After descending from my mindscape, I immediately turned towards the door.
"Maybe we could break it down?" I proposed, looking back at Damien.
The white-haired boy looked at the crimson horns on my head, before glimpsing back at the claw-ridden surface of the handleless door. He took a few steps forward.
"I don't know if it's possible to break out, if those monsters can't, what makes you think we can?"
"Damn it, never thought of that." I crossed my arms over my chest, leaning back against the stone wall while letting out a heavy sigh.
"At least we know they won't eat us alive."
On the other side of the door, we heard sudden clicking sounds. The foreboding echoes and grinding of mechanical clockwork and gears screeched and sounded, muffled by the thickness of the door. Shortly after, the door swung open, and a girl about my age stood in the doorway, leaning on the frame. Her face was slim, her jawbones prominent, sharp as blades that looked like they could slice skin. Her blonde hair cascaded downwards to her neck, tied into a messy braid.
"What are you dummies doing in here?" She asked, smirking.
Glimpsing at this enigmatic girl, Damien's eyes widened as his face flushed a little. His small hands grasped the hem of his shirt, pulling on it for a short moment. The blonde-haired girl turned to him, arching an eyebrow as her smirk grew to a smile.
"Damdam, what the hell are you doing? We have work to do in the morning!"
She extended one of her lean arms, abruptly pulling the boy out of the darkness and out into the dimly lit hallway. She then turned to me, quickly pulling me out of the chamber. Catching sight of the crimson horns glowing atop my head, her eyes widened as she finally saw them in the light.
"The hell's happening on your head?" She roughly tugged on one of the horns, causing me to help and yank my head back from her iron grip.
"I don't know how they got here," I replied, flattening my hair down. The moment I did so, the illusory horns perched atop my head instantly vanished, dissipating along with any trace of their existence.
"Damn..." She watched in admiration, her curiosity seemingly piqued through the entire ordeal.
After the entire hallway had fallen silent, I brushed the dust off my gray attire and looked towards the duo. Now that I was in the light, I realized our outfits were stained with crimson blood.
"Guess we'll have to get change," I removed my shirt, rolling it up in my arms and hoisting it over my shoulder. After this, I looked back at them and took a breath.
"You sound like you know each other."
The earlier comment she had made, calling him Damdam like a nickname, already had my mind buzzing with a few theories. Hearing my statement, the blonde-haired girl chuckled.
"We go back a while, nameless person."
She bent down, hoisting Damien onto her shoulders with a quick swoop of her arms. The boy didn't take that long to adjust, sinking into her head and sniffing her hair.
"Cut that out," She delivered a sharp slap to the top of his head, causing him to cry out.
The girl's lips twitched into a satisfied smile when she heard Damien's noises. After brushing off her shirt, she looked back at me with a smile plastered on her face.
"We both work in the underground factory because we're not seriously hurt."
The girl's brown eyes scanned me up and down as she spoke, and she let out a chuckle I could tell she suppressed since she saw me.
"On the other hand, you look like you just crawled out of hell!"
I looked back at the room where the 'dogs' had been kept, scoffing as I folded my arms over my chest.
"You could say that. I don't know why the hell this mental hospital has both an insane asylum and a room filled to the brim with ...those things."
Suddenly, the entire hallway seemed to fall silent as she let out another light chuckle. "Dogs, in the janitor's closet?"
She took a few steps forward, extending her hand and twisting the doorknob before opening the door. Damien and I noticeably tensed, our faces turning pale as the darkness of the room spilled into the dimly lit hallway.
The girl reached into her pocket, taking out what appeared to be a match and a small lighter. After swiftly igniting the flame, the match was tossed into the darkness, flooding the space with a faint, flickering orange glow. As the flames idly flickered, I perked up and listened closely.
Following a brief silence, I concluded that the beasts inside there weren't awake, or they were so terrified they fled upon the doors opening. Did I traumatize those creatures that much?
"Y'blimey dog!" A voice sounded in the darkness, ringing out sharply and reverberating off the walls. Shortly after, we all watched as a man in his late thirties with a mop of greasy hair atop his head, his uniform tattered and torn, stumbled out into the hallway.
"First, I get booted from my quarters, now I have fannies like you rousin' me from my sleep!"
He let out a sharp yell as his hands darted to his back, rubbing the spot above his spine vigorously. "And my back's a damn demon!"
The blonde girl delivered a sharp slap to his cheek, causing him to yelp. "I don't like lil pigeon-livered cucks like you ramblin' about their livin' situation. Just can it and move on, dummy."
"Why are we hitting our companions? We know only I'm allowed to do that!" Another figure left the darkness of the room—another woman. She was a little shorter than the others, but her lean frame countered any ridicule she could receive.
"Why's Damien up on your shoulders? Ain't he a double digit now?" The man with greasy hair stood up, smirking as he flicked Damien on the forehead. The white haired boy quickly retaliated, swiftly biting down on his fingers.
