"Hey, everyone step back from the area, we do not need anyone else getting injured!"
A large fire was raging in the destroyed remains of several buildings in the downtown street of a city located somewhere in the United States. Sirens flashed and wailed as more rescue workers were rushing to the scene of the accident that happened just 10 minutes prior. A plane had crashed and took with it two residential apartment buildings.
As the fires raged, a man in a police uniform was trying to shoo away a large crowd of people that were recording the accident.
"Did you all not hear me? Back up, I said! You all are blocking first responders from the area!"
The crowd finally relented and backed up as rescue workers rushed in to start putting out the fire and remove debris. It did not take long before the fire was put out and rescue workers began shouting and looking for survivors. After many hours of search, however, only a single one was found.
The man was in a coma and was quickly moved to the local hospital as the story made national news. Over a hundred people were killed in the crash and it had been years since an airplane crash had happened. The last time had to have been in 2026 which was thirty-six years ago. Technology had advanced and with threat of yet another World War due to rising tensions between countries, security had reached an all-time high. Still, it would seem some things never change as black boxes were still utilized on flights to record information.
At 2 AM in the St. Crestel's Hospital, a nurse was walking room to room to check on the patients. Her job at this time was to check up on the more severe cases and do a simple passing check of the rooms containing the lighter cases. As she passed by yet another room, she paused.
*bang... bang... bang... bang*
A light sound of what seemed like a door being hit on could be heard by the nurse. As she entered the room, she checked up on the patient sheet and she realized it was the plane crash survivor.
"This is Nurse Jenny, the patient in Room 131 has woken up. Time is now 2:14 AM and the patient is creating a knocking sound inside the bathroom. Can I get Tom and Mark to come assist me?"
Jenny made a report on her CB radio. Standard procedure here was that if someone even thought there was the possibility that a patient could be trying to injure themselves, they needed to report and request assistance. With Jenny hearing the knocking from the bathroom, she assumed the patient may be trying to do just that. Could be survivor's guilt, suicidal tendencies, or some other thing. It was not Jenny's job to care for the 'why' they were doing it, just to care about it happening.
"Got it, I will send them down," came the voice from the radio.
n the meantime, Jenny now needed to try and get into the bathroom while waiting for her backup to arrive. She approached the door and gave it a knock.
"Hello? Mr. Carlton, can you hear me? Can you open the door for me?"
"GO AWAY!"
"Mr. Carlton, you are in the hospital and you are completely safe. I want to make sure you are healthy. Let me in, Mr. Carlton."
*bang, bang, bang... bang, bang, bang...*
The banging sound grew more frequent.
"Mr. Carlton, I simply cannot let you harm yourself! I am coming in!"
Jenny pulled out the master key and began to unlock the door.
"Alright Mr. Carlton, I need you t— W-what are yo—"
Blood splashed on the door of the bathroom as Jenny's body began to fall. Her eyes were wide and filled with terror as she stared at the thing before her. Slowly, those wide, terrified eyes began to lose their focus as her body fell to the ground. The door, now open, could not impede the thing inside as it began to walk out of the room.
A bit later, Tom and Mark made their way down the hallway of the hospital. As they neared Room 131, they began to smell something.
"Mark, you smell that? Smells like... blood!"
As he finished the last word, Tom and Mark looked at each other, worry showing on their faces. They ran to Room 131 and since the door was open, they got a clear view of the thing shuffling around inside.
"Wh—what the hell is that thing?!" Mark cried.
In front of the two men stood a humanoid figure with five arms growing out of the torso in different angles and locations. The arms ended in bladelike shapes seemingly made from bone and the two arms growing on the front of the torso were dripping blood. Pus-filled sacs covered the rest of the body and periodically burst before filling up and repeating the process. The thing's head had a massive growth on the back side of it making the head so heavily weighed down that it's face was looking at the ceiling. Probably the most disgusting part, however, was the thing's chin as it had a giant eye growing out of it with many more eyes clustered together and growing on top of the first one similar to a cluster of bubbles grouped together. As Mark cried out, each pupil turned in the direction of the voice.
The thing suddenly bent down a bit and then lunged at Mark, its bone blades waving about rapidly and making whistling sounds as they tore through the air at a fast speed. Before they could even blink, it had slashed through Mark. To Tom's horror, he watched as Mark's upper half began to slide off his lower half, intestines and other organs as well as blood spilling out in the process.
