"Ah, Maverick! There you are."

"I've got to say, you've certainly found an interesting case this time." A man with black hair walked intothe room, with his hands in his pockets. He smiled at the other man who spoke to him. "....That so?"

WHAM.

"Open.. you.. stupid.. DOOR!" The redhead kept kicking the door as she tried anything and everything to open it, to no use yet.

'It's been three day since we've been here, and I still haven't found a way out of this room. So far, Alex has only come in to get some samples and to do daily check-ups during the day. He's tried asking me multiple times to describe what our hallucinations are exactly, but I still don't know if I believe all of this. I haven't told him in case this is all fake, and I hope the others haven't yet either. I don't think they realize that the phantom dimension is an exact copy of our dimension. If they find out we can walk around at night and figure out the layout for a potentional escape, we won't be able to catch them off guard. That is, if I can figure out how to get out of the room first. The vent is too small to crawl through, and there's no way to open the door without a card like Alex's. I can hear phantom noises outside and sometimes I hear the occasional thud from down the hall. The only real thing I have to go by though, is how my appearance changes each night. But I can't tell if this is all a hallucination or not.'

'I feel like i'm going insane.'

THUD.

"....Hello? Taylor, Aiden?"

"Ashlyn!" Her eyes widened as she lowered her weapon, looking at the two boys with wide eyes. "Logan, Tyler... Ben?" After that, she bolted to the three boys, hugging them when she reached them by the doorway. "Where are the others? No- Wait, how did you guys get out?" Logan showed the card he was holding to Ashlyn. "I asked Alex to play chess with me because I couldn't sleep. Then once it got close to midnight, I asked to take a look at his card because I was curious. I wasn't sure if he was going to let me, but he seemed confident I wouldn't try anything so I managed to have it in my hand when it turned twelve."

"Oh." Ashlyn wore a dumbfounded expression on her face. 'That was an oddly simple solution... I feel kind of dumb.'

"Cover your ears, please."

TIK.

Ashlyn watched as the boy with glasses shot down a phantom charging at them. 'So the thud from earlier was them taking care of the phantoms.'

"Here, Ben still had the bag Mike got us wrapped around him before we ended up here. It came with him just like our clothes did the first time we 'reset' after our bodies got far from Savannah in the real world. We can talk more about it once everyone is together again, though. We need to find the others' rooms." So the four made their way out of Ashlyns room, walking down the dark hallways. Ashlyn had a worried look on her face-

'I'm worried about what we'll find when we come across Aiden's and Rylee's rooms. The lest time we saw them..'

" ..She keeps soaking through all the bandages and cloth."

'I hope they're okay.'

PRESS. OPEN.

Blood.

Ashlyns eyes widened. There was blood everywhere in the room. The bed, the sheet, the walls and the floor too. Too much blood for a person to loose. It looked like a true crime scene. Eceryone stood frozen in the doorway, before Logan walked inside. "Hello?? Anyone in here??"

'So much blood...'

THUMP.

"...Logan?.." A quiet voice ran out from the bathrom, alerting the group standing in the door. Ashlyn snapped out of her daze, and bolted straight for the bathroom. The real panic struck in when she saw what was inside. "..Oh god.." The brunette girl sat on the floor, back against a wall. She only had her sports bra on, as she had to take her top of to see her injury. Her eyes were half open and half closed as she looked up at her sister. "Do I.. look that bad? I mean.. that reaction.. wasn't what I was expecting.."

"Well how else was I supposed to react, idiot?!"

"..uhm.. I don't know.. 'You're doing good sis!.. Hang on!'... or a.. 'don't worry girl'... would of had been better.. than that.." Poor Ben took it seriously as he crouched down infront of the girl, patted her head and showed a thumbs-up. "....Thanks, Ben. You're a real one.." Ashlyn just sighed and shook her head, while Ben walked back to the others. "We still need to find the others.. But we can't leave her here like this-"

"..I'll stay. You guys get a wheelchair, or something.." Tyler sighed as he went to the girl sitting on the floor, and crouched down infront of her. "Alright.. We'll get everyone and then come back here. We're gonna close the door so no phantoms come in." The two on the floor just nodded, as they watched Ashlyn, Ben and Logan leave the room. The girl clutched the shirt close to her wound, hissing every now and then. Tyler on the other hand was feeling bad that he couldnt help her in any way, but.. "Wait here-" He bolted out of the bathroom, leaving the girl alone on the floor, as he ran to the bag Ben left there. "Not like I could run away.. Or something.. But alright.. Whatever you say Tyler!" He rolled his eyes, and came back with some bandages in hand. "..Okay, uh.. Can you sit a little bit away from the wall, so I can wrap this around you?.." Not saying a word, the girl did what he asked her to do, and moved forward a bit while groaning. The boy began doing his work, as he wrapped the bandage around the wound-

"Holy fu?!-"

"Shit, I'm sorry!"

'...There's no way I'm going to fit through here.'

WIGGLE.

WHAM.

The girl hit her head into the top of the vent as she quickly pulled her head out of the vents.

'What was that noise?'

"Taylor!"

"Guys??" A big smile appeared on her face as she noticed Ashlyn, Logan and Ben standing in the doorway. She then quickly tried stepping off of the drawer she was standing on-

TWIST.

"AH-?!"

"!!" The four of them hugged as they caught Taylor before she could of had hit the ground. "How did you guys get here?"

"We'll explain later, we're in a hurry right now.. We need to find Aiden and get Rylee a wheelchair."

🎵

🎶

🎵

"..Is that music?"

🎶

🎵

🎶

"Aiden?"

🎵

"Hello??"

"...What are you doing?"

