The cocoon pulsed with a slow, sickly rhythm. It was a horrific perversion of a cradle, woven from solidified fear.
"Is that...?" Sarah's voice was a choked whisper.
"The footprint in the playroom," Leo confirmed grimly. "The Night-Stalker wasn't just trapping the door. It was protecting its pantry."
He stepped into the closet, his senses on high alert, but the creature was gone. This was just its grim handiwork. He reached out and carefully, with the edge of his baton, tore away a section of the shadowy webbing. The material dissolved at his touch, a sign that the monster's direct influence was gone.
Inside was a little girl, no older than six or seven, curled in a fetal position. She was wearing hospital pajamas. She was pale but breathing, her chest rising and falling in shallow, even breaths. She was physically unharmed.
"We need to get her out of there," Sarah said, her doctor persona taking over completely. She was already checking the girl's pulse, her pupils. "Her vitals are suppressed but stable. She's in some kind of induced coma."
They carefully lifted the child from the remnants of the cocoon. She was light as a feather. They carried her out of the closet and laid her gently on an empty hospital bed.
As they did, another survivor, a harried-looking man in an engineer's uniform with the name "BEN" on his breast pocket, approached them. "What in God's name was that?" he asked, looking from Leo to the now-inert dust on the floor. "The lights, the door... and him."
"He's my brother," Sarah said, her voice leaving no room for argument. "And he just saved our lives. Ben, I need a full diagnostic on the life support systems, now."
Ben, looking like he wanted to ask a thousand more questions, simply nodded and scurried off toward a wall-mounted terminal.
Leo wasn't looking at Ben. He was looking at the child. His Sense Contamination skill gave him a view Sarah couldn't see. A faint, ugly, violet haze clung to the girl like a shroud. It was the residue of the Night-Stalker's power, a psychic poison banked deep inside her mind.
"It's not a normal coma," Leo said quietly. "The monster... it feeds on fear. It's trapped her inside her own head. In a nightmare."
Sarah placed a stethoscope on the child's chest, then hooked up a portable EEG monitor. A moment later, a chaotic, spiky waveform filled the small screen.
"Her brain activity is off the charts," Sarah confirmed, her face grim. "Pure, unrelenting terror response. We can keep her stable, keep her breathing, but if this continues... her mind will literally burn itself out. We need to wake her up." She looked at Leo, her eyes filled with a new, desperate understanding. "But there's no drug for this. There's no medical procedure. It's not a physical problem, is it?"
"No," Leo said. "It's a stain. And it needs to be cleaned."
This was the true test. The culmination of everything he had learned. His class wasn't just about cleaning floors or even neutralizing monsters. It was about restoring order to a world consumed by chaotic, hostile forces.
He looked at the little girl, so small and helpless in the big hospital bed. He saw his nephew in her face. He saw every innocent person this apocalypse had threatened.
He pulled up a stool, sat down beside the bed, and took a deep, steadying breath. This was uncharted territory. He had cleaned inanimate objects, he had neutralized active influences. He had never tried to clean a person's mind. But the logic was the same. A hostile contaminant had to be removed.
He placed his hand gently on the little girl's forehead. Her skin was cold and clammy. He closed his eyes, filtering out the real world, and focused only on the violet haze his skill allowed him to perceive.
He reached for his power, not the raw force of Improvise Tool or the blunt-force utility of Mop Up, but the quiet, fundamental purpose of his class. He focused his intent, picturing not a scrub brush, but a soft cloth. Not a chemical, but clean, warm water. He was not here to blast, but to soothe. To wipe away a stain without harming the delicate surface beneath.
He activated the skill, whispering its name into the quiet of the ward. "[Scrub Clean]."
The moment the skill activated, the world vanished. He was no longer in the hospital. He was falling, tumbling into a world of pure, unadulterated nightmare.