I'm alone again. The yellow corridor stretches out before me, a seemingly endless tunnel of flickering lights and stained wallpaper. The Doctor's words echo in my mind. "Two paths. Stay away from the dark."
I have no map. No guide. Just a vague sense of direction and a cold, hard purpose driving me forward. I start walking, my bare feet making soft, determined sounds on the damp carpet. The pruning shears are a comforting weight in my hand, a reminder of the creature I killed, the life I took to survive.
I'm not a victim. I'm not a nurse. I'm not a patient. I'm Ariel. And I will not be caged.
The corridor begins to change again. The yellow wallpaper peels away in long, curling strips, revealing crumbling plaster beneath. The fluorescent lights flicker and die, one by one, plunging the hall into a deep, oppressive gloom. The only light comes from the occasional, sputtering bulb, casting long, dancing shadows.
This is it. The dark path. I can feel it. The air is colder here, heavier. The silence is no longer empty; it's watchful. I can feel eyes on me, unseen things lurking just beyond the edge of the light.
...I'm not a victim.
But I am also...
Not a fool. Not anymore. I don't know what is in the darkness ahead of me, but if that man can be trusted at all, I can't dare go further now. Not if I want to make it out of this place alive.
So I turn around, and I walk back the way I came.
Back through the peeling wallpaper, back past the flickering lights, back to the place where the corridor branched. I hadn't noticed it before, too focused on the way forward. But now I see it: a small, almost hidden opening in the wall a square hole that leads to another corridor.
This is the second path.
If not for his warning, I probably would never have seen it and stubbornly walked into the darkness further.
Perhaps too far. Too late.
I step through the opening. The new corridor is different. The floor is made of rough, splintered wood, the walls a patchwork of mismatched planks. It feels like being inside a half-finished house, a place that was never meant to be lived in. The air is dry and dusty, smelling of sawdust and old wood. There are no florescent lights, but just like the greenhouse and the factory room, there is some kind of sunlight that filters through the slats in the roof. It's bright enough that even where the sunlight isn't directly shining, I wouldn't call it dark.
Whatever the darkness is, this must be...
Probably this is some kind of a puzzle? Test?
Or just a room. Like the factory or operating theater. Rooms just...exist.
I start to walk, my feet silent on the wooden floor. The corridor twists and turns, a confusing maze of rough-hewn passages. It feels like it's leading me in circles, but I keep going, trusting that it has to lead somewhere.
I hear a sound ahead of me.
A soft, rhythmic thump.
I stop, my hand tightening on the shears. The sound is familiar. It's the same tapping I heard in the library, the same sound that led me to the puzzle room. I listen, trying to pinpoint the source.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Pause. Thump.
It's coming from a door up ahead.
I bite my lip.
It's that thing. Again.
Like the past two times...
I need to leave this area before the thumping, or tapping, stops. After all, if I'm going to trust that doctor's advice about the darkness, I'll trust that stranger's advice about the tapping too - he had far less reason to lie, after all. The other alternative is to go to the door, which has a clear sign that something dangerous is behind it.
I am not going to walk up to the door and open it.
I am not that stupid.
I can just hear the voice of that strange blue-eyed man saying I am.
I don't know if it's safe to run, not on this noisy floor.
But I do move as quickly and as quietly as I can away from the sound, looking for some other opening, some other door.
The floor has to have an exit.
It has to have a way up.
But as I move, I can hear the tapping, it's getting closer.
My heart begins to beat faster, my steps more urgent, and my grip on the shears is so tight my hands hurt.
I can hear it.
It's a thumping, not a tapping, and I can hear the sound of the floorboards creaking as it gets closer.
I'm not going to turn around and fight that thing.
There's no choice but to run.
So I do.
If I can find another door - not the one it had been behind - I think I can get away from it. That's my only lead. That's the only way forward. I just need a door that's not the one that leads to that damn thing.
And in a moment of luck, I see one.
But it's a small, unassuming door. It's not like the other doors. It's just a thin, wooden panel set into the wall, almost hidden by a support beam.
There's a small, brass handle, tarnished with age.
I grab it, and I don't care what is behind it. I just pull the door open and step through, slamming it shut behind me.
The room I'm in is a closet. A small, cramped space filled with mops, brooms, and buckets. It smells of damp wood and cleaning fluid. There's no other way out.
I'm trapped.
I can hear the thumping outside the door, getting louder and closer. It stops right outside. The floorboards creak under its weight. I can hear a low, wet, rasping breath.
It's sniffing. Sniffing me out.
I press myself against the back wall of the closet, the shears held in front of me. My body is trembling, but my mind is clear, focused.
If I have to fight.
I'll fight.
The wood against my back shifts, and for a moment, I think that it's opening - but...
Instead, the door behind me simply becomes sheetrock.
The sound of the creature vanishes.
And I am.
Still inside a small closet.