CHAPTER ONE
- LATE NOTICE -
Part I: In the Heart of the Darkness... The Birth of the Story
I don’t know where to begin, but I am running. I don’t know what I am fleeing from, or where my feet are leading me, but one thing is certain... this place does not want me to live. The sounds around me are distorted, as if blaring from broken loudspeakers—static, thuds, and whispers in a language I do not understand, echoing through abandoned corridors. The lights above flash violently. Every step I take feels too loud, as though the walls themselves are listening. The air is heavy; every breath feels like inhaling a layer of pure terror. My limbs are trembling, not from the cold, but from a growing intuition warning me that something is drawing near.
Suddenly, a screen on the wall ahead flickers to life, emitting a sharp, piercing screech as it repeats a single phrase: "FEAR THRESHOLD EXCEEDED." What is this machine? Why is it measuring my terror? Where am I? Who am I? No answers. Only that voice in my head, throbbing with every beat of my heart, whispering that time is up, that I have arrived too late.
Then, right ahead, a door. Metallic. Covered in strange red markings. I approach. I reach out my hand to open it, but before I can touch it... I catch a faint reflection in the corner. It isn’t mine. A familiar face... yet twisted. And in that precise moment, I realize this isn't just an escape attempt... it is a test. And survival... is not guaranteed.
In the grey twilight of a 2010 winter, the city was nothing more than an ancient creature groaning under the weight of humidity and oblivion. Its narrow streets swallowed the meager light of rusted lampposts, while dark clouds hung heavily over the rooftops like a suffocating shroud. Inside one of those dilapidated buildings, where the hallways reeked of boiled cabbage and rotting wood, Kyle watched the world from behind the worn glass of his apartment window.
His apartment was little more than a cold concrete box: a single bed whose springs shrieked with his every move, and a wooden desk whose veneer peeled beneath piles of unpaid bills and job rejection letters. In his mid-twenties, Kyle was no ordinary young man who could blend into a crowd. He possessed a razor-sharp analytical mind and an eye for the minute details others overlooked. Yet, this intellect was trapped in a cage of chronic anxiety.
His anxiety did not stem solely from his looming bankruptcy or an empty refrigerator, but from a deeper existential conflict—a psychological scar invisible to everyone else: a mysterious void in his memory. Entire months of his later childhood were a complete "black screen," from which he recalled no faces, no places, not even a feeling. This emptiness always left him with an alienating sensation that he wasn't living his own life, but wearing a coat too large that belonged to someone else.
To maintain his sanity amidst this chaos, Kyle imposed rigid rituals upon himself. He counted his steps from the bed to the door (exactly seven steps), and organized his papers with millimeter precision. When the tension in his head reached its peak, he would grab a metallic fountain pen, dismantle it into its smallest components, and reassemble it with a mesmerizing, mechanical fluidity to calm his pulse.
He turned around slowly. Slid beneath the locked apartment door, a thick sheet of white paper rested on the wooden floor. He hadn't heard footsteps in the hallway, nor caught a glimpse of a shadow passing under the crack of the door. He rose cautiously, picked up the paper, and dismantled his metal pen, reassembling it with practiced mechanics as he examined the note. It wasn't in an envelope, nor did it bear a stamp or an official logo. It was just words written in the font of an old typewriter—the kind that leaves heavier ink on certain letters:
Ravenhill Medical Hospital. Evening Digital Archiving Department. We are not looking for your past experience; we are looking for your attention. We expect you tomorrow at 9:00 PM. Ashen Street, Building 85.
"Looking for your attention?" Kyle murmured dryly, trying to mask the shiver running down his spine. His analytical eye immediately noticed that the ink used wasn't from a modern printer, but from a ribbon cartridge dating back decades. The contradiction aroused his suspicion. Yet desperation, his dire need for money, and that fatal curiosity that always drove him toward enigmas made him resolve his mind.
The following night, wearing his faded blue shirt and black trousers, he stepped out into the city streets. The wind howled through the alleys. With every step that took him further from his wretched neighborhood and closer to Ashen Street, he noticed a shift in the very fabric of the environment. The sounds of cars gradually faded; the random graffiti on the walls vanished, replaced by silent buildings with dark windows that seemed to watch passersby.
When he stood before Building 85, he froze in sheer astonishment. Ravenhill Hospital was not an abandoned, bat-infested facility as its archaic name implied. On the contrary, its soaring glass facade radiated a bright, sterile white light—closer to that of a research laboratory than a hospital. The automatic doors slid open with flawless fluidity, swallowing Kyle inside.
