The second-floor hallways were a confusing labyrinth of specialized clinics and diagnostic labs. Leo moved with a purpose that bordered on predatory, his encounter with the Orderly having stripped away another layer of his hesitation. He was no longer just a survivor; he was a force of order moving through a world of corrupted chaos.
The path to Stairwell B was clear, but the feeling of being watched intensified. The Sense Contamination skill was a constant, low-level thrum at the back of his mind. He was in the Night-Stalker's hunting grounds now, and the monster was close.
He found the stairwell. As he pushed the door open, the lights in the concrete chute flickered erratically, then died completely, plunging him into absolute blackness. The main door slammed shut behind him with a resonant boom that felt unnatural, too deliberate. The emergency lights did not kick in.
"Oh, you're clever," a voice whispered. It echoed from all around him, seeming to crawl directly into his ear. But this time, it wasn't Sarah's voice. It was his own.
"So very clever, Leo the Janitor," the voice continued, laced with a mocking cruelty. "You clean up the little messes. You trick the dumb ones. But you can't clean me up. I'm not a mess. I am the empty, quiet, perfect darkness at the end of everything."
His flashlight wouldn't turn on. The button was dead. He felt a profound, bone-deep cold seep into him, a supernatural fear that had nothing to do with the physical danger. It was an attack on his psyche.
"She's so scared, you know," his own voice whispered from the darkness above. "Your sister. Every creak in the hallway, every shadow under the door… I drink it up like fine wine. It's delicious. All that terror, all that fragile hope you gave her. I'm going to savor it right before I snuff it out."
Leo gritted his teeth, his hand tightening on his baton. "Show yourself," he snarled into the darkness.
"Why? I'm already here," the voice laughed. "I'm in the doubt in your heart. You're just a janitor. A fixer of broken things. What makes you think you can fix a broken world? You can't even fix your own family."
The darkness in front of him began to coalesce. It swirled and gathered into a shape of pure nightmare—a hulking, ten-foot-tall beast with too many limbs and a gaping maw filled with shattered-glass teeth. It was a personification of every fear he had ever had, a monster built from his own anxieties.
It raised a clawed hand to strike. But Leo stood his ground. He felt the terror, a primal urge to scream and run, but something else rose to meet it: a cold, stubborn anger. He was done being afraid.
The System, his class, had given him the tools. And the greatest messes weren't on the floor. They were in the head.
He closed his eyes, ignoring the phantom beast in front of him. He focused inward, on the cold fear that was trying to paralyze him. He could feel it as a contaminant, a psychic grime clouding his thoughts. He raised his hand, not to the monster, but to his own temple.
He whispered the name of the skill, not as a command, but as a prayer to his own beleaguered sanity. "[Scrub Clean]."
There was no flash of blue light in the real world. But in his mind's eye, a wave of pure, orderly energy washed through his consciousness. It was like pouring bleach on a stain. The supernatural dread, the crippling fear, the voice of his own doubt—it was all scoured away, leaving behind only his own clear, determined thoughts.
He opened his eyes. The hulking phantom monster flickered and vanished like a bad projection.
In its place, huddled in the corner, was the true form of the Night-Stalker. It was a thin, spindly thing, barely humanoid, its limbs too long, its skin the color of a day-old bruise. Its head was a smooth, featureless ovoid, empty save for a single, weeping eye that glowed with malevolent purple light. It recoiled as if it had been burned, its psychic attack turned back on itself.
It was a parasite that fed on fear. And Leo had just cleaned his plate.
The Night-Stalker let out a thin, reedy shriek of pure psychic frustration. It unfolded its limbs and scurried up the wall with the speed of a cockroach, its claws making no sound. It was an abomination of speed and stealth, but right now, it was retreating.
Just before it vanished into the darkness of the ceiling, it paused. It raised one of its long, spindly hands and pressed it against the concrete wall. The flesh of its palm seemed to phase through the surface, leaving behind a handprint made of fresh, wet blood.
A handprint that was, unmistakably, the size and shape of Sarah's. A threat. A promise.
Then it was gone.
The emergency lights in the stairwell flickered back on, casting a sickly red glow. The main door behind him clicked open. The trap was released. He was free to go.
Leo looked at the bloody handprint. The monster had fled, but it had left its mark. A contamination he couldn't just scrub away. He looked at his watch.
Time remaining: 18 MINUTES.