MMPS Ch. 1

Chapter 1: Escape from the Basement

It’s midnight. The mortuary’s cold silence shattered with faint, muffled thuds from within one of the corpse drawers.

The latch on a storage drawer rattled loose before the metal panel groaned and slid open from the inside. A young man emerged, crawling weakly out of the dark enclosure and collapsing heavily onto the icy stone floor.

He wore a thin, blue-and-white striped hospital gown, his body so numbed by the chill inside the drawer that it took him nearly half a minute to muster enough strength to open his eyes.

His vision blurred, revealing a floor of aged terrazzo tiles, their cracks filled with grime. The surrounding walls, clad in discolored ceramic tiles, were streaked with rust and mold. A damp, mildewed odor hung heavily in the air.

A card lay discarded a short distance away. With trembling arms, he dragged himself toward it, plucking it from the ground. His frozen fingers ran over its raised lettering, absorbing the sensation as if to anchor himself in reality.

It was an ID card. The photograph showed a young man with sharp black hair and an unnervingly intense gaze, as though daring the photographer to meet his eyes.

The name read: “Yu An, Born in L999.”

He glanced down at the hospital bracelet on his wrist, the letters matching the name on the card. Yu An. That was him.

Yu An sat up unsteadily, his mind struggling to retrieve fragments of memory. But all that greeted him was a nauseating vertigo.

Absentmindedly, his hand brushed against his face. The touch startled him as he encountered the rough texture of a bandage wrapped around his left eye.

Instinctively, he pressed down on it—only to freeze in place.

His eye socket was hollow.

The realization hit like a cold wave, leaving him motionless for nearly ten seconds. Frantic, he patted himself down, searching for other injuries. Relief washed over him when he found no additional wounds and, more importantly, his vital organs intact.

Yu An’s thoughts turned grim. What other reason could there be for me waking up in a place like this? He grimaced. Being kidnapped. My organs harvested?

It was the only explanation that fit.

Bracing against the morgue’s central autopsy table, he tried to push himself upright. His palm slipped, nudging the table slightly. Yu An glanced down, realizing it wasn’t bolted to the floor but was instead a wheeled stretcher.

On the stretcher lay a body, fully covered with a white sheet.

Yu An recoiled instinctively, his hand retreating. He stepped back, cautiously observing the figure. Beneath the sheet, an enormous belly rose like a small hill. Limbs spilled over the edges, pale and doughy, resembling unshaped dough left to rise.

Swallowing hard, he averted his gaze, only for his back to brush against the icy doors of the corpse drawers. The rusted hinges emitted a high-pitched groan. Yu An turned swiftly, realizing that several drawers hung ajar, some wide open, others barely cracked.

Taking a deep breath, he scanned the room. The only exit appeared to be a heavy iron door across the room, facing the stretcher. Beyond it lay a corridor swallowed by darkness.

The air’s biting cold bit into his skin, and Yu An knew he couldn’t linger much longer without risking hypothermia.

Rubbing his stiff hands together, he shuffled toward the door. Peering through its narrow gap, he confirmed no one was outside. With a quiet push, he slipped into the hallway beyond.

The corridor was a tunnel of shadows, its damp chill clawing at his exposed skin. Only a faint green glow at the far end hinted at any illumination.

As he crept forward, a faint creak echoed from behind—a metallic groan, like the protest of rusted hinges. Yu An froze, straining his ears. Silence returned, save for his own shallow breaths.

At the corridor’s end, a glowing EXIT sign cast a sickly green hue over a mounted evacuation map. It read: Guxian County Hospital – Basement Floor.

The map outlined the hospital’s layout with precise labels for each room and exit. The basement had three potential escape routes: the underground parking ramp, the mortuary’s sloped transport tunnel, and an elevator.

Yu An investigated. The parking ramp and transport tunnel were both locked from the outside.

That left only the elevator at the far end of the corridor.

Above, heavy footsteps thudded against the ceiling. Someone—or something—was patrolling the ground floor. From the weight of the steps, they were big. Yu An’s lips tightened. They’re still here. Whoever had done this to him hadn’t left.

Avoiding confrontation was his only option. He pressed the elevator’s UP button, his finger trembling.

The elevator, already on the basement floor, responded immediately. Its doors slid open with a mechanical groan, revealing a narrow space reeking faintly of disinfectant. It wasn’t necessarily wide, but space was needed for stretcher beds with patients who couldn’t walk.