The moment he stepped into the lobby, a wave of sensory contradictions struck him. The white marble floor gleamed so intensely that it reflected his image with uncomfortable clarity. Inside, the building bustled with an eerie activity: doctors in pristine white coats walked solemnly down the halls; nurses wheeled metal medication carts that made no sound at all; and the faint murmurs of patients sitting in the waiting area filled the air.
The place was alive... terrifyingly alive. But Kyle’s mind began sounding the alarms. The movement wasn't chaotic like a typical hospital emergency room; it was precise, orchestrated, and entirely devoid of human randomness. More importantly, the overpowering scent of chemical disinfectants could not mask a faint, distinct odor drifting from the ventilation vents... an odor like ozone, and the burning of fine copper wires.
He advanced toward the elegant glass reception desk. The receptionist looked up. He wore a surgical mask that concealed the lower half of his face, but his eyes were cold, entirely empty of any human spark.
The clerk spoke in a flat, mechanical cadence: "Welcome, Kyle. Your archiving station is ready. Sign here."
Kyle furrowed his brow, placing his hands in his pockets as he spoke with measured calmness: "I haven't told you my name, nor have I presented my ID yet." The clerk did not answer; he merely tapped his finger against the open black leather ledger before him.
Kyle leaned over and looked at the page. It wasn't his photograph, as he had briefly feared, but what he saw was far more unsettling. Under the "New Employee" slot, his full name was already written—not in a computer printout, but in his own handwriting. The curl of the letter K, the slight slant at the end of his name—it was his exact calligraphic imprint, unique to him alone.
He squeezed the metal pen in his pocket, fighting to maintain his composure. He pulled the pen out and traced the ink over his pre-written name, confirming the signature. Turning back now meant returning to the streets; pressing forward meant understanding what was happening.
"Second floor. The Director is waiting for you," the clerk said without blinking.
Kyle rode up in the gleaming steel elevator. The corridors on the second floor were quieter, yet doctors and nurses moved there as well. As he walked slowly, his eye caught a detail that made the blood slow in his veins: two doctors were talking in a corner of the hallway. The exchange of words between them seemed to loop with the exact same inflection, the exact same hand gesture adjusting the glasses, and the exact same brief, stifled chuckle whenever someone passed them by. They looked like flesh-and-blood humans... but their movements followed a "programmed rhythm."
At the end of the corridor, Kyle stopped dead in his tracks. In an area where the lamplight failed to reach its full strength, a darkness was taking shape. He noticed a man standing completely motionless, wearing a long, archaic trench coat that reached his ankles and a dark fedora that completely obscured his features, casting a deep shadow over his face. He didn't move, and he wore no medical attire. He merely kept his head turned toward Kyle, watching him in absolute, dead silence.
Kyle blinked hard to verify his vision. When he opened his eyes, the hallway was completely empty. No coat, no hat. Just a flickering patch of light trembling on the wall.
His bewilderment was cut short by the click of a metal doorknob. The door adjacent to him opened, and "The Director" stepped out. He was a remarkably tall man with sharp features that looked as though they were chiseled from stone. He wore thick spectacles that reflected the room’s white light, making it impossible to see his eyes.
The Director offered a faint smile that carried not a shred of warmth and said, "Welcome to Ravenhill, Kyle. I am Mr. Watson, the facility director in charge of your shift. Come with me."
As he followed Mr. Watson down the corridor, they passed a locked ward bearing an old brass plaque whose name had been violently scraped away. However, Kyle could discern the remnants of letters forming the word "AVARICE." He turned toward the glass window of that darkened ward. For a single second, he suffered a horrifying visual delusion; he didn't see hospital beds or medical equipment. Instead, he saw the distorted reflection of thousands of tiny screens stacked upon one another, displaying details and moving images from his forgotten childhood—as though some massive, invisible entity was draining his past. He shut his eyes tightly, and when he opened them, the vision vanished and the hallway returned to normal. Yet, a bitter sting of cold settled at the base of his neck.
The Director led him to a cramped office at the end of the hall. It looked nothing like a modern office. In the center sat a massive computer terminal dating back to the 1980s. Its convex glass CRT screen flickered with a faint, phosphor-green glow, connected at the back to a bundle of thick cables that pierced through the solid concrete wall to an unknown destination.
