Chapter 3: Terror Rating

Chapter 3: Terror Rating

Sleep offered no escape. It was a hostile territory, a landscape of cold corridors and watching shadows. Alex returned to his second shift at the Cerulean Institute running on fumes and a gnawing dread that had curdled in his gut. The dream had been more than a nightmare; it felt like a violation, a surgical probing of his deepest fears. The alien thought, Subject is aware, echoed in the quiet moments, a constant reminder that he hadn't just been dreaming. He had been observed.

Jamie’s warning played on a loop in his mind: Don't get curious. Make yourself invisible. It was good advice, the kind a sane person would follow. But sanity felt like a distant shore. He couldn't shake the feeling of that cold, intelligent presence, the certainty that something in Wing C had reached out and touched his mind. He wasn't just mopping floors for a paycheck anymore; he was searching for proof that he wasn't losing his mind. His curiosity had festered overnight, metastasizing into a desperate, dangerous obsession.

His janitorial cart was his shield and his disguise. It gave him purpose, a reason to be lingering in hallways, his movements slow and methodical. But tonight, his eyes weren't on the scuff marks on the floor. They were scanning, observing, taking in details he’d ignored before. The sheer number of security cameras, tucked discreetly into the ceiling corners. The tell-tale shimmer of a laser grid across a service hatch he hadn’t noticed before. The way the few orderlies he passed—all with white keycards like his—never made eye contact and walked with a tense, hurried energy.

He saved Wing C for last, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs as he pushed the rattling cart into its suffocating silence. The air here was colder, heavier. Every step echoed. He kept his head down, the rhythmic slap of the mop a fragile defense against the oppressive quiet. He passed room after room of still forms, the flat green lines on their monitors like a silent, unified chorus. He could feel the memory of the shadow in the corner of his eye, a phantom that made the real shadows seem to writhe and stretch.

His gaze kept snapping to the door of C-217. He knew, with an instinct he couldn't explain, that this room was the nexus of it all. It was the source of the twitch, the shadow, the dream.

As he was mopping the floor directly in front of it, an opportunity presented itself. An orderly pushing a mobile computer station hurried out of a nearby utility closet, his face pale and stressed. He barely registered Alex as he rushed past, heading back the way he came, his white keycard swinging from his belt. But he'd left the station behind, its screen glowing softly in the dim corridor.

Alex’s breath hitched. This was it. He glanced down the long, empty hall in both directions. No one. His hands were slick with sweat as he abandoned his mop and glided over to the abandoned cart.

The screen displayed a patient database. A list of numbers and names. His fingers trembled as he touched the screen, scrolling through the list for Wing C. His pulse roared in his ears. C-215, C-216… There. C-217. He tapped the entry.

A patient file bloomed onto the screen.

SUBJECT: 217 DESIGNATION: EVE STATUS: STABLE (SOMNUS PROTOCOL 9.4) NEURAL ACTIVITY: NOMINAL

Then he saw a section below, a series of data entries logged by date and time. Most of it was incomprehensible jargon: "Cortical feedback levels," "Limbic resonance decay." But one column, updated just hours ago, made the hairs on his arms stand on end.

T-Rating: 8.7 (Spike) Notes: Unscheduled paradigm shift. Subject exhibiting high-level resistance. Manifestation exceeded projection parameters. Recommend immediate recalibration.

T-Rating? What in God's name was a T-Rating? He scrolled down, his eyes scanning past entries.

T-Rating: 6.2 T-Rating: 7.1 T-Rating: 8.4 (Breach attempt noted)

The numbers were climbing. A rating for what? Treatment? Tolerance? The word from the note jumped out at him. Manifestation. It was a strange, clinical word, but it sent a jolt of ice through his veins. He thought of the shadow detaching itself from the wall, a living darkness taking form. A manifestation.

His mind raced, connecting the dots. The dream that had felt so real, so invasive. The feeling of being watched. They weren't just observing these patients. They were doing something to them. Something that could be measured and rated. His gaze fell back on the top entry. T-Rating: 8.7. Terror. The word slammed into his consciousness with the force of a physical blow. Terror Rating.

They were rating their patients' fear.

The revelation was so monstrous, so fundamentally wrong, that he felt a wave of nausea. He was standing in a factory of nightmares.

Before he could process the full, horrific scope of what he was seeing, the world erupted.

A siren blared, not the rhythmic whoop of a fire alarm, but a discordant, industrial shriek that vibrated through the floor and into his bones. It was a sound of pure, mechanical panic.

WHUMP-CLANG!

He flinched violently as, in perfect, brutal unison, every door in the corridor slammed shut. Heavy, metallic thuds echoed down the hall as magnetic locks engaged with the finality of a tomb being sealed. The main lights in the corridor died, plunging him into a terrifying twilight, instantly replaced by the pulsating, hellish glow of red emergency strobes.

"FACILITY LOCKDOWN INITIATED. CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL ZETA ENGAGED. ALL PERSONNEL TO SECURE POSITIONS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."

The synthesized voice, devoid of emotion, boomed from hidden speakers, amplifying the chaos.

Alex stood frozen, the tablet slipping from his nerveless fingers and clattering to the floor. He was trapped. He was in a secure wing he had no authorization to be in, standing over a confidential patient file, as the entire facility sealed itself against a threat he couldn't begin to imagine. The sterile, quiet tomb had become a cage, and the siren was screaming that one of the monsters was now loose.