Inside, peeling labels marked four buttons: -1, 1, 2, and 3. The basement was the morgue; the first floor, the reception area. The second floor housed operating rooms, while the third was reserved for patient wards.

The first floor was out of the question—it was guarded. The second floor was dangerously close to the first. If his captors noticed the elevator moving, they could easily intercept him via the stairs.

That left the third floor. Yu An’s best chance was to climb out of a window and descend the building’s drainage pipes.

He jabbed the 3 button.

As the elevator ascended, warmth slowly returned to his limbs. The electronic chime signaled his arrival, and the doors parted with a dull clatter.

The third-floor hallway stretched before him, lined with tightly shut patient room doors. The dim light flickered erratically, casting eerie shadows that seemed to shift and breathe.

A metallic tang filled his nostrils, mingled with an earthy, musty scent—like dried blood and decaying straw.

Yu An moved silently, his steps muffled against the worn linoleum. The ceiling-mounted light has been around for years, with a thick layer of dust and moth corpses accumulated inside the lampshade, causing the light to flicker inconsistently. The closest storage room door was ajar. He slipped inside, heart pounding.

But disappointment met him. The room had no windows, its walls lined with towering stacks of cardboard boxes. The air carried the same strange, sour smell as the hallway.

He opened a nearby box, revealing rows of neatly packed glass bottles of disinfectant alcohol. Another box bore a tear along its side, and as Yu An’s gaze landed on the opening, his body froze.

A pair of hollow eyes stared back at him.

He exhaled slowly, calming himself as he recognized the “eyes” as part of a cheap plastic skull from a medical skeleton model. A cracked label on the box read “Fragile.”

Yu An’s gaze snagged on something unsettling—a goat skull perched atop the highest pile. Its horns gleamed unnaturally, polished to a shine.

The eye sockets weren’t empty. Artificial eyes, eerily lifelike, stared back at him with square-shaped pupils, giving the impression of malice trapped in resin.

Its inset, lifelike eyes—complete with rectangular pupils—seemed to follow Yu An wherever he moved.

The unsettling realism of the goat skull was out of place. Wasn’t this usually used as decor in wealthy homes? Why was it here in a hospital storage room?

A shiver crawled down his spine.

He backed out and searched for another room. Minutes later, he found an open patient ward.

This one had a window—but his hopes were dashed. Heavy security bars crisscrossed the frame, trapping him inside. Yu An slammed his fist against the windowsill, cursing under his breath.

The room itself was bleak: peeling pale green paint, outdated furnishings, and a broken clock showing 00:20, January 22, M022.

The broken air conditioner hanging on the wall stopped heating a long time ago, and the insulation of the old building is extremely poor. During the harsh winter, the indoor temperature seemed like it couldn’t even reach ten degrees.

To his relief, the bedside cabinet held a windproof jacket, matching boots, and a backpack. A quick search revealed a half-used plastic lighter beneath one of the pillows.

Yu An quickly dressed, lighting the tiny flame to warm his hands. Yu An felt the sting of the cold dull slightly.  As he stared at the battered backpack he had thrown aside, he felt a pang of familiarity.

Inside were documents of a National University Graduate Employment Certificate bearing his name: Yu An, a graduate of Changhui University.

It seemed that he was the owner of the bag,

Among those papers included employment rejection letters, a pristine transcript with stellar grades in technical subjects, but abysmal ratings for teamwork and participation.

As Yu An sifted through these, flashes of memory surfaced—interview scenes where he bluntly told recruiters, “I’m not good at dealing with people. Can you assign me to a role where I can work silently?” The outcome was always the same: rejection.

The pieces fit. He’d been lured here under the guise of a job interview, only to be trapped and mutilated.

What little dignity he had left vanished. Not only had he failed to secure a job, but he had also lost an eye in the process.

Now, the first thing he had to do was get out of this place or find a phone to call the police.

He slung a single-strap backpack over his shoulder, scanning the dimly lit room with a watchful eye. His hand moved swiftly, yet soundlessly, as he picked up the fruit knife from the empty plate on the bedside table. Edging toward the door, he pressed his body against it, angling his face to peer through the small glass window. The hallway beyond stretched in eerie stillness.

Pale light from the corridor filtered in, casting faint shadows. From his vantage point, he saw the nurse’s station—its door left wide open, gaping like a silent warning.