"Your task is simple, Kyle, yet crucial to our operations," Director Watson said, placing a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. The hand was heavy, and as cold as the dead. "This is your archiving station. Your job is to transfer data from highly archaic paper logs, specifically those dating back to the year 1963, and input them manually into this digital system. The rules here are non-negotiable: do not leave your desk for any reason; do not attempt to speak with the medical staff outside; and if you feel that the data you are entering is strange or illogical... keep digitizing and do not ask questions."
Kyle looked directly at the Director, gathering his courage: "Mr. Watson, if this is merely archiving old medical files, why do you require a strict curfew within the building? And what is the nature of this data that might seem 'illogical'?"
The Director’s smile widened with agonizing slowness. He spoke in a voice as soft as the rustle of serpents: "Too many questions consume the system's energy, Kyle. Just... do your job."
The Director departed, shutting the heavy door behind him. Kyle sat alone on the old swivel chair, the hum of the phosphor screen filling his ears like an angry hornet. He tried to steady his breathing. As he did, his metal pen slipped from his hand and fell beneath the desk.
He bent down to retrieve it. When his hand extended into the darkness beneath the table, his fingers brushed against the thick conduits running from the computer into the wall. He snapped his hand back as if burned. They weren't cold plastic cables; they were warm, with a supple, rubbery texture that resembled human skin to a sickening degree. More terrifyingly... they emitted a faint, rhythmic vibration—like a massive heartbeat buried within the building's bowels.
He straightened up in his seat, wiping his hand on his trousers in disgust. Before he could process what he had touched, an exaggeratedly soft knock came at the door. A young nurse entered carrying a small cardboard box that wafted the scent of decaying paper. She wore a pristine white uniform, but her face was morbidly pale, her eyes wide with a glassy stare that looked through Kyle, rather than at him.
She placed the box on his desk and said in a soft, flat, looped voice: "Do you need anything, Kyle?"
Watching her fixed pupils, which failed to dilate with the light, he replied: "Actually, yes... is there a malfunction in the ventilation system? The smell of burning electricity is very strong in here."
The nurse went entirely still for two full seconds. Then, in a swift, abrupt motion, she lunged closer, leaning over the desk. Her rigid expression shattered, eclipsed by a look of pure human terror. She whispered in a trembling tone that completely broke her mechanical facade: "If you notice anything out of the ordinary... do not let them notice that you noticed. We are always here... and we do not sleep."
Before he could utter a word, she snapped back into her posture, her vacant stare returning. She turned and exited swiftly, slamming the door behind her.
Kyle remained alone in the sealed room, trapped between the hum of the archaic screen and the box of files. He began to realize that everyone in this hospital was performing a dreadful, meticulously designed play. He pulled the first cardboard box for the year 1963 and took out the first file to soothe his nerves with work.
It was a perfectly ordinary file. A patient named "Arthur," suffering from chronic insomnia in 1962, treated with electroconvulsive therapy sessions. Kyle exhaled a sigh of slight relief; perhaps his imagination was blowing things out of proportion. He inputted Arthur's data into the computer, and the system responded seamlessly.
He reached his hand into the box to pull the second file, but his fingers caught a paper of a different texture. It was a relatively modern white sheet, printed with advanced laser ink that did not belong to the 1960s. He read the line written in the center:
"Attempt No. 4 to update consciousness failed due to internal resistance from the patient... Memory zeroed out. Body reverted to Warden Pattern. Year: 1985."
Kyle’s brow furrowed. 1985? Body and Warden Pattern? Before he could read the line a second time, the green screen flashed before him. When he snapped his gaze back to the paper in his hand, he found the ink beginning to fade and dissolve, as if being absorbed into the fibers of the page. Within seconds, it bleached into an absolute, blank white!
He dropped the paper from his hand as if it were a burning ember. His breathing quickened, his analytical mind fracturing before the sheer impossibility of what he was witnessing.
His trembling hand reached into the very bottom of the box and pulled out the final medical file. Its cardboard cover was heavier than the others, bearing a number inscribed with meticulous care: "File No. 109."
He opened the cover slowly. He found no ordinary data; he found a complex medical report detailing a covert experiment for "The Merging and Extraction of Human Consciousness." In the middle of the page was a very old black-and-white photograph, its edges frayed by time. It depicted a patient in 1963 asylum attire, sitting on a massive metal chair while wires—identical to the pulsating cables beneath his desk—pierced his skull.
Kyle stared at the photograph. He blinked. Then he brought his face closer to the paper until his breath nearly brushed it.
