Bleu found herself in silence.
The hallway was too quiet now. The air didn't hum or breathe—it waited.
The flickering lights above her sparked one final time… and then all went dark.
Her pulse throbbed in her ears. She backed away from the locked door, eyes darting to every shadow. But there was no need.
He was already behind her.
"Bleu," Michael whispered.
She spun. Lukas's body—his eyes—were wrong. Too wide. Too still. His face was porcelain, cracking, and Michael's voice bled through the seams of his smile.
"You always were the soft one."
His hand twitched. From his wrist, tiny metal needles unfurled like petals.
Bleu screamed and ran, but he didn't chase.
He teleported.
Not with sound. Not with flash. Just blink—and he was in front of her.
He kissed her forehead.
The needles bloomed open and stabbed into her temples like syringes.
Her memories—screamed. Her childhood, her mother's voice, her laughter—all ripped into the air around her. Michael fed on them like smoke through teeth.
Her skull caved in without breaking. Her eyes inverted. Her soul bled out through her breath.
He left her body gently slumped like a sleeping doll.
Her last thought was a school hallway. The day she met Lukas.
And then—
Darkness.
The Great Run
Toff, Herbert, Venice, Farah, and the rest were already running.
Something had broken loose in the corridors behind them. Something bigger.
Screams echoed. Bones cracked far too loudly.
They sprinted through the rust-colored halls of what used to be safe, now a maze built for dying.
Then—to their horror—they turned the corner and saw them.
Both of them.
Hush-Mama.
Minnie.
Together.
Minnie's feet didn't touch the floor. Her body dragged behind her like a floating veil of wet cloth and wire. Her arms were limp—but twitched, like someone else was moving them.
Hush-Mama stood taller now. Her mouth wider. The wailing veil that covered her face breathed.
It was the end.
There was no room to scream.
Just run.
Venice was just one step behind Toff when it happened.
Her foot twisted wrong. Her knee popped. She hit the ground like a bag of bones, screaming in agony.
"No—no—no—"
Toff turned. "VENICE!"
But she already knew. She looked back. Hush-Mama tilted her head. The veil lifted slightly. A rotting face of endless teeth and stitched lips, chewing the names of her children.
"No—please—don't—"
Her legs were ripped from her hips. She didn't even register it. Her body lifted off the floor like a puppet being yanked upward.
Her screams were shut when Hush-Mama hugged her close and bit into her throat like fruit.
Blood painted the ceiling in ribbons.
Toff pulled Farah and Herbert through a side door. It slammed shut.
The silence returned.
They gasped for air in the dark room—barely furnished, except for a surgical table and a shattered monitor.
"We're dead," Farah whispered. "We're dead—we're dead—we're—"
Toff covered her mouth. "Shh."
At the small window in the door, they all saw it.
Minnie.
She floated.
Her feet didn't step—just hovered an inch off the floor as she turned, like a sleepwalker underwater.
She passed the window. Then stopped. Turned slowly back. Her face—empty. Eyes rolled completely white. Her mouth too small to smile.
But she tried. The handle turned with a tiny click. The door opened as gently as a lullaby.
Matthew didn't breathe. But she knew. She turned her head slowly to the side—unnatural, bending far too low—until her face aligned perfectly with him.
Then she moved. Her arms rose and didn't stop rising.
They stretched like threadbare fabric pulled across space. Her hand grabbed his neck and lifted.
He kicked. Struggled.
Toff ran toward her with a metal pole.
Farah screamed and slammed a chair into her back.
Nothing worked.
Minnie's body barely responded. Like they weren't even there.
Then—
Matthew, gasping, used the last of his strength to stab her in the neck with a broken scalpel.
It hissed.
Black liquid bubbled from her wound. Then—she opened her mouth. It split sideways.
Then down. Then down again. Three joints. No jaw. No bottom. Just an endless, wet tunnel.
She bit down on his head. Crunch. The body twitched, then slumped. Headless.
Blood pooled.
Minnie tilted her head back and gulped it down like it was medicine.
The room fell silent again.
Only the sound of her floating feet.
And the slow stretching of her arms—
Reaching for the next.
They ran—what was left of them.