In a panic, Tom turned around and ran. As he passed the door, he had an idea and ran back to slam it shut. As he did so, the creature inside simply stared at him with its many eyes. Tom backed up from the door and as he felt that he was now safe since the thing didn't have any hands to open the shut door, he began to reach for his CB radio to call for help. He pressed down on the button on the side.
"HELP, MARK AND JENNY AR—"
Before his words were finished, the sound of glass could be heard as a bladed arm stretched and tore through the window, piercing Tom's neck. Tom tried his hardest to breathe, but with his torn neck, it was impossible. Despair filled his face as he dropped to the ground, suffocating all the while until the light faded from his eyes.
"Tom, you cut out on that last part. What about Mark and Jenny?"
A bang sounded as the door to Room 131 flew from its hinges. The creature walked out from it, its eyes all darting around in different directions as if thinking about where it wanted to go. Seemingly as if it had decided, it began to walk down the hallway, dragging its bladed arms as it went.
"Tom?"
***
"That was odd"
"What was?"
Two people sat in the communications room. One was a man in his thirties and the other was a woman in her forties.
"Tom was saying something about Mark and Jenny but he cut out before he could finish," the man in the room said.
"Maybe his radio died," the woman half-heartedly responded due to lack of sleep.
"I better call a couple people to go check on him just in case. After all, he did mention needing help."
"Good call."
Glancing at the list of people working at this hour of the night, the man made a decision and pressed the button of his CB radio.
"Can I get Dr. Hoffsman and Dr. Jenner to head to Room 131? Received a distress call from Tom so this should be urgent."
"We will head that way," came the reply from the radio.
"Guess that takes care of that," the man in the room said with a sigh.
"Yeah. Hey, I am going to make a run to the bathroom and then probably to the vending machine. You want anything?" the woman asked.
"Nah, I am alright. Besides, I don't think they've stocked that thing in over a month anyways."
"Suit yourself."
The woman got up and headed out of the room, leaving the man inside. A couple minutes later, after she had finished using the bathroom, she decided to head to the vending machine on the first floor instead of the one on the third floor which was closer to her. The rooms in the hospital were arranged with the first number describing the floor, the second room labelling the hallway number, and the last giving the number of the room in that specific hallway. She wanted to head down to do a little snooping in order to find out what had happened in Room 131.
As she hit the button on the elevator to take her down, she pulled out her phone and pulled up an app where people would post all kinds of relatively short videos. While others may use this app to watch people dance or act like fools, the woman had various news media recommended for her. As she scrolled, she noticed that the airplane crash was not the only terrible accident happening today. In just the last couple of hours, nine other planes had fallen around the world, thirty-two cases of mysterious murders were reported in the states surrounding her, and a massive deer the size of a truck was hunted down and had its photo uploaded to the internet in the town next to her current location.
"What the hell is happening? Has everyone lost their damn minds?"
There was probably more news to see, but before she could keep scrolling, the elevator let out a ding sound before the doors opened up. Reaching the first floor, the woman decided to head in the direction of the vending machine first as it was closer. Both the elevator and the vending machine were located in the first and arguably the main hallway of the hospital. When she reached the side room with the vending machine, she paused, surprise written on her face.
"Oh, Jenny, I didn't expect to run into you here."
Standing in front of the woman with her back facing her was Jenny. The two were pretty close as far as relations with coworkers go. The woman wanted to ask her what the emergency in Room 131 was, but her thoughts were swiftly interrupted as soon as Jenny turned around as, to the woman's horror, Jenny's scrubs were coated in blood on the frontside.
"My God Jen, what happened to you? We need to get you looked at!"
As the woman rushed forward to grab her, she suddenly pulled back swiftly, blood now pouring from her shoulder. Jenny had bitten her on the shoulder and ripped off a large chunk of her flesh.
"Jen, why...?"
The woman clutched her shoulder and backed up into the hallway. Looking at Jen now, she noticed more that she had overlooked. Her eyes were dull and seemed lifeless, her teeth were now stained with blood, and her nails were long, sharp, and an unnatural black in color.
Hearing footsteps coming from another hallway, the woman turned and saw something so horrifying, her feet almost gave out from fright. Standing there was the creature with the many eyes and the five arms. Behind it were about five more "people" similar in appearance to Jenny. The woman recognized these people as they were the doctors sent as backup, Tom, and a person in a hospital gown.
As the former people, now creatures, walked in, they all began to move towards the woman as if something about her attracted them.
"No, please, I want to live!"
Driven mad by despair, the woman shouted. Unfortunately for her, that plea would not be granted.