He exited the room, using the IV pole as a walking cane, and slowly closed the door before making his way down the hall.

“Ma-ts-go-n? Ar-w-danger?” asked the ghost.

“Once again, I have no fucking idea what you’re saying…” he whispered looking around the corner “But basically we’re- I’m being followed by the grim reaper… And I think it was probably mimicking my friend’s voice to lead me into a trap or whatever... And maybe it brainwashed him too?” Max theorized, thinking about the letter.

“But-wo-reaper be fall-you? You-ive!”

“Yes, the grim reaper. You already met them, didn’t you?” He asked quietly, tiptoeing by a slightly open door.

“Yes, b-ey don’t fal-le aro-or try to tric-em!”

“What?”

“Forg-it. Ju-run.” Calvin was starting to get really fed up with Max not being able to understand half of what he said.

“If I could run, I would…” he whispered, rolling his eyes.

He gained speed as he walked through a glass passage, with a view to a garden in the middle of the building. Out of the corner of his eye, Max spotted the grim reaper trying to open the door next to the hospital’s helipad. And so he picked up the pace, turning his power walk into a slow run. 

He reached the elevator and pushed the button frantically while looking in all directions and trying to ignore how much his chest was hurting. The doors opened illuminating the dark corridor, and the boy smiled in relief. 

Max entered the gigantic metal box and pressed the first floor’s button. The doors couldn’t close fast enough in his option, but at least he didn’t get jump scared by a hand reaching in at the last second and forcing the doors open…

Now he just needed to find a nurse or someone who could keep him safe… But maybe it would be best to not go “there’s a floating skeleton after my soul” or something of the sort. Yeah, they would definitely put him in a padded room if he tried to say something like that… 

A small part of him still wasn’t convinced that everything that was happening was real. But the letter, the phone call, and then the skeleton… Yep, that was definitely real… Which meant that Calvin was real too…

God... His brother had been right this whole time. Ghosts were real... He suddenly remembered how, on the day their mother died, David pleaded to an empty space before almost jumping out of the- The elevator shook violently to a halt and Max tightened his grip on the pole as he struggled for balance.

“Wha-wa-at?!”

He looked up at the flickering lights and at the hatch on top of the elevator. The teen could hear something scratching the metal box, and the hatch seemed to move a little as the elevator’s lights let out their last breath.

“Fuck… It’s here.” He fiddled in the dark and took the IV bag out of the pole.

Max held the bag in his mouth and readied the pole to use it as a spear against his attacker. He did NOT survive a crime-infested neighborhood in a Seattle ruined by the war, only to die inside an elevator like a defenseless cockroach! 

The hatch opened, and the attacker’s eyes illuminated the elevator with a blinding blue light, as it warped the needles it had for fingers around the entrance, getting ready to crawl into the box.

No... If Max was about to go out, then he would go out like a “spiteful little shit” and take that thing’s teeth with him to hell!