Yu An lingered in the doorway, his sharp gaze sweeping the surroundings. After observing quietly for a moment, he eased the door open, the faint creak swallowed by the oppressive stillness. He slipped out, moving like a shadow toward the nurse’s station.

Inside, darkness consumed the space. The overhead lights had been shattered, leaving jagged remnants of glass scattered across the floor. Cabinets lay overturned, their contents—glass medicine bottles and disposable medical supplies—spilled in chaotic abandon. The air was thick with the acrid tang of dust and something metallic.

At the center of the disarray stood an old, yellowed desktop computer atop a desk facing the entrance. To its left, a telephone lay on its side, the line crudely severed, coiling like a dead snake.

Yu An’s eyes narrowed. The computer, oddly untouched amidst the wreckage, still functioned. Tentatively, he nudged the mouse, and the screen flickered to life, casting a cold glow over the devastation.

In the brief light, Yu An’s hand darted to the severed phone cord. With the precision of someone accustomed to working with delicate mechanisms, he used the tip of the fruit knife to strip away the insulation from the wires. Twisting the exposed ends together, he quickly repaired the line.

This was nothing to him. Even the most intricate circuits posed no challenge; a simple phone wire was child’s play. With no electrical tape in sight, he pinched the wires together with one hand while reaching for the dangling receiver with the other.

But as he bent forward, the faint glow from the screencast a flickering shadow under the desk. Yu An’s peripheral vision caught it—a shape that didn’t belong. An icy chill surged from his fingertips, racing up his spine and settling like a weight in his chest.

Someone was there.

Under the desk, a nurse’s lifeless body was curled into herself, her eyes wide and glassy with terror. In her stiff hand, she clutched a broken phone, its jagged edge a mute witness to her final moments.

For several heartbeats, Yu An didn’t move, his mind processing what lay before him. Slowly, he reached out, brushing his fingertips against hers. Her skin was unnaturally cold.

She was dead. Blood pooled beneath her, partially dried, its surface marred by strange, distinct impressions. Not human footprints—hoof marks. Goat hooves.

The air thickened, the silence in the hospital pressing in on him like a living thing. Something here was deeply, viscerally wrong.

The hoof marks told a chilling story. The killer’s shoes bore goat-hoof patterns, leaving grotesque imprints as they stormed the nurse’s station. In their rampage, they’d smashed everything in sight and found the terrified nurse, who had hidden beneath the desk, only to meet a brutal end.

The blood, sticky and dark, indicated the murder was recent. Yet Yu An had heard no disturbance while in his room. The killer must have struck before he went on this floor.

His thoughts raced, piecing fragments of the scene together, but it was the hoof prints that tugged at something buried in his memory. A connection.

The fruit knife shifted in his grip, now held in reverse for better control. Hugging the corridor wall, Yu An moved like a specter toward the elevator, retracing his steps to the storage room he had visited earlier.

The door, previously ajar, now stood wide open. The faint light revealed what was missing: the goat skull that had once sat atop the stack of boxes was gone.

Yu An’s breath hitched. He reached out with the tip of the fruit knife, prodding the empty box. It was hollow, its interior lined with faint, familiar prints—goat hooves.

A realization hit him like a blow. When he had first entered this room, someone had been there, hidden beneath the goat skull, unmoving, concealed within the empty boxes.

*

Elsewhere in the hospital, a man stood alone in the glow of a surveillance monitor, his expression one of quiet amusement.

The black-and-white feed displayed Yu An, pressed against the corridor wall, peering cautiously into the storage room. After a moment’s hesitation, he slipped inside. When he emerged, his backpack was noticeably fuller, its weight pulling at the straps. Whatever he had scavenged remained a mystery.

The man smiled, leaning casually against the desk, his hands resting atop a résumé.

Name: Yu An
Major: Precision Instruments and Machinery
Career Objective: Development of Special Equipment

Certifications:

• IELTS 8.0
• Full achievement holder and speedrun record setter for over 100 horror games

Skills and Hobbies:

• Recreational shooting

Handwritten notes in the résumé’s margins betrayed a more profound story:

1. An academic prodigy with unparalleled talent in precision mechanics.
2. A past juvenile record for grievous bodily harm through intentional assault.
3. Displays abnormal thought patterns and potential for extreme behavior. Interviewers are advised to proceed with caution.