The patient in the picture was no stranger. He possessed the same sharp jawline. The same hairstyle. The exact same tiny scar beneath his right eyebrow, sustained during his forgotten childhood. More horrifying still, the patient in the photograph looked into the camera lens with an expression carrying the exact same chronic anxiety that lived in Kyle’s own eyes.
The patient was Kyle himself.
And in bold red letters, written beneath the photograph with archaic ink-bleeding, was the line:
[SUBJECT: KYLE - PERSONALITY SUCCESSFULLY ARCHIVED, AUGUST 1963].
At that very moment, the steady hum of the green screen ceased, replaced by a sharp sound like a muffled metallic shriek. Kyle froze in place as the green codes on the screen began erasing themselves, replaced by a single sentence, typed letter by letter, repeating with manic speed until it engulfed the entire screen:
"WELCOME TO YOUR NEW CYCLE, KYLE... INITIATING UPDATE PROTOCOL."
39Please respect copyright.PENANAuhuHhdgLEj
Part II: The Nebula of the Cold Room
39Please respect copyright.PENANAXM2PuSawwL
While the ominous sentence flashed frantically on the phosphor screen, the power abruptly cut out. The screen didn't just die; it seemed as though the machine exhaled lines of darkness that devoured the room. In those fleeting seconds between consciousness and oblivion, lines appeared on the screen, typed with agonizing slowness, letter by letter, accompanied by a sharp mechanical clicking. Kyle read them with widening eyes as his body reeled:
[SYNCHRONOUS LOG - ARCHIVE NO. 0] Do you know how fear begins? Not with a loud noise, Nor with a terrifying sight... It begins with a single memory shifting slightly, then another... and you are left there to fester. Then, everything becomes distorted. It begins with doubt, Then with sorrow, Then with the question to which you will find no answer. You do not attack them; you rearrange them. You rearrange their thoughts, their feelings, even their very selves... until they reach that critical juncture between what happened, and what they must do. There, where the mind ceases to comprehend... and begins to fear.
Sender: Dr. [Name Redacted/Corrupted]
Kyle collapsed to the floor. There was no pain upon impact, only weight—a colossal weight pressing down on his chest, as if the air in the room had suddenly transmuted into a viscous, suffocating liquid. Consciousness fled him all at once, swallowing him into a dark, bottomless nebula.
Awareness did not flood back into him all at once; it seeped in with agonizing slowness, drop by drop.
The first thing Kyle registered was neither time nor place, but the smell. A strange odor, entirely different from the harsh disinfectants and sterile cleanliness that had choked him when he first entered. It was a far older scent; the smell of stagnant dust undisturbed by wind for decades, laced with a sharp metallic tang resembling the taste of dry blood or ancient rust.
He tried to move his fingers, but the motion froze halfway. He was lying on a cold floor—a cold that pierced through the thin fabric of his blue shirt and settled into his bones like microscopic needles of ice. The silence shrouding the place was not the silence of routine quiet, but the silence of a vacuum; the kind of heavy stillness that makes you hear the ringing in your own ears and wonder if your sense of hearing has failed.
He opened his eyes with immense effort, as if lifting eyelids made of stone.
The darkness was not absolute; a sickly, dim light pervaded the space. The large monitors that had previously displayed the clean hospital corridors and their programmed doctors were now pitch black, turned off, reflecting his pale face like a warped mirror. The sole source of light emanated from a small red button at the bottom of the control panel, blinking in a slow, steady cadence: Bleep... Bleep... Bleep... like the pulse of a dying heart in the dark.
Kyle propped himself up on his elbows, pushing his upper torso off the floor. The room spun for a few seconds—a mild vertigo that made the corners of the desk appear slanted and razor-sharp. He touched his neck with a trembling hand, recalling the icy breath he had felt before collapsing, but his skin was perfectly dry; no bruises, no wounds.
"Was it a hallucination?" he whispered to himself, his analytical mind scrambling for any logical explanation. "Did I collapse from hunger and exhaustion?"
He crawled slowly until his back rested against the side wall beneath the desk, drawing his knees to his chest. He mechanically pulled the dismantled metal pen from his pocket and began assembling it with violently shaking fingers to force his mind to think. In this place, time seemed to have stretched and warped. He raised his gaze toward the wall clock, which was stopped at 3:00 AM.
His eyes narrowed as he tried to focus through the gloom. The clock hands were gone! Not only was the clock stopped, but its glass was shattered, its white face entirely barren of numbers, as if an angry hand had wiped the very concept of time from existence.
