Rain tapped against the window as wind crept through the crevices in the door. Horses galloped as police shouted down the street.

The five of us stood in hesitation as Payne surveyed the situation. I promised an explanation, yet I feared the truth would only dig our graves even deeper. There was but one solution that I could surmise. Reaching towards the small of my back, I pushed past the revolver and produced Dr. Prescott’s leatherbound journal.

Payne hesitantly took it and flipped through the pages. His brow furrowed as his eyes darted by all the esoteric symbols and notes. His expression made me worry that I made the wrong bet.

Horses galloped outside. I could hear the police banging on doors near my apartment. If I had to guess, the authorities would check the butchery in due time.

I required a more persuasive case. If Payne wasn’t thoroughly convinced by the time the police came, it was either the death of us or him. Knowing the truth did not sit well with him, I decided to take a different approach. I gestured to Hughes, cloistered in the shadowy corner of the room, caressing his bandaged flesh. “Look what they did to us, Payne.” I muttered, cutting through the deafening silence. “They were madder than us, and we were lucky to escape with our lives. Look at the ‘treatments’ they tortured us with.”

Payne’s attention was fully on Hughes, who avoided his harsh gaze. Hughes had regained just enough cognizance to recognize his lowly state, and the shame was clearly displayed in his demeanor.

Payne continued to inspect the example I offered him, weighing the likelihood that the hospital itself really was the enemy.

Before he could speak, a knock came at the door. Payne sat the book on the counter as he made his way to the entrance. Price fully drew his knife, anticipating the worst.

We all ducked low as the chimes jingled. Payne stood in front of a fat man garbed in blue. The policeman peered into the back of the building as he greeted the butcher. “Good evening sir.”

Payne responded curtly, his mind obviously still contemplating our plea. “Evening.”

Not finding any of us lurking in the shadows, the officer went back into a leisurely stance. “So then, I assume you’re the owner of this fine establishment?”

Payne sighed disdainfully. He as well as anyone in this part of the city had no liking towards the authorities. “That’s correct.”

“Wonderful.” The fat man said. He began to take an entitled step into the shop, but Payne did not move from his position in the doorway. Somewhat offended, the policeman spoke. “May I come in?”

Undaunted, Payne replied “No. There are unsafe instruments about… You could get hurt.”

The officer raised a brow and frowned at Payne’s audacity, but he still had questions that needed answering, which meant he had to act affably. “Do you know Theodore Chatwood? Lives across the street.”

Again, as bluntly as ever, Payne responded. “I do.” Before, he seemed thoughtful and conflicted, but now he was focused and attentive. Seeing the kind of people after us seemed to strengthen our case.

Things looked brightly until the police officer spoke once more. “Well, we’ve suspected him of killing a good man this morning… When was the last time you saw him?” Payne’s expression went from contempt to a grim realization. His eyes slowly moved from the police officer to his bloody hands. Blood from Dr. Prescott’s journal. The policeman took notice as well and gestured towards the crimson smudges about Payne. "And what happened to your hands, there?”

Payne grimaced. I could no longer tell if he was with us or against us, but at the very least he could not admit to having the blood of the victim on his own hands. He surmised an excuse quickly. “Just cleaned a pig. Was about to piece it apart before you came along.”

“I see…” The fat man said, satiated. He then went on to press his first question. “Now, Theodore Chatwood. Have you seen him?”

Payne sighed once more, his eyes quickly darting to me and then back to the policeman. After a long bout of hesitation, he spoke. “No officer… I haven’t seen him in quite a long while.”

The fat man frowned. “Well, that’s a shame. Let us know if you see him around…”

Still stone-faced, Payne nodded. “Will do. Have a good morning, officer.”

The policeman simply murmured in discontent as he turned and walked away. Payne slowly closed the door behind him, then rested his forehead against it. His stoic demeanor broke into relief, then it flashed to anger.

Price sheathed his knife, satisfied with Payne. The rest of us reemerged from our hiding places and waited in awkward silence.

Hughes muttered out a slow and barely comprehensible “T-Thank… You.”

Payne didn’t respond to the linen-wrapped man. Instead, he walked over to the counter, took Dr. Prescott’s notebook, and threw it toward me. “I want you all out. Now.”

There was nowhere for us to go, but Payne had done all he could be brought to. With hesitation, we exited into the alley from whence we came.

The police seemed satisfied with their search of the area, as none could be found. It was obviously still not safe to loiter on the streets or go to my apartment, but we could at the very least compose ourselves in the alley.

Price sat on a milk crate among the rubbish and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, where to now? They’ve almost definitely taken my boat by now. Nowhere for us to go…”

I opened Dr. Prescott’s notebook and looked back at the runic symbols and notes. Remembering what the doctor said, I mumbled to myself. “Nowhere to go…”

Emilia walked over to me and extended her hand, wanting to read through the journal herself. As I gave it to her, it occurred to me that the others had not even found out the horrible truth. Price talked about his boat and escape like there was a way to escape the inevitable.

The book was passed around, and it only took a few passages for every one of us to realize our situation was far grimmer than most had hoped. Price was the final one to read the journal, and his expression immediately turned to a deep frown as he flipped through the pages.

Everyone went silent and thought to themselves. Despair grew thick in the shadowy alley as rain poured down on us.

I looked to the grey sky and thought to myself. There was no way to run from our fate. Even if we succeeded in fleeing, the cycle would only be born anew with different victims of the profane gifts we were given. There was no way to run, and we had yet to even fathom the entirety of what we were subjected to. Beneath the hospital was a cavern full of tools and resources that would continue their evil… Unless we stopped it.

There was nowhere to go but back into the jaws of the beast. To the heart.

Emilia talked slowly and thoughtfully, the medication having all but faded from her. “Well… What now?” She looked at all of us, wallowing in our nihilistic future. “We all read the same book. There’s no running away for us.”

That was my time to speak what was on my mind. It was a brave idea, and altogether unlikely to come from my lips, but to me, it was our only choice left. “What if we went back… Tried to destroy it from the heart.”

Bradley mumbled, bringing our attention to him. The drugs had been wearing off on him as well, and his grasp of language had begun being brought back to him along with practice since we last met. Although struggled, he began to speak. “H-How? There… We… It…” Bradley’s words slurred into nonsense, but he did not quit. With a deep breath, he concentrated. “There’s no… Way… B-Back.”

Price nodded, moving on with Bradley’s sentiment for him so we didn’t waste precious time. “Even if we did want to go back to that God-forsaken place, how do you suppose we get inside again? Sure as hell can’t just walk through the front door.”

I sighed. There was no answer at the top of my mind. The police would be looking for us on the streets, and there would not be a single worker in the building that did not know our faces, especially with Hughes sticking out like a sore thumb. We needed a way of passage that went straight to the underground cavern…

Then, I looked at our surroundings. The freezing rain poured down harshly and pooled on the ground. The rivers of rainwater accumulated at the ends of the cobblestone streets and rushed downwards. It accumulated in a rushing waterfall, flooding into the drainage… Into the sewers…

“I-… Uh… I think there may be one way back…” I muttered.