PThwooooooomp..” the sound of Mike’s car engine stopping snapped him back to reality. He looked up, the hood of his red convertible was down revealing the starry night above him. “How long was I driving? Where AM I?” he thought to himself as his car slowed to a halt. He removed his foot off the gas and his hands from the steering wheel. “Dang, out of gas.” he murmured as he reached for the car handle. The last thing he remembered was angrily driving off from “POP-GOES ANIMATION STUDIO” right after he was fired. “Must’ve been in the zone..I wasn't the one lifting merchandise. I don't understand why I was fired! ..What i-in the name of..” Mike came upon the sudden realization he was in the middle of nowhere. “It’s pitch black! I really was out for a long time!” No headlights, no streetlights, no service.. He was stranded on a dirt road in a sandy pasture with nothing left to do but walk.
So that's exactly what he did, his clothes torn and his car busted, he wandered in the pitch black dark with nothing to light his way but his camera flashlight, which was without service and half dead anyway. The moon began to rise and so did the path Mike was walking down, revealing a large, warehouse like building with seemingly multiple floors over a hill. Upon walking closer to the intimidating structure in the moonlight, it was clear it was abandoned, with boarded up windows and doors, the people who were once here had left with no intention on coming back.
“ReagalWare Children's Hospital” read the sign hanging down at a slight angle above the main entrance. “An abandoned hospital..?” mike examined the boarded up front door with caution via his flash light. The nails were wobbly enough for the boards to be ripped out by Mike’s hands. “Probably mad coyotes out here.. Guess this is my only option for a couple miles. It's one night, how bad can it be?” Mike said, nervously.. and quietly.
Mike took a step into a destroyed corridor of what appeared to once be a lobby, then another, then another. “This is insane..” he thought to himself, but it was too late to turn back now. The distant sound of a coyote howling confirmed this decision. He navigated his way to a broken escalator, questioning if it was worth the risk, but there was no other way to get to higher ground. He walked up the escalator, each step followed with a small “creeeeeak..” that reminded him caution was key. Arriving at the top of the stairs he snuck down the hallway, running into one-to-many cobwebs and walked into a room with an open door labeled “MAINTENANCE ROOM” and stepped inside. Wandering over the broken tile and drywall spread across the floor he came upon a large grid with a lever. Above it buttons and a plaque with the word “GENERATOR” engraved on it. “I doubt it works..” Mike said as he tested his luck pulling down the lever.
“Woooooooooosh.” The dark hallway he had walked down previously was now dimly lit, and illuminated rows and rows of hospital rooms and torn up equipment and beds. A shiver ran down his spine as he was greeted with a larger, brighter room covered with a torn curtain instead of a door.” Before he knew it, Mike’s curiosity led him into the room and suddenly he was staring over a child's hospital bed, sheets ripped and stained, and a pile of destroyed metal parts spread across the surface. “What happened here?” Mike had enough with whatever was once in this room, he stumbled out of the eerie room feeling nauseous and was onto the dark parts of the hallway once more.
A large table like booth was further down in the wide hallway. Mike walked behind the counter and was greeted with files spread across the top of the cracked granite surface. Being cautious of the wires dangling from the ceiling above him, he flipped open a file, then another, most being patient or employee reports. “Theres gotta be something explaining what happen-” Mike was interrupted with the sound of a “CRASH!” from the room he was previously in back down the hallway. He picked up a handful of reports he hadn't seen, one of which being labelled “SENSITIVE CONTENT” he hadn't noticed before and began to sprint in the direction he came from facing the unknown headon.
Mike arrived at the room, and as his eyes widened, he realized whatever amalgamate was hanging of the bed, and the flickering light had been busted, leaving only the hallway light shining through the tattered curtain to illuminate the room. The sight almost made him drop the files he had carried in from the previous room, but as mike turned around he was greeted with the mangled machine hanging from the ceiling, jump scaring him with two glowing dots like eyes glaring inches from Mike’s head.
The head peered closer to Mike, he was frozen in fear. This couldn't be real he thought as he gulped. “S̴c͜àŕe̛͠d̛?͢ ̢T̡͘h̵͟eý ̷w̶er̀e̡͟ ͠t͜͢o̢͢ò̧͜.” after hearing the mangled bunch of wires speak, it was the final push Mike needed to sprint down the hallway. Mike could hear the sound of metal clopping on the tile behind him matched with the sound of his own feet darting back towards the escalator, nearly tripping down the hibernated set of stairs and grasping onto the only file he had been able to keep in his grasps, the one with large red print warning its content. As mark reached the entrance, he felt the robotic terror collide with him, trampling him to the ground. The file was thrown from his hand in shock, sliding from the previously boarded up entrance to the outside field. The wires wrapped around Mike, paralyzing him from speaking. “N̵o̡ ̷on͏̴͡e͘ ̧͘w̶͜͟i̴ļl̷͟ k̴͜n̵̨ow.̨͠” the almagamate yelled, tightning his grasp on Mike. As Mike began to sweat, he felt a burning on his leg. It wasn't the wires, but it was his phone viciously burning a hole through his pocket. As Mike realized it might have had something to do with the loose wires bolting out electricity making contact to his phone, an explosion of light blinded his eyes.
Mike’s eyes opened, and the sight of an ironically well lit hospital room was accommodated with a pattern of faint beeping. There was a familiar man sitting in a chair to the right of his neat bed he was laid in and table with tubes and orange bottles spread throughout. It was his ex boss. “Howdy Mike, you're finally awake..” He got up and pulled open the window blinds, revealing the sunshine and a sight of a busy city from above. “W-What happened..?” Mike asked in a strained voice, regaining his bearings and memory. “You were found in a burning abandoned hospital after, locals from miles down the road reported an explosion, and first responders were there in minutes.” “But what HAPPENED.” Mike said more agitated this time. Jeremy pulled a familiar file labeled “SENSITIVE CONTENT” out of a nearby bag and started reading from a clipped newspaper inside. “‘Many lawsuit reports have resulted in ‘ReagalWare Children's Hospital’ to permanently close soon after the staff was replaced with a robotic software that was claimed to do all the work of a normal employee in half the time over multiple devices. Soon after sceptical parents enrolled their children in the new healthcare, nearly three times as many patient deaths were reported in malfunction reports, leaving the only option being to scrap every device with the software and abandoning the building.”
“I-I think my phone triggered that explosion Jeremy..” “I was getting to that. ‘Many reports have shown that when the software came in contact, even through a small radius, of devices without the program, it would cause malfunctions anywhere from jolts of electricity to..”
“Explosions. Guess the software learned how to remain after being scraped from a device.” Mike interrupted. Jeremy walked to the hospital room door and proclaimed, “We found who was stealing merchandise, i'm sorry for accusing you. It wasn't worth all of this happening. You have your job back.” Mike smirked as the distant voice of Jeremy remembered “Oh, and our team found your car a few miles from the facility, the front desk has the keys. Leave when you're ready.”
”See you tomorrow.”
Endaste your essay in here…