing a face twisted with pain and anger, its eyes glowing the same white-hot intensity as the figure in the mirror.
"Leave this place," it hissed, its voice distorted and echoing unnaturally. "Leave… or be consumed."
Tina stepped back, her breath coming in sharp gasps. "We have to get out of here," she whispered, her voice tight with panic. "We can't stay. This place… it's feeding off us."
Stacey grabbed Jake's arm, pulling him toward a door on the far side of the room. The figure continued to thrash above them, its chains pulling tighter as it writhed in agony. The air grew colder, and the whispers became louder, filling their minds with images of death and torment.
But before they could reach the door, the walls began to shift again, the ceiling lowering as if the building itself was trying to crush them. The exit they had seen moments ago seemed to blur and distort, twisting out of reach.
"We're trapped!" Jake cried, his voice breaking.
"No," Stacey said, her determination hardening. "We're getting out."
She sprinted for the door, Tina and Jake following close behind. The room groaned around them, and the figure suspended from the ceiling let out a blood-curdling scream, but Stacey didn't stop. She slammed into the door with all her strength, and it burst open, sending them tumbling out into a new hallway.
Behind them, the sound of chains rattling and the figure's distorted screams grew distant as they fled down the corridor. The building was still shifting, warping around them, but there was a new sound now — the echo of footsteps, heavy and deliberate, coming from somewhere ahead of them.
Tina looked back at Stacey, her face pale. "I don't know what's worse — what's behind us or what's waiting ahead."
Stacey clenched her jaw, her heart pounding in her chest. "It doesn't matter. We keep moving."
And as they ran deeper into the maze of the sanitarium, they couldn't shake the feeling that something far worse than the creatures below was waiting for them. Something that had been watching from the shadows, growing stronger with every step they took into the heart of the nightmare.