"Ah.. Well- I was getting bored so.. I asked them for some face paint." The blonde sweatdropped as he looked at the kind of pissed Ashlyn. The other tree next to her were just dumbfounded. "You died.. And decide to spend your time recpvering from death.. by face painting...?"

"Well I couldn't get out and i'd rather be in pain than bored."

"...How are your injuries?" Aiden showed a peace sign as he looked back at Logan. "All good. Though, I probably shouldn't run or anything, i'm still woozy."

UNSTEADY.

'Maybe we should get two wheelchairs..'

OPEN.

"...We're back.."

Opening the door, Taylor and Aiden were met by complete mess, and the disturbing smell of blood. Taylors eyes widened as she looked at the girl sitting in the blood covered sheets, her wound now freshly bandaged. She kept looking, and Aiden did the same, while the brunette sweatdropped. Now that everyone was there, they calmed down only a little bit. Ashlyn sat down on the floor, while Aiden sat in the wheelchair. Taylor, Logan and Ben were standing at the end of the bed, while Tyler stood next to the sitting girl with his arms crossed. Ashlyn seemed to be deep in though, before her sister spoke up.

"....Have you guys.. seen the.. infected?.." This got the attention from all of them, as they faced the girl sitting on her bloody bed. "I seen pictures.."

"Same here."

'The real question none of us wants to ask.. Is if we think any of this is real. Are we really infront of each other like this?'

"What are our thoughts on the whole fungus thing?" Taylor furrowed her brows at the question. "I think we should just say scew it. I mean, either way, our options suck.. Right? At least this way though... we're together." Logan nodded at her words. "...I agree, it's too risky to assume this isn't real anyway. We should defenitely look into it.. but continue to treat this as our reality for now."

'We spent the entire night going over what we knew and what our options were. After debating for a bit, we collectively agreed to snoop around the building.. and find out what the hell is going on in this place. So far, no one has told the facility what our "hallucinations" consist of, so we still have an advantage somewhat.'

'And we plan to exploit it as much as possible.'

"I found another card."

"Put it in the pile over there."

'Rylee and Aiden are somehwhat out of commission, so we left them in the room to go over documents we find.'

-Major head injury

-A hole through her stomach

"...I can't do this anymore. I'd rather die again." The blond flopped down to the side with a heavy sigh. At this, the girl glared at him, and threw one of the cards directly at his head. "Don't joke about that, you blonde shit. Especially after what my sister told us. Now sit back up and keep looking, or i'll beat you!"

"With that injury? I don't think so."

"Get back here!- FUCK!"

"AHAHAHA-"

'It's been difficult finding a card with high enough clearance to get the important information. We aren't sure how the bag came with Ben when our bodies reset locations.. But since we still had our same suits and weapons as well,'

"Here, Ben still had the bag Mike got us wrapped around him before we ended up here. It came with him just like our clothers did the first time we 'reset' after our bodies got far from Savannah in the real world."

'We assume that anything we have on our person is considered "part of us"... Or something like that. But I guess it also works vice-versa, when time stops, obviously, there are still people walking around this building, even at 12AM. But there aren't any floating vlothers or items that might've been carried. Which makes it hard for us to find high-tolerance identity cards, since I doubt they would leave them hanging around.'

". . ."

"..I don't feel any different though? Personality wise anyway." The blonde mumbled as he laid sideways, searching on the laptop for any interesting things they could find. Rylee had the laptop resting on her lap as she continued searching.

PRESS.

'I can't seem to understand any of this.'

FREEZE.

Aidens eyes widened as he began sitting up, poking the girls side, catching her attention. "Rylee- I found something." This time, the girl just glared at him, but leaned over to check on what he had found. "What is it? I swear, if it's another meme you made because you're bored i'll-"

The girl froze down too. As her eyes continued being locked to the screen, she tried finding the walkie-talkie without looking there. After she found it, she slowly put it near her mouth.

"..Guys-"

"-Our parents are here."

"...What about our parents?"

"They've been informed about the situation. They aren't happy about it, obviously, however it's just how it is at the moment. Not much any of us can do for now."

"...So they are lying to us."

The ones that were out exploring rushed back to the room, as they all circled Aiden. The girl having already seen it, stayed behind and sat on the bed with her eyes closed, and head thrown back. The pain was a bit bearable by now, letting the girl get some shut eye. As the others all continued to check what Aiden found, Tyler went and sat down next to the girl. His legs were stretched out, and arms were crossed infront of his chest like always. Feeling the weight pushing down the matress on the bed, the girl opened her eyes to look at him. Making eye contact, the girl flashed him a small sime, and he returned it, before it was replaced by a scowl, and he turned his head away. Rylee chuckled at his actions, and closed her eyes again, before resting her head on his shoulder.

'We found their profiles, and that they were confined in a floor below us. However, to access our files... we needed a higher clearance. It's more than just a little sketchy. Why are they keeping our parents here?'

'One thing is clear though...'

OPEN.

'...We can't trust these people.'

"What's this for?" Ashlyn asked alex, as he began puting some sort of device around her head. "To read your brain waves. They said they are trying something today, i'm not sure what though."

KNOCK.

KNOCK.

"Are you done? We'll take it from here."

'Who are these guys?..'

'This is starting to make me uneasy..' The redhead thought in her head as she walked between two guards, who where leading her somewhere.. But she didnt know where.

PRESS.

"Go on in."

Ashlyn walked inside the room, before the door was slammed shut behind her. She frooze down as she watched the person.. Well, infected person infront of her struggling with their hands chained down. Her eyes widened as she made direct eye contact with it.

'..What is this?'

"Ms. Banner.."

"We would like you to try and interact with the infected."



YAAAAAA😻