Gilbert's breath rattled in his chest as he stumbled through the dim hospital corridor, Josh's unconscious body a limp weight in his arms. Each footfall echoed like a drumbeat of doom, reverberating through the long hallway slick with humidity and rot. The fluorescent lights above sputtered and hissed, casting the passage in waves of cold white and yawning black. The scent of antiseptic had long given way to something fouler—iron and mold, like death fermenting in the walls.
From behind, the sound came again—footsteps. Measured. Mocking. Unhurried.They seemed to stretch through the very architecture of the hospital, like the building itself had grown veins, nerves, and pain.
Gilbert dared a glance over his shoulder.
There she was. Minnie. A grotesque silhouette in the flickering lights, her head cocked at an unnatural angle, hair hanging like drowned weeds, her nurse's uniform stained with ages of blood and ink. Her eyes were black voids, gleaming with something deeper than malice—a hunger, ancient and patient. And her smile, stitched too wide, revealed too many teeth for any human mouth.
"She's gaining on us," Gilbert whispered to no one. His voice cracked, lost in the narrowing tunnel of panic and sweat. Josh groaned slightly, still unconscious—barely clinging to life. That gave Gilbert hope. Maybe they could still escape.
Maybe.
But hope was a fragile thing here. He turned a sharp corner and burst through a half-open door into a hallway lined with rusted gurneys and abandoned wheelchairs. The light here was worse—red emergency bulbs bathed everything in the hue of open wounds. Gilbert's legs burned, muscles trembling with every step. He spotted a supply room ahead. Shelter. Just for a moment. He pushed inside, locking the door behind him.
Josh lay on the floor, blood still seeping from the graze on his temple. Gilbert pressed his hands against the wound, muttering prayers beneath his breath—prayers to gods he didn't believe in. Then silence.
And then... Tap. Tap. Tap.
The sound of fingernails—no, claws—dragging slowly across the door. The knob rattled. Then stopped.
Gilbert backed up, heart thudding.
The silence returned, thick and cloying. And then—CRASH. The door exploded inward, splinters flying. Minnie stood in the doorway, blade in hand, her twisted smile now stretched from ear to ear. Her eyes never left him.
Gilbert scrambled, trying to pull Josh behind a shelf—but it was too late.
Without warning, Minnie raised her hand. A silver flash. The blade flew—whistling through the air.
Time slowed.
Gilbert turned, hand outstretched.
Thwack.
The blade buried itself in Josh's skull with a sickening crack.
Everything stopped. Josh jerked once. And was still.
Gilbert collapsed beside his friend, trembling hands reaching for a pulse he knew was gone. Tears spilled freely. His chest heaved with a sound not quite sobbing—more like an animal's moan of loss. A feral, helpless cry.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered, his voice a raw shred. "I'm so, so sorry."
Josh didn't answer. He never would again.
The sound of soft footsteps approached—the rhythm of a nightmare.
Gilbert looked up, eyes rimmed red, throat clenched with grief. Minnie stood above him, her face unreadable now. That smile had vanished, replaced by something colder. Clinical. Studious.
She regarded him as one might a broken toy. As though she were not cruel, but curious.
Summoning the last of his strength, Gilbert stood. Blood smeared his shirt. His hands trembled, but he didn't back away.
"You thrive on our pain," he said, voice hollow but steady. "But know this: even in death, our spirits will resist you."
Minnie tilted her head, blinking once.
Then she smiled again—softly, almost lovingly.
"Brave words," she said, in a voice like lullabies over broken glass.
And then, she opened his throat.
Her blade moved so fast it sang through the air. Blood sprayed across the shelves and walls, soaking into the floor tiles. Gilbert dropped without a sound, collapsing beside Josh in a final, crimson prayer.
Their bodies lay tangled together. Still.
Minnie stood over them, eyes flickering like flame.
And from the shadows, Ephraein and Officer Toff watched, paralyzed with horror.
