User blog:Stormlilly/IV. To your surprise, the figure is gone. Indeed, no sign of your struggle remains...

Perhaps you scared them away? The pain in your body subsides slightly as another wave of welcome endorphins shoots through you. You can do this, you tell yourself, shoulder itchy and swollen. You aren't scared of that freak, and you aren't leaving until you've found your friends. Besides - you need to stay here. You're safe here.

Where did that come from? The thought is odd - alien. Not entirely your own, and yet... Something, some part of you quietly acquieses. Though you're loathe to just up and trust weird gut impulses, it seems like your subconscious knows something you don't. Therefore... Yeah, it's probably best if you stay here for now.

Now that you've got a better chance at looking through the 'hospital' you can see how obviously fake the decorations are. The solitary gurney - art that is obscured to hide the fact there are no pictures, only frames - a boiler that could hardly heat a -

Wait a second. You walk up to the boiler, and give it a solid kick. The right side of your body heaves protest - but you ignore it as the boiler collapse around a hole, just large enough for a human to crawl into if they crunched up their body.

Scrunched up. Minimized. That's what you'd meant to think, but the image remains. Your vision swims again - vivid colors and lights dance around you. The faint smell of something hangs tantalizingly nearby. Fresh bread, or fresh soil, or freshly ground bonemeal - you can't tell which.

The place is getting to you, you tell yourself. It's definitely getting to you, you think as you lower yourself into the hole, fighting a horrible wave of panic as tiny, soft things stab into the underbelly of your skin. ''But that's fine. I'm safe here.''

And that's when the soil and insulation collapse around you, sending you rocketing downward. You black out.

When you wake up for the second time, your body is covered with bruises. Sod and faux-tiling coat your body, but that's unimportant - you're in an antechamber perhaps thirty feet by thirty feet - though it feels much smaller. The figure is staring down at you, impassively. It takes you a moment to realize it can't actually see you - for though it's lips are boring into your skull and it's single 'eye' is staring at you, its actual eyes are... Right. You have one chance. You -

Kill it.

Wait.

Question it.