Gathering his strength, he stood up. His joints popped in the stillness, producing a sound that felt loud and terrifying in the tomb-like room. He picked up the notebook from the floor; the pages that had held notes, his name, and his signature were now completely blank—just coarse white paper without lines, without identity.
He turned toward the door and pressed the metallic handle. The door swung open with eerie ease and absolute silence.
What met him outside paralyzed his thoughts completely. The corridor that moments ago had been bathed in brilliant white lights and immaculate marble cleanliness had transformed into a corridor drowned in a dim, grey light of unknown origin. The long hallway stretched before him like the throat of a sleeping beast. The white marble that once gleamed like mirrors was now coated in a thick layer of undisturbed dust. The modern geometric frames hung askew, some fallen and shattered on the floor.
The building had aged decades in a matter of seconds!
He took a single step outward and called out in a raspy voice: "Is anyone here?"
The words traveled down the long corridor, but the darkness swallowed them without returning an echo. He moved slowly, hugging the wall, touching the paint which felt rough and peeling under his fingers. He reached the corner of the hallway where the supervisor had stood; the dust there was level and smooth, untouched by human feet for an eternity.
Panic seized him. He remembered the elevator as a final lifeline. He broke into a run, his jog escalating into a frantic sprint that shattered the oppressive silence, until he reached the steel elevator doors. He smashed the call button violently over and over, but it failed to illuminate. He pressed his ear against the door; he heard nothing but a cold draft whistling faintly in the abyssal shaft behind the steel.
He recoiled, panting, his breath escaping as thick white plumes due to the intense cold that had suddenly gripped the environment. In that moment, he noticed the glass bulletin board opposite the elevator. Its corner was broken, filled with shift schedule sheets that had yellowed and curled at the edges, pinned by rusted tacks.
He stepped closer until his nose nearly touched the grimy glass. It was a roster of staff on duty for the month of "December." He scanned the names rapidly until his heart froze. At the very bottom of the list, his name was written: [KYLE]. But the shock that made him recoil in silent horror was the date written in bold across the top of the page: [DECEMBER 1963].
His back hit the wall, the sound of his heartbeat hammering violently against his eardrums. Deep within the dark corridor, far at the edge of his vision, a single light flashed—a fleeting burst resembling the flash of an archaic camera—then darkness returned.
He didn't wait for another flash. Instinctively, he bolted away from the elevator and that cursed list. Mid-sprint, the silence was shattered by a sharp metallic crash, as if a medical tray had dropped in a side hallway to his right.
Kyle froze. Driven by a volatile mix of terror and curiosity, he pressed himself against the wall and slowly peered around the corner.
Beneath a flickering neon light that emitted an annoying hum, he saw someone. A man in blue medical scrubs was kneeling on the floor, frantically gathering shards of glass and surgical instruments that had spilled from an overturned metal cart, muttering rapid, unintelligible words to himself.
"Y-You?" Kyle’s voice came out cracked and unstable.
The man jerked violently as if struck by an electric current, spinning around with frantic speed. He was a man in his fifties, his hair disheveled, his face slicked with a layer of cold sweat, his eyes bulging behind thick spectacles with a fractured left lens.
"Don't look at the camera!" the man screamed in a horrific, stifled voice, pointing a trembling finger toward the upper corner of the ceiling. "It doesn't record... it eats! It eats time!"
Kyle stepped back, raising his hands calmly: "I'm Kyle... the new employee. What is happening here? Who are you?"
The man let out a dry, hysterical laugh that sounded like a hack: "New employee? We were all new before the previous cycle! I am Dr. Simon, neurosurgeon... or I was before the door locked. Have you seen the date? Have you seen the rosters? They are recycling us, Kyle! We are spare parts... we are just specimens!"
"What are you talking about?" Kyle asked, trying to grasp any thread of logic amidst this madness. "Where is the exit?"
Simon stood up, brushing the dust from his knees, his features suddenly washing over with a terrifying seriousness that contrasted with his delusions. He approached Kyle and whispered in a voice laced with frost: "There is no exit as long as the Cold Room is operational. The engine beats there. The temperature drops, and they need the cold to persist."
"The Cold Room?"
"The organ preservation room... at the end of the East Wing," Simon said, his eyes gleaming with an eerie intensity. "My colleague... Nurse Emma... went there to check the temperature hours ago, or maybe days... she never returned. I hear her voice sometimes in the ventilation shafts. We must stop the cooling. If we stop it, perhaps the system will unlock the doors."
