He drove the scissors into the last cocoon. The film split, and dark blood poured out, covering his hands. Some of it splashed against his face. Before he could wipe it away, a drop reached his lips.
The taste hit sharp and bitter. Then his head started to ache.
He fell to one knee, the scissors clattering beside him. The room tilted in slow motion, edges bending and glowing faintly red.
His heartbeat pounded behind his eyes, steady and loud. Every muscle in his body tightened as a strange heat spread through him, starting from his chest and crawling outward.
He pressed his hand to the floor to steady himself. The color around him deepened. The red wasn't just in his vision anymore—it was in him. His body felt charged, restless, and too aware of itself.
Then it came.
A screech echoed through the building, deep enough to shake the floor beneath him. It wasn't human. It carried something else in it—something that sounded almost like grief. The sound filled every space in the room, high and low at once, as if it came from everywhere.
The walls trembled. Dust fell from the ceiling.
Silas stayed still, breathing through his teeth.
Moments later came another noise—softer but faster. Footsteps. Not one or two, but dozens, echoing through the halls in uneven rhythm. They were running.
And they were coming closer.
It didn't take long for him to steady himself, though the pain in his head still pulsed faintly. Whatever that sound had been, it wasn't human, and he didn't want to find out what could make it.
The running grew louder, spreading through the corridors in uneven waves. He knew he couldn't face that many. He glanced around, trying to remember the layout.
This was the Maternity Research Wing, first floor, first hallway. The name came back to him from the wall sign half torn beside the door.
He moved quickly. The hallway outside flickered with half-working lights, blood smeared along the walls in long, streaked handprints.
The floor was slippery with dried patches of it. There were no cocoons, even a single body wasn't at sight. Only silence and the smell of rot and mold.
He ran. The exit wasn't far. He could already see the end of the corridor where the emergency doors should have been.
Then the ceiling above him cracked.
The sound was deep and short, followed by a heavy impact that shook the tiles loose.
Debris fell around him as a section of the roof split open. Something massive dropped through the hole and landed with a wet thud.
The smell hit first, thick, sour, and rotting. Silas stumbled back, his hand covering his nose as he dropped onto the floor.
The thing straightened slowly. It was tall, its body layered in dark flesh that glistened with slime.
A split of skin ran down its front like an open wound, and inside that cavity something moved, slow, heavy breathing that made the entire chest rise and fall.
From its back grew tendrils that twitched and curled, dripping with a clear fluid that hissed when it touched the floor.
The surface of its body pulsed faintly, veins showing through the thin red film that stretched over muscle.
At its center, a shape was buried, part human, part something else. A woman's face, half merged into the flesh, eyes glassy and unfocused. Her mouth opened slightly, releasing a long, trembling breath that didn't sound alive.
Thick drool ran from the edges of the creature's jaws, stringing down to the tiles before breaking apart. Every breath came with a wet click, and with each sound, Silas's stomach twisted tighter.
He had called the others monsters before. But this one redefined the word.
He could hear it whispering, a low, broken rhythm that came and went between breaths. The words were there, but they didn't make sense. They rolled over one another, warped by the thick, wet sound of its throat.
Silas began to move, sliding backward inch by inch across the floor. His eyes stayed fixed on the creature's shape, its surface twitching with small movements like something alive beneath the skin.
Then its head turned.
The eyes, if they were still eyes, shifted toward him, glassy and red around the edges. He froze. When he pushed himself up to run, a tendril snapped forward and wrapped around his leg. The pull lifted him clean off the ground, turning him upside down before he could even shout.
The pressure around his ankle was cold and wet, tightening as the tentacle raised him higher. He swung helplessly, the world turning in small circles. When he looked down, the creature was already pulling him closer.
He shut his eyes.
The tendril slid further up his leg, pressing through his clothes as it adjusted his position. His body turned upright, and for a moment he hung there in front of it, face to face.
The whisper came again, softer this time, almost pleading.
"Ashley…"
His stomach clenched.
"Where's my Ashley… my Ashley…"
He opened his eyes.
The human face within the creature's body was inches away now. The skin was torn around the cheeks, stretched tight and uneven.
But beneath the swelling and the color, he recognized her. The same woman whose blood he had drawn. The one who had waited by the door for her husband and daughter.
He stared, barely breathing. Her lips trembled, forming the same word again and again.
"My Ashley…"
Silas didn't know if she could still see him, or if what looked back at him was only what was left.
It pulled him closer. The flesh behind her shifted, peeling open as if the body itself were preparing to swallow him. The movement was slow, deliberate, each layer of tissue sliding apart with a wet sound.
"My Ashley… my Ashley…"
The voice trembled. Silas could see her eyes now, deep inside the mess of red and black. For a brief moment, the human in her showed through. Recognition flickered there, faint but there.
Her gaze locked onto his face. Then, as suddenly as she had caught him, the tendril released. He fell hard, hitting the floor and rolling onto his side.
Above him, the creature's body began to rise, the mass behind her folding and stretching as it slid upward through the hole in the ceiling.
The building groaned. Dust rained down. He watched until the last part of her vanished into the dark, leaving only the slow drip of fluid from the roof.
He whispered to himself, the name coming back without thought.
"Margaret."
That had been her name.
He pushed himself to his feet and started running. The halls blurred past him, broken doors, cracked tiles, dried blood. His body moved on instinct. Behind his eyes, her voice echoed again, looping the same words he couldn't forget.
My Ashley.
Outside, the cold air hit his face. He stopped just long enough to breathe, staring at the ruin that stretched beyond the hospital.
Margaret, The Weeping Mother.