No footsteps now. Just drips. The sound of something leaking—somewhere far away or just beneath your skin. And the hallway doesn't just live here—it remembers. Every scream. Every trespass. Every forgotten soul it ever fed upon.
The floor squelched beneath Ansel's feet.
Not carpet. Not wood.
Not anything manmade.
It pulsed when he stepped—slow, sluggish beats that traveled ahead of him, like veins testing for life. As though the hallway was waking up, organ by organ, bone by hidden bone.
He didn't speak.
Didn't breathe too loudly.
He knew now that silence kept you safe—or at least forgotten.
The air was thick. Not hot, not cold—just heavy. Like being underwater, but without the comfort of buoyancy. It wrapped around him like wet gauze. His limbs ached from the weight of it. He moved like someone trudging through molasses.
The walls glistened in the gloom. Not with moisture, but with slime. Viscous, slow-moving trails clung to the corners like cobwebs made of bile. Some twitched. Others recoiled when his breath passed too near.
He passed doorways that led nowhere.
Some were just black squares—voids that inhaled light and sound. One door revealed a stairwell that spiraled upward into pitch black… but the steps were made of fingernails. They clattered slightly, like they'd been waiting.
Another door opened to reveal a kitchen. Fully lit. Clean. A radio played soft jazz from somewhere just out of view. The table was set for two, plates steaming with invisible food.
He didn't go in.
Didn't trust comfort here.
The hallway seemed to respect that.
It let him pass.
But the further he went, the more the walls changed.
At first it was just the color—flesh giving way to bruised purple, deep red, sickly green.
Then came the carvings.
Not drawn.
Not painted.
Etched.
Scratched deep into the living tissue of the corridor.
Names.
Thousands of them.
Some long. Some short. Some still moving. He couldn't stop himself. Reached out toward one that seemed familiar—"Clara H."
It blinked.
Just once.
Then wept.
A black, tar-like tear bled from the carved eye in the name, running down the wall and dripping to the floor, where it was swallowed into the pulsing carpet like it had always belonged.
He recoiled and kept moving.
The hallway narrowed again.
And here—at the tightest point—he heard whispers.
But not behind him.
Not from the walls.
From inside his ears.
A dozen voices, crawling through his head like maggots:
"Why did you scream?"
"Why did you follow the sound?"
"Why did you come here when the door was shut?"
"Do you think you matter more than the others?"
He pressed his hands to his ears, heart slamming in his ribs—but the voices didn't care. They never needed his permission.
A sharp sting bloomed beneath his right eye. He winced, touched it.
Blood.
The hallway was inside him now. Burrowing. Searching.
A light appeared ahead.
Dim. Flickering.
He ran.
Didn't care what it was.
He needed out.
The floor hissed underfoot, resisting. Trying to hold him.
It wasn't just pulsing anymore.
It was breathing.
Panting.
He pushed harder.
The light grew.
Brightened.
Took form.
A room.
Round.
Glowing with a sick green light from above—no bulb, no source, just an orb of light floating midair, pulsing like a second heart.
At the center: a chair.
Not like the one from 4B.
This one was made of bone.
Human bone.
Ribcages woven into a backrest. Femurs twisted into legs. Vertebrae and jawbones laced like thread along its arms. The chair was smooth with age—polished by time and suffering.
And it was occupied.
Not by a figure. Not by a ghost.
By a pile.
Of masks.
Dozens of them, stacked into a crude tower, all of them staring at him. Crude faces, porcelain-white. Some expressionless. Some cracked. Some frozen in eternal screams. A few wept from empty sockets. One laughed soundlessly, its lips peeled wide in an obscene grin.
As he stepped closer, they began to shift.
Slide down, one by one.
Falling to the ground with soft clacks.
Each one that fell seemed heavier than the last, as if they carried not just identity, but memory.
And beneath them—
A face.
His own.
But wrong.
The mouth stretched too wide.
The eyes too sunken.
And it was smiling.
"Found me," it whispered.
But its lips didn't move.
The sound came from under his skin.
Inside his skull.
Like the hallway had finally decided to speak using his voice.
Ansel backed away.
Faster.
But the hallway behind him was gone.
No door.
No wall.
Just more flesh. More dark.
The walls began to close in—breathing faster now. Excited. Anticipating.
The floor rippled.
And from every crack in the bone-chair, hands began to reach out.
Small. Pale. Covered in mold.
Tiny fingers. Children's fingers. Some missing nails. Some twitching spasmodically, as if remembering the act of reaching.
They clawed at his legs.
He kicked.
Screamed.
One hand latched onto his ankle—cold, but burning at the same time. He could feel rot seeping into his skin, like ink bleeding into paper.
He twisted—
And ran.
Straight through the wall.
Not into it—through it.
Like it wanted him gone.
Like it was tired of his fear.
He fell. Landed hard on his shoulder.
Darkness again.
Except…
A voice.
Female.
Calm.
Tired.
But alive.
"…You shouldn't be this deep."
He turned.
A silhouette.
Slim. Arms crossed. Face half-hidden in the shadows. Her stance was wary, but not afraid.
Her eyes—sharp, bright—reflected the pulsing veins in the wall like twin candles behind glass.
"Who… who are you?" he rasped.
The woman didn't answer at first.
She stepped closer, revealing a jacket torn at the sleeves, hair tied back in a messy knot, dark smudges under her eyes like permanent bruises. Her skin was pale, but not sickly—more like something washed too many times in cold water.
"I'm the one who hasn't died yet," she said quietly. "Name's Mira."
Ansel stared at her, heart thudding.
"You're… real?"
Mira looked past him.
At the hallway.
At the place that shuddered behind them like it had lost its appetite.
"Real enough," she said.
Then: "And if you want to stay that way… we need to move. Now."
Haunting Question:
What if the hallway doesn't want you to escape—but to remember what you were before you came in?