Simon's words weren't entirely logical, but they were the only thread in this void. "Take me there," Kyle said with forced resolve.
The two walked through the labyrinthine corridors. Simon dragged his leg in a strange, limping manner, stopping every few meters to ensure the path was clear, while Kyle tried to ignore the bulletin boards whose texts had mutated into grim maxims like: [FEAR IS FUEL] and [DO NOT WAKE UP].
The closer they drew to the East Wing, the sharper the temperature plummeted. The air became biting, and a thin layer of frost began to coat the doorknobs and window frames.
"We are close," Simon whispered, his voice trembling. "Can you smell it? The scent of iron... the scent of life."
They stopped before a massive steel door covered in a thick layer of white frost, featuring a large metal handwheel resembling the hatch of a submarine. Above it, a faded blue metal sign read: "COOLING AND ORGAN PRESERVATION ROOM - DANGER: EXTREMELY LOW TEMPERATURES".
From behind the door, there was no sound of machinery, but rather a wet, sickening squelch... squish... squish... as if someone were churning their hand inside a pool of viscous mud.
Simon looked at Kyle with wide eyes: "Emma is inside. I am certain. We must open the door."
Kyle gripped the freezing handwheel, which stung his palms with its searing frost. "Help me," he said, pulling with all his might. Simon joined him, and with their combined weight, the door produced a frightful screech as it broke free from the accumulated ice. The wheel spun, and the door swung open with a powerful pop of air pressure, unleashing a dense cloud of freezing fog over their faces.
They stepped into the room, the white vapors obscuring their vision for a moment. When the fog cleared, the space unveiled a sight that paralyzed Kyle's limbs and froze the blood in his veins.
The room was vast, its metal shelves broken and empty. In the center sat a large metal autopsy table, and upon it... lay something the human mind could neither comprehend nor endure.
It wasn't a single corpse; it was a horrific, macabre "artistic heap." Someone—or something—had dismantled Nurse Emma's body with a sick, surgical precision, then reassembled it in a completely deformed manner. Arms were stitched where legs should be with thick black thread; the ribcage was flung wide open like a broken birdcage, and packed inside its cavity were organs that did not belong to a single body—three human hearts, frozen solid, lined up side by side like a cohesive "biological engine."
Due to the extreme cold hovering around thirty below zero, the blood had frozen the instant it exited, forming deep red icicles that hung from the edges of the table like melting candles frozen in time. The floor around it had turned into a lake of shattered red glass.
"Emma..." Simon whispered, falling to his knees, sobbing.
Kyle looked with horror toward the head of the corpse. It wasn't on the neck; it was placed carefully on a metal tray beside the mutilated torso, her face angled toward the door, her eyes wide in a gaze of eternal terror, coated in a fine glaze of frost.
And on the white walls surrounding the table, scrawled in frozen blood, chaotic phrases were repeated dozens of times: The cold preserves the soul Do not warm me I can still feel everything
Kyle took a step forward, his foot stepping on a surgical scalpel whose handle was snapped from sheer pressure. Suddenly, amidst the silence of death and ice, a sound was heard.
The sound did not come from either of them. It came from the table... from inside the open ribcage packed with frozen hearts.
Thump... Thump...
A slow, heavy beat displaced the frost accumulated on the fractured ribs. The hearts were not dead; the cold had not killed them—it had frozen them in a state of continuous, eternal agony!
Kyle recoiled, bumping into Simon, his eyes locked onto the shuddering chest.
"She's alive..." Simon murmured in a voice that had lost every shred of sanity. He began to laugh and weep hysterically: "I told you... the Cold Room doesn't kill... it only prevents death!"
Before Kyle could process the shock and drag him out, the massive steel door slammed shut behind them with a colossal force that rattled the floor. The electronic locks whirred and clicked into place automatically, sealing them inside... with the mutilated body, and the three hearts that began to beat louder, and faster, in the freezing dark.
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ
"I am writing this letter for whoever finds it in this place.
I am no longer sure if I am even still alive, or just something trapped inside this place, or this entity... or whatever it may be called.
You will certainly lose your mind here.
I should never have agreed to that ridiculous thing.
As I took one step after another, I always wondered: when will my end come?
But now...
I believe it is very close.
Because he is coming for me.
I... I can feel his footsteps.
I am afraid."
— Anonymous
39Please respect copyright.PENANALr61lwdIpV
39Please respect copyright.PENANAn7ONqMsruP
39Please respect copyright.PENANAG8tByUbN1m