They'd seen everything. The deaths. The blade. The laughter.
Toff grabbed Ephraein's arm. "We have to move."
They turned and fled—down the hall, away from death.
Behind them, Minnie's laughter rang like wind chimes in a graveyard.
The corridor twisted behind them. Doors they'd passed seconds ago were gone. The hallway bent upon itself, stretching longer than it should. The hospital was alive—no longer a place of healing, but a breathing, whispering entity of hunger and memory.
They stumbled into an old stairwell. Rust flaked from the rails, and the steps dipped under their weight like bones bending. A cold wind curled up from below—bringing with it a sound: a woman's weeping. Soft. Repetitive. Agonized.
"That's... that's Pierro's mother," Ephraein whispered. "She died in the fire, but... that's her voice. I swear to God."
They descended. Each step deeper, the lights above vanished, and soon, they were walking in complete darkness. Only the sobbing remained.
Toff lit a flashlight—it flickered weakly, then steadied.
They emerged into what must've been the old psychiatric records archive—long since abandoned.
The walls were lined with file cabinets, their drawers half-open, filled with folders marked with names: Harrington. Williams. S. Ephraein. Minnie L. Masha V.
The room seemed to breathe around them.
Then they heard it.
A dragging sound.
And a voice, rasping through the air like wind through broken glass:
"You're next."
They turned.
Minnie was here.
But she wasn't alone.
Shadows spilled across the floor like ink poured from a bottle, crawling up the walls, forming limbs, faces, mouths. One shadow reached out, took shape—Lukas. Or rather, the thing that had once been Lukas. His head lolled sideways, jaw broken, eyes glowing with that same hollow brilliance as Minnie's.
"She brought me back," he said, blood bubbling from his mouth. "Mom says you're all liars. She says pain is truth."
"Run!" Toff screamed, grabbing Ephraein.
They ran through the archive, shelves collapsing behind them as the entities pursued. Filing cabinets burst open, spewing papers into the air—reports of previous patients mutilated, possessed, missing. Screams followed them—doctors' voices, nurses' cries, and something deeper: the roar of the Ink.
At the end of the hallway was a heavy vault door—slightly ajar.
They forced it open.
Inside: a morgue.
Cold. Silent. Metal slabs pulled out of walls. But not all were empty.
On one, a woman sat, legs swinging.
Sasha.
Alive. Unchanged. Smiling.
"You're both late," she said, voice syrupy. "But it's okay. He's waiting."
"Who?" Toff demanded, eyes wide.
She pointed up.
They looked.
Above them, suspended by long sinewy cords from the ceiling, was a mass of flesh and bone—a child's body, stitched and inverted, its chest cavity open and hollow.
A heart pulsed inside, not red but black.
Around it, photos of Lukas as a child, scrawled in crayon. A crude message read:
"WELCOME HOME, LUKAS."
The lights went out. Darkness consumed the room.
Sasha's voice drifted out: "He remembers you. He remembers everything."
Ephraein and Toff burst out of the morgue and into another hallway, panting, the images burned into their minds. Behind them, the walls buckled. Something was following. Something worse than Minnie.
The Ink had awakened fully. The hospital convulsed. Alarms shrieked and then fell silent. Rooms warped. Ceiling tiles curled downward like mouths. Stretchers moved on their own.
At the far end of the hallway, they saw a door open.
A child stood there. Not Lukas. Not Pierro. Not Josh. Just a boy. Unknown. Smiling. He whispered: "He's building something." Then he vanished. Toff turned to Ephraein. "We need to find Sasha and Sydney. We're not getting out of here alone."
Ephraein nodded, still shaking. "And Sasha... she's not alive. Not really."
"No. She's worse."
They kept moving. Behind them, in the depths of the hospital, Minnie dragged her knife across the floor, humming a lullaby. Blood smeared behind her like the stroke of an artist's brush.
The hospital was no longer a place. It was a being. Alive. And hungry.