With five people, they could split up into several groups and still have more than one person look out for anything. This was actually very positive, especially because the asylum wasn’t small.
They had to walk sideways to slip through the narrow gap between the building and fence towards the end. It evoked a sense of claustrophobia on anyone except Aspen – who was used to small spaces – so they all sighed a breath of relief after managing to get to the backside.
The fence didn’t end here, as you’d expect. Rather, there was a completely open field.
“No windows”, Amber pointed out, having looked back at the asylum. The whole backside of it didn’t have a single window.
“It reeks”, Aspen complained. The smell wasn’t that bad because they were outside, but there was indeed a subtle stench being carried in the wind.
At the end of the field, Honey was inspecting the fence while Deer was squatting down, digging on the ground with his hands.
They had the same idea.
“A cemetery. Makes it more convenient to get rid of anyone who might die during one of the treatments.”
“That’s suspicious.”
“Not really. Many old hospitals had private cemeteries.” River also considered the lack of windows. “The only windows we find are turned towards the courtyards. This could be to avoid people looking out into the cemetery. But there’s still an issue.”
Just to try it, he didn’t name the remaining problem but instead threw it to Amber with a look.
The girl tilted her head, checking out everything again. Then she clapped her hands together. “Door! There’s no door to enter the cemetery, either!”
“That’s suspicious.”
“This time, yes.”
There was no need for a cemetery unless you could access it conveniently. Instead there was only a narrow path where you’d have to walk sideways. They couldn’t possibly leave the asylum completely every time someone died and make a roundtrip outside of the fence before re-entering in the back?
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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The team spread out over the graveyard. River and Aspen stayed far away from Deer, but Amber, Plaster and Rhythm wouldn’t have any issues checking out his corner.
Aspen started sticking very closely to River. It was close to the point that River regularly bumped into him, but he didn’t complain about it or ask why.
In their countless talks, River had realized that Aspen had considerable self-control. He was very well able to resist the urge to shut down troublesome things, but the more he resisted, the more it would build up.
Before, killing smaller animals had been his outlet.
Now his outlet was putting his full attention on River and gaining some calmness from their interactions.
Before they gathered up together again, River touched Aspen’s shoulder. “Tell me before one of them gets too much.”
The smaller man gave him a thankful smile. He wasn’t that much different than the patients here, in a way – he wanted his situation acknowledged, then he was quite willing to work on it together with someone. He just turned aggressive at being treated like a monster.
Amber, Plaster and Rhythm acted a lot like docile subordinates. After reporting that they found nothing except for the somewhat obvious signs of things being buried everywhere, they waited for River to declare their next course of actions.
All hair on their bodies was raised in disgust at the cemetery situation, but they managed to push it down. Their lives were more important.
The easterner didn’t bother explaining but first walked back around the building. This time he approached a different area – the room connecting to the path that led outside of the asylum.
As expected, it was some sort of reception. River frowned at the closed door, but the person at the reception was turned away from it.
“I’ll open it. Everyone hurry inside, we can’t let her see the door move.”
On command, everyone rushed inside. The game was kind enough to not let the shadow react to the thankfully soundless door.
Everyone went to a different corner, checking it out.
“There’s a security guard in here.”
“This room says it’s an administration room… I can’t try to open it, the security guard is looking over here.”
“The receptionist has a visiting log.” Aspen glanced over the woman’s shoulder. “There’s several folders here but we might have to wait until nighttime when she’s gone.”
“Anything standing out?” River threw the sentence at Aspen while walking around the room, almost aimless.
His eyebrows kept on scrunching.
The reception was clean.
Not just clean, but clean even by modern standards. It was well ventilated, the furniture was in a good state, and the whole room was bright as far as he could tell with his grayscale view.
No matter how you looked at it, this was a respectable asylum. One with a lot of money, even.
“Nothing really. Looks all well documented.” Aspen tapped a finger on the table to make a small noise. He laughed as the shadow bubbled momentarily.
At not finding anything of interest, he stuck to River once more. River, meanwhile, decided to give everything an additional check before he was satisfied. He pointed to the right wing. “There was some sort of recreation room. Watch out for anything suspicious and let’s meet at the stairs at five.”
The bell had been chiming every hour, which made it easy to keep an eye on the passage of time.
Amber saluted jokingly and made her way over together with the silent two men. The more she treated this as an escape room – which she often played – the more she could relax. Aspen heard her try to soothe the two guys as they walked.
“Weird girl.”
“She’s grasping at straws. That’s not surprising, given the situation. Besides, it’s better for us to move in a group.”
“Because we can keep an eye on more areas at the same time.”
“Yes. I’m not going to treat this lightly again.”
If he was honest, River was quite tense at not having a single Actor yet. Even so, he didn’t dare skip anything – it was important to keep an eye on everything and once this round was over, find out how many tries they had. He didn’t believe there’d be only two again.
The recreation room was a brightly lit, large open room. There were bookshelves and sofas, tables and games. The patients were talking at leisure or doing something to relax while several nurses walked around talking to them.
There were security guards at the doors, but even those were conversing peacefully.
They started passing by the groups of people. River didn’t only take in what they were doing, but also their mood and behavior.
Even through the language filter, he could hear some people stutter or show tics. Some were a bit frantic and nervous while talking, while others weren’t in the mood to talk at all, but the overall atmosphere was relaxed.
No one forced those that didn’t want to interact, no one pushed the ones that needed time to react, and no one stopped those that were in a good mood.
“Okay, but this does look good?” Aspen was hesitant to voice his thoughts. He was watching a female patient draw the courtyard outside with its flowers and trees. “I imagined this to be worse when you mentioned those terrible experiments.”
“So did I… It’s not like there weren’t good places even back in the day, but I still don’t trust this. This only means that the darkness of this place is well hidden.”
Someone stepped through the open door of the recreation room and was kindly greeted. It was someone belonging to a different group; a man wearing something that should be a suit. He greeted not only the security guards but even the nurses in an amicable, soothing tone before making his rounds to greet every single patient.
If the patient wanted to talk then he’d stop, spending several minutes on a single person and taking notes on a piece of paper clipped to a wooden board.
“Names and little comments about their state of mind. Does he know everyone personally?” Aspen was surprised when he peeked over the potential Actor’s shoulder.
Thankyou for the chapter😘
Thank you!