Chapter 3 - The Room Beneath the Hospital
The blackout lasted forty-seven seconds.
When the main power returned, the intercom system showed no record of an announcement.
Hospital engineers insisted the emergency broadcast controls had not been accessed.
Ruiz ordered officers to search the building.
Daniel refused to leave Emily alone.
She found his presence irritating, but the calm part of her mind understood the advantage of keeping him close. If Ward Twelve had truly returned, she needed someone capable of surviving whatever came next.
The hospital administration moved Emily to a secure staff office.
She waited until the officer outside received a radio call and stepped away.
Then she climbed through the office window.
Daniel was waiting in the alley below.
“You really expected me to use the door?” she asked.
“I expected you to run.”
“I’m not running.”
“You climbed out of a second-story window.”
“I’m taking a different route.”
Daniel looked toward the security camera above the loading dock.
“It stopped moving when you came outside.”
Emily followed his gaze.
The camera lens had turned toward the brick wall.
Someone was clearing her path.
She did not know whether that was help or a trap.
“Where are we going?” Daniel asked.
“The old north tower.”
Police had sealed the main corridors, but Emily knew service passages left from earlier construction. She led Daniel through the laundry building, down a maintenance stairwell, and into a tunnel carrying steam pipes beneath the hospital campus.
“You’ve been here before,” he said.
“Not since I was sixteen.”
“So you admit it.”
“I admit I know the tunnels.”
“Were you a patient?”
Emily kept walking.
The answer was locked behind flashes that did not feel like memories.
A needle entering her arm.
A bright light above her face.
Someone counting backward from ten.
A boy’s hand pushing a folded paper through an air vent.
Her own voice saying, My name is not Emily.
She stopped at a rusted metal door.
WARD ACCESS 12B was faintly visible beneath layers of paint.
Daniel touched the handle.
“Recently oiled.”
Emily noticed scratches around the lock.
Someone had been using the door.
She removed a hairpin from her pocket.
Daniel raised an eyebrow.
“Self-defense class teach lockpicking too?”
“Long night shifts.”
The lock opened in less than twenty seconds.
Beyond the door was a corridor covered in dust.
Old fluorescent fixtures lined the ceiling. Most were broken, but a few glowed with a weak bluish light.
“Power should have been disconnected years ago,” Emily whispered.
At the end of the corridor, a sign read WARD TWELVE.
The air smelled of disinfectant.
Fresh disinfectant.
Daniel drew a compact handgun from beneath his jacket.
Emily looked at him.
“Hospital preparedness?”
“Occupational habit.”
They entered.
The ward contained eight patient rooms arranged around a central observation station. The doors were reinforced. Small windows had been built into the walls.
One room held a metal bed with new straps attached to its frame.
Another contained shelves filled with medical supplies.
None of the packaging had expired.
Daniel checked a cabinet.
“Sedatives. Antipsychotics. Neuromuscular blockers.”
Emily approached the nurses’ station.
A computer monitor sat on the desk.
The screen was dark.
When she touched the keyboard, the machine turned on.
No login prompt appeared.
A single file opened automatically.
PATIENT E-17
STATUS: LOCATED
MEMORY INTEGRITY: UNKNOWN
FIELD RESPONSE: CONFIRMED
Emily scrolled.
The file contained footage from the hospital attack.
Different camera angles.
Some had been recorded from cameras not belonging to the hospital.
There was a close-up of Emily facing Aaron Pike.
Below the video, a biometric analysis displayed her heart rate, pupil response, facial tension, and reaction time.
Daniel leaned over her shoulder.
“They were testing you.”
Emily opened another folder.
Fifteen names appeared on the screen.
Most were listed as DECEASED or UNRECOVERED.
Three were marked ACTIVE.
E-17
M-04
K-09
Emily clicked E-17.
The screen displayed a childhood photograph.
A sixteen-year-old girl with dark hair sat in a hospital gown, staring at the camera.
Emily recognized her own eyes.
The name beneath the photograph was not Emily Carter.
It was Elise Voss.
Daniel read it silently.
“Is that you?”
Before Emily could answer, footsteps echoed in the corridor.
They were slow.
Measured.
A woman appeared beyond the observation window.
She wore a white physician’s coat.
Her hair was gray, but her posture was straight. Silver-framed glasses rested on her narrow face.
Emily stopped breathing.
The woman smiled through the glass.
“Hello, Elise.”
Daniel raised his weapon.
The woman pressed a button beside the door.
Steel shutters dropped over every exit.
A hiss came from the ceiling vents.
Emily smelled something sweet.
Daniel staggered.
“Gas.”
May you like
The woman watched them through the glass.
“I wondered how long it would take you to come home.”
