The halls seemed quieter now, but not clean. Every step squelched against wet linoleum, every breath tasted like mold at the back of the throat. The silence wasn’t peace—it was waiting.

Glenn walked at the front this time. He moved slower than the others wanted, pausing at intersections, tilting his head slightly like a hunting dog straining for a sound too faint to catch. His hand trailed against the walls, fingertips brushing old peeling paint as if the building itself was guiding him.

Star noticed it first—how Glenn’s pauses weren’t random. He’d stop, cock his head, and mutter something under his breath. Not words Star could understand, but the cadence of someone listening, then answering. A low murmur. A one-sided conversation.

It set Star’s teeth on edge, but he didn’t dare speak it aloud. Not yet.

The corridors twisted, but Glenn never seemed lost. He led them past gutted breakrooms, supply closets that reeked of rot, doors swollen shut with moisture. Finally they came to one that was different:

A staff room, its door barred from the outside with a makeshift barricade—rusted metal rods, a wheeled cart jammed sideways. The lock itself was intact, but the wood was splintered from past attempts to force it open.

What froze them all wasn’t the barricade. It was the sight through the glass panel.

Inside, the lights were still on. Not dim flickers like the rest of the building, but steady fluorescent glow. And more impossibly, there was no rot. The walls were clean, the ceiling untouched by black veins, the air on the other side of the glass looking almost… sterile.

Andrea pressed against the glass, her voice low and urgent. “This could be it. If the mold and shit hasn’t gotten in there, maybe the supplies in there are still good to.”

Yasir shook his head, visibly unnerved. “Someone barricaded it for a reason. That’s not to keep things out—that’s to keep something inside.”

Glenn leaned close, peering through the crack in the glass. His breath fogged the pane. “There’s something in there,” he muttered. His hand drifted unconsciously to the barricade. “Something important.”

Star’s stomach twisted. The room looked wrong in its cleanliness, like an open wound that hadn’t bled. Every instinct screamed to leave it alone. But Glenn was already wedging his fingers into the barricade, testing its weight.

Andrea crouched beside him. “Help me with this. If there’s anything left worth using, it’ll be in there.”

Yasir hissed between his teeth. “And if there’s a reason the mold hasn't infected it yet? You’re asking to—”

Glenn cut him off, voice sharp but steady. “If we don’t take risks, we die anyway. Help me move it.”

Star lingered at the edge of the group, staring through the glass at the too-bright room. For the first time since the nightmare began, he realized he was more afraid of the clean light than the dark rot.

Still, as Glenn braced his shoulder against the barricade, Star felt his hands moving too, against his better judgment. The wood groaned. The metal rods scraped against the frame. Piece by piece, they began to break it down.

The barricade gave way with a final screech, metal rods clattering across the hall. Glenn shoved the door inward, and the clean light spilled into the dark corridor like a wound opening.

The staff room was wrong in its normalcy. Fluorescents hummed overhead. The air smelled only faintly of dust and stale sweat, no rot, no bile. For the first time in hours, they weren’t breathing infection.

They stepped inside slowly. Chairs were overturned. A table was snapped in half, its legs bent like broken bones. Lockers lined one wall, most hanging open, dented in with crowbars or boots. A fight had happened here—not recently, but desperate, violent.

Star lingered near the doorway, his eyes trailing across every detail. Blood had dried brown along the tiles, a single arc smeared across the floor like something—or someone—had been dragged. He crouched, touching the faint line, and shivered. Whatever had happened here, it hadn’t been clean.

“Uh, guys?” Andrea’s voice cut through the silence. She stood near the far wall, pointing. “Look at this.”

A whiteboard hung crookedly, marker still clinging to it. At first, it looked ordinary. “Keep this shared area habitable.” “Don’t leave dishes in the sink.” “Remember the cause.”

But the messages shifted as the eye moved down.
“Mother’s watching.”
“Remember to feed the Black Goat :)”
The handwriting grew jagged, rushed, letters slanting unnaturally.

Further down, entire words tangled together, letters scratched deep into the board like claws had guided the pen. Star had to squint, deciphering them.
“Mother’s milk keeps us Pure!”

The marker had dug through the surface, leaving grooves. The last line trailed into a scribble, incoherent.

No one spoke for a long moment.

Then a sharp metallic rattle broke the stillness. Yasir had tugged on the handle of one of the few locked lockers. “Why the hell is this one still shut?” he muttered, yanking harder.

The lock had already been half-bent, weakened. With a grunt, Yasir pried it loose. The door popped open—

—and something fell out.