It dawned on him, while he was aimlessly wandering around the dark corridors of that damned place, that fate had dealt him an incredibly bad hand. Sure, he could have made it so much easier on himself, had he kept his mouth shut, turned a blind eye to everything and moved on with his life, but the matter kept clawing at his conscience; he cursed himself and that place and Jeremy Blaire for the millionth time that day.

Blaire. That motherfucker deserved to burn in hell for an eternity and another one after that. He vaguely wondered just how inhumane one person could become for a business, or for money. And it wasn't just him. The entire Murkoff Corporation was made out of scum like Blaire, from managers to doctors, their dehumanization sentencing the already doomed patients/prisoners, thrown and forgotten inside the asylum by their families, to an even grimmer fate. It was the complete abandonment that the Murkoff Corporation, and, by default, Blaire, counted on. People from the outside didn't care, and those inside didn't dare to "tell stories outside of class", as Blaire put it. He learned that the hard way, his jaw still stiff and most likely wearing a boot shaped bruise.

The dizziness still hadn't gone away, the images that were put in front of him on the projector still floating in front of his eyes, now and then, more and more faded every time but still vivid enough to make him want to outstretch his arm and try to grab at them. He tried rubbing at his eyes, but only managed to distort the image of the sinister hallway even more; any attempt would have been futile anyway, he had realized some time ago that the pictures were not imprinted onto his retina, but onto his brain.

The silence was also becoming unbearable; "it's scarier when nothing happens." He said to himself and then laughed out loud at the silliness. The quietness was incredibly profound, making his ears ring, which was driving him insane. Either this part of the asylum was more secluded; the darkness made it almost impossible for him to know exactly where he was; or, and that particular thought made his hair stand on end, there was no one left alive.

When he first broke out of his cell, the one where Murkoff had tried to force its filthy paws inside his mind, hell seemed to have broken loose throughout the entire asylum, the patients finally releasing their pent-up anger on the staff. Beaten. Ripped to shreds. Waylon had felt an enormous wave of satisfaction wash over him, before he realized he wasn't quite safe either. By an immense luck, if it could be called luck, given the situation, he was dressed as a patient, and, ironically, that saved him, for the moment. If he hadn't been scared out of his mind, he would have grinned to himself; Blaire had somehow done him a favor, keeping him alive.

Later on, though, he was wishing those patients had just cracked open his skull. If the screams for help and the mad ramblings of the patients had been unnerving, this poignant silence was even worse. He wanted to make some sort of noise, to bang his fist against a wall, to talk to himself, to make even the tiniest sound just to make sure he was still alive, and this entire hell wasn't just his imagination.

And then there was the smell. The metallic stench was so deeply impregnated past his nostrils that he was sure he'd still be feeling the nauseating smell for months after he'll get out of there. If he'll ever get out of there. The worst thing was, he was getting used to it; he had thrown up once or twice, but then the smell became a part of the ambiance. So did the mangled bodies and the occasional leg or arm, long separated from their owners.

He tried to convince himself it was all fake, like the ride through the Haunted Mansion that he took with his father when he was a kid. The scenery before him was terrifyingly real, however, and impossible to remain impassive to.

The sound of a voice ripped him out of the thoughts that had been tormenting him for what seemed like hours; he had no idea how long it has been, it could have been only a few minutes. He stopped, holding his breath. There was more than just one voice; he distinguished a female voice, amongst others. They seemed to be coming from somewhere beneath his feet, on a lower floor level. He didn't dare to move, listening carefully and trying to decipher what they were saying. It was very difficult to understand a word, despite him kneeling on the wooden floor and bending until his ear was pressed against the wet surface.

He didn't care if they were friendly or hostile, doctor or patient, they were human and that was all that mattered to him right now.

They were arguing about something; and moving at the same time. He got back to his feet and tried to guess where they were going. He only managed to take two steps; the wooden boards suddenly made a terrifying sound, snapping in the middle and giving way. The water, probably coming from a broken faucet in a bathroom, had been absorbed by the wood until saturation, making it incapable of sustaining the weight of a human male. For a moment, he was worried that his leg would get stuck, but the hole widened considerably, and he crashed through the floor, falling on what appeared to be a bookshelf. Pieces of wood rained down on him and the pain in his leg and ribs made his vision blurry.

Someone shouted something, but his mind was sluggish and, despite his efforts to stay awake, he blacked out.