"Who...are you guys?" I asked, standing on the sidelines as I watched the four people banter.
"And what the hell were you doing in that room with all the 'dogs'?"
The man with greasy hair turned to me, his face paling slightly. His bottom lip quivered slightly as he immediately knelt, scooting over to my shoes and planting a flurry of kisses on my slippers.
"I apologize, my faithful demon lord!"
What the fuck?
I took a revolted step back, rubbing my slippers on the floor and removing the saliva. "That's not the best way to introduce yourself, and calling me names while kissing my feet is something else entirely."
"Sorry, I have to apologize for Oscar; he's never done that before."
The sharp blonde hair grabbed Oscar by the hair, lifting him back to his feet while leaning in close to his ear, whispering bitterly.
"Y'better apologize y'damn bastard. You might scare the damn fool and make him wet himself!"
"I-I'm sorry, your majesty!" He turned back to me and knelt to his hands and knees like a worshipper of some kind of deity.
"Y'can kick 'em' if you want," The short, muscular lady smiled bitterly in my direction, making a gesture with her hands that resembled ripping someone's head off.
"I-I'll pass..." I grimaced, stepping back a little more.
"Anyways, my name's Ruth, that's Daisy, and I think you know Damien, considering you both ended up in the closet together."
She leaned in a little closer to me, arching an eyebrow. "What were you doing in there without someone so young to begin with?"
The sudden, sharp tug of my collar in her direction immediately caught me off guard, the words snagged from my mouth as she whispered. "If you're like the other low-lives in this here buildin', maybe I'll have all your teeth in a jar."
"I-It's not like that!" I wrangled myself free, stumbling back, almost falling on my rear.
"Some man named Harland chucked us into the room, claiming to feed us to the dogs... or whatever you'd call those things."
Ruth turned back to the others in the group, extending her arms. "Is that how the rest of this damn place sees us now?"
She let out a low, frustrated growl as she rubbed her glabella. "We turn into the bloody things at night and hide away, and that's it. We don't want to hurt anybody."
I suddenly felt as if a lightning bolt had coursed through my body; the revelation hanging in the air for a while. "Y-you... turned into those monsters?"
"Yeah, so what?" Ruth turned back to me, her fists clenched tight. "If you hadn't scared the shit out of all of us, you would've been in pieces by now."
Her eyes softened, and her hands drifted into her locks as she tied them into a messy ponytail above her head. "But it's not like we want to do that stuff—when our stomachs are rumblin' and we can't get out, we force ourselves to remain sealed until we turn back."
Daisy huffed, leaning on the wall as she curled her hair in her fingers. "I'm the only one in this group that hasn't faced anything like that ...I wonder why."
The sound of my footsteps echoing in the hallway caught her attention. Ruth pivoted to look where I had been, her gaze immediately locking onto me as I walked away.
"The hell you goin'?" She hollered, cupping her hands around her mouth to project the question.
Daisy abruptly slapped the back of Ruth's head, her expression a silent scold. "People are still sleepin; we don't want zombies working during our shifts, y'big dummy!"
...
A few minutes later, I returned carrying a few trays of food I got from the cafeteria. Luckily, Harland or none of his friends were present, so I could snatch the trays without attracting unwanted attention.
"You said you were starving; the best I could do was give you something to eat."
I had given all of them a healthy ration of peas, diced chicken, and water—a surprising dish considering the quality of the medical facility's interior.
"This feast is adjacent to an offering of the divine!" By the time the others had begun to dig in, Oscar had already devoured his plate entirely. He tossed the metallic tray aside, the clash ringing out in the hallway. When he looked back at me, I saw his face had been covered in the food, a trickle of gravy running down his cheek and collecting in his stubble.
"What's with you anyway?" I arched an eyebrow, stepping back to avoid the man.
At this moment, I felt a strange wave of nausea gather in my stomach, paling my face and making the hallway spin. The others continued to eat their food, but Damien was the only one who looked up at me.
"Are you alright?" His brows furrowed.
"N-nearest bathroom?" I turned back to him, my face so pale I'd be mistaken for wearing face paint.
"Down the hallway, first door on the right!" Damien scooted back, pressing against the wall while staring at me. Judging by his movements, the last thing the boy wanted was for me to vomit all over him.
I thanked him and swiftly made my way down the hallway, locating the bathroom in record speed and immediately vomiting in the toilet. As the liquid left my throat and pooled in the toilet bowl, the sensation burned in my throat, almost to a painful extent. It felt a lot like heartburn.
When I looked at my discarded remains, my eyes widened upon seeing the glowing crimson liquid in the toilet, swirling and shimmering in the toilet bowl.
"You're disappointing me, Isaiek." A booming voice sounded behind me. In the bathroom mirror stood the Umbridge, clad in their dark-colored cloak, their crimson, worm-hole-like eyes locked on my form.
"I can see why you're throwing up your potion."