I didn't sleep.
Not that I could tell, anyway.
I didn't feel very tired, simply worn our from having my stamina drained from so much as walking up the stairs. The air around here was like breathing a pack of cigarettes' at once.
It's hard to say if you've slept when time doesn't move. When clocks freeze and the sun never rises or sets. I lay there curled up under a couch cushion in the corner of the living room, staring at the boarded windows. I might've blinked. I might've drifted off. But every time I looked up, the same red haze poured through the cracks. The same soot floated in the air like ashes from a memory.
Time was broken here.
And so was I.
Upon me relaxing and the noises outside coming to a brief halt, I tried to make use of my time. I racked my brain, trying my best to figure out how to get back.
But the same thoughts lingered in my mind.
'How long will I last.'
'What other kind of bullshit is out there.'
'Where do I go from here.'
I could only sigh. When I wanted freedom from the facility, this isn't exactly what I had in mind.
It didn't help that my ribs throbbed from the cut I got vaulting that fence. It still hadn't healed. Not even a scab. I wrapped it in one of the least moldy shirts I'd found upstairs. A tiny drop of blood still welled at the edges whenever I moved too much.
I kept checking the clocks. Still stuck. Midnight forever.
Tick. Tick.
No.
Silence.
The only thing that changed was me.
After hours of pacing the house—checking the windows again and again, listening for the faintest noise—a sense of Deja Vu invaded my mind as I tried to conjure a concise way for an escape.
Could I find another building? A place with answers? A map? Food?
Before that, I had to figure out how exactly I'd get outside as I remembered the way The Maw screamed. The way it moved. The way it hunted.
My fingers curled. No. I wasn't ready for that. Not yet. Not by running out blindly. I need a plan of action.
So instead, I explored the house again. Every creaking board. Every drawer. Every cabinet.
In the garage, I found an old roll of duct tape and a rusty wrench. I stashed both in a ripped-up backpack from the hallway closet. In the laundry room, I found some rope. Useless on its own. But maybe not forever.
I needed more than just tools.
I needed to understand.
This place—it wasn't Hawkins. Not really. It was wrong. Tilted. Like the town had been pulled inside out and stretched too far.
The sky never changed. The fog didn't clear. The air felt thick with static.
Even the sound—when there was any—was wrong. Distant. Muffled. Like I was underwater.
I used the soot again, on the walls this time. Drew maps of the house. Diagrams. Tried to keep my mind sharp. The more I thought, the more I noticed.
The compass.
I pulled it from my pocket. Still spinning. Not wildly now—just a slow, lazy circle, like it was unsure of itself. Like the rules it once followed didn't work anymore.
I tested it near the windows. Still spun.
I moved it near the fireplace. No change.
But once—just once—I passed it near the hallway and it twitched. Briefly.
I froze.
Held it steady.
The needle pointed. Not north. Not even straight. Just… somewhere.
I stepped toward it.
The moment I turned the corner, the needle spun again.
Gone.
I frowned and wrote that down, too.
It wasn't just broken.
It was trying to tell me something. Anything information on this place was useful when I knew nothing.
I continued, as I scavenged the kitchen drawers again, I found a small, dust-covered radio. It was busted, the dials cracked, but I fiddled with it anyway.
Nothing but static.
Until it wasn't.
A voice. Barely there. A whisper behind the noise.
"—…back… can't… not safe…"
I dropped the radio.
It clattered to the floor. I snatched it up again, twisting the knobs back to where they'd been.
Silence.
I shook it. Hit it. Held it to my ear.
Static.
But I'd heard it.
Someone else.
The house was silent again. But my heart wasn't.
Maybe I wasn't alone.
Or maybe I was going mad.
Either way, the air felt thicker now. Heavier. The silence felt like it was watching me.
I pulled the boards tighter over the front door. Reinforced the windows with anything I could stack—bookshelves, chairs, drawers.
This was my base. My safe place. My corner of the dead world.
But the more time passed—or didn't—the more I realized something:
Safety here was an illusion.
And I wasn't going to learn anything new sitting still.
I found a closet near the back of the house and stashed the drawings there. Everything I'd marked—compass notes, house maps, even sketches of The Maw—I rolled them up and stored them behind a loose board.
If something happened to me, maybe someone else would find them.
If there was anyone else.
I sat one last time at the cracked coffee table. Looked out through the slits in the boarded windows.
The fog still pulsed red. The vines still squirmed over everything.
"Ha…hahaha."
I could only chuckle at the irony of the situation I was in.
But…so what?
In the large scope of things, nothing had changed.
My goals were the same as they were in the facility.
'Survive…escape.'
Well, maybe that wasn't entirely true.
My smile slowly turned into a bitter frown as my amber eyes sharpened at the thought of it.
The reason I was doing things was different. Sure, I was going to survive. Sure, I was going to escape.
But after that…
SCRUP
I yanked at the duct tape, wrapping it around some clothing on my forearm as padding.
"Revenge? No…this is fucking Justice. All of them…that whole fucking facility…I'll send them all to hell."
And so, I couldn't die.
And I knew. I couldn't stay inside forever.
Next time the compass twitched, I'd follow it.
Next time the voice came through the static, I'd answer.
But first—I'd rest.
Not sleep. Just… wait.
For the first change.
For the first clue.
For the first crack in the stillness.