Farah, Toff, and Herbert sprinted down the cracked metal hallways, the sound of feet and fear echoing louder than their gasps for breath. Behind them, the wail of Minnie's levitating footsteps and the metallic whispers of Hush-Mama's blades chased them like wolves through rust.
"STRAIGHT AHEAD—GO!" Herbert shouted, pointing down a hallway flickering with weak red lights.
They ran blindly—until the air turned sour.
Ahead of them, looming in the arch of the corridor, was Dr. Finn.
No longer human.
The massive scientist—now a grotesque giant of muscle, limbs, and stitched skin—stood hunched, using his stretched, flabby hands to claw at the metal walls for support. His neck barely held his grotesquely enlarged head, whose slack-jawed mouth trembled as something inside moved.
Toff skidded to a halt. "BACK! BACK!!"
They turned.
But Hush-Mama was already there.
Her knives dangled in the air beside her like puppets, floating and twitching. She tilted her head slightly, as if curious to see how they'd break.
Farah screamed.
There was no way out. They were surrounded.
"Toff, get down!" Herbert shouted, raising a pipe and throwing it at Dr. Finn's face—it bounced off like a pebble.
Dr. Finn opened his mouth.
From inside, a huge malformed arm shot out.
It grabbed Herbert.
"No—no—NO—!"
The arm retracted, yanking Herbert inside Dr. Finn's massive throat like a snake swallowing a mouse.
His screams didn't stop for a full ten seconds.
Then silence.
Blood sprayed against the wall like a thick fog.
Farah froze. Then—
She ran.
"Toff, COME ON!"
But Toff didn't move.
He stood, hands trembling, his eyes wide as Hush-Mama slowly advanced, her knives orbiting like moons.
"Farah—don't—please—" he begged.
Farah looked back, eyes filled with guilt, and vanished down the corridor.
"Toff," she whispered, almost inaudible, "I'm sorry."
Toff fell to his knees.
"Please. I don't want to die."
Hush-Mama floated closer. One blade stabbed into his thigh.
He screamed.
Another into his side.
He collapsed.
"Stop," he whispered, reaching out to no one. "Please…"
But Dr. Finn's massive foot crushed him. A sound like meat and glass exploded in the hallway.
Toff's body was gone.
Jasper and Ephraein
Far from the massacre, in a corridor lit only by dying lights, Jasper and Ephraein found her.
Bleu.
She was slumped against the wall like she'd simply sat to rest, her face soft, peaceful.
But her eyes were open.
And empty.
"No," Ephraein muttered. "No, no, no—BLEU?"
He dropped beside her, shook her. Her body was warm, but limp. Her lips moved—barely—but no words came out.
"Ephraein…" Jasper whispered, kneeling beside him. "She's gone."
"No! Don't say that! Don't—" Ephraein's voice broke as he grabbed Bleu's body and cradled it. "She was just here! She was just TALKING!"
"She's not there anymore."
"I can bring her back. I can—I can FIX IT!" he sobbed. His voice rose into something broken, something feral. "I CAN FIX HER!!"
Jasper reached for him gently, trying to hold his shoulder, to steady him.
Then—he heard it.
Michael's whisper.
"I'm sorry, Ephraein."
Jasper froze.
His hand trembled.
His eyes slowly turned black.
"Ephraein…"
Ephraein looked up.
Jasper floated off the ground, slowly rising like a marionette.
"No," Ephraein muttered. "NO—DON'T!"
The emergency lights flickered.
Behind Jasper, a figure moved.
Lukas.
Or—what was left of him.
The possessed body, controlled by Michael, moved closer.
Each flicker of the emergency light made him vanish—then reappear closer.
Flicker.Closer.Flicker.Gone.Flicker.Behind Jasper.
"RUN!" Jasper screamed with what little control he had left.
Then—Michael reached him.
A hand touched his back.
Jasper's body detonated into black shards and blood, spraying Ephraein in a hot mist of gore.
"No—NO!"
Ephraein ran.
He ran like his legs had never known rest.
Down hallway after hallway, door after door. The world twisted and buckled as reality folded in on itself, each scream behind him becoming part of a new nightmare.
He didn't stop.
Not until his throat tore open from screaming Bleu's name.
Not until his knees hit the floor.
Not until he was alone in the dark