Ravenhall Mental Health Clinic

A towering white building stood not too far from them. While what first took their attention were the big letters painted with silver that seem to glisten under the sun that say, 'Ravenhall Mental Health Clinic.' At the entrance were two security guards. They're bulky and they looked quite intimidating. A revolver and a handcuff also hung by their waist.

As they get nearer to the building, albeit can be easily missed at first glance because of the row of mahogany trees and some bushes. Only the front of this building is spotlessly clean as if newly painted. While the ones at the sides, probably the back too, have some noticeable molds and mosses growing on them.

Zach and Odette tread carefully on the grayish brick road as to not gather unwanted attention. From the other people's perspective, they may only look like a normal couple walking slowly towards the clinic. But in reality, their hearts were about to break out of their ribcage. Suppressing their urge to back away and run back to the apartment, they wore a brave facade. Every step that they took required a great amount of courage as they gradually broke out a cold sweat.

The only thing they needed to do is to get inside, have an on-the-spot appointment with the clinical psychologist that Dr. Milani referred to them and go home. As simple as that. But it was easier said than done. As every step, every single second that they get nearer to their destination, they also felt like they are marching towards their grave. Like a prey walking willingly towards their predator.

Their speed slowed visibly when they were about three meters away from the security guards, feeling the gradual increase of their foot's weight. Never had they been thankful from the scorching heat of the sun till now, as they were sweating profusely. At least they have an alibi, or so what they thought. Because one of them scanned them suspiciously, probably noticing their apprehension.

Finally reaching the entrance, almost unconsciously, they held their breath. And the guard who stood on the right asked them, "Good day!! Did you come here for an appointment?" although what he said was nothing but a simple greeting and a question with no ill-intention at all. It sounded threatening. His smile looked menacing in their eyes as well.

"Uhm, yes. W-were here for Doctor Ava under the referral of Dr. Milani Clemintine." Zach answered while Odette pressed her lips into a thin line, clutching hard to the strap of her backpack making her knuckles turn white.

"Okay, you can ask the information desk for directions. But before that, we needed to check what's inside your bags."

These must be the longest moments they ever experienced in their twenty years of existence. Zach slowly opened the zipper of his backpack while the guard looked at what's inside. Books they borrowed from the library that they've forgotten to return. Some notebooks and the kitchen knife wrapped in a jacket that they missed somehow. At first glance, it looked like a normal student's bag. Wearing our school uniform and ID also helped.

Seeing that they didn't seem too fussy about the contents of their backpacks, they relaxed a little. Apparently, they only checked the surface. Well, who in their right minds would even get suspicious of a student just going to a clinic? If anyone does, then it would only mean either they suffer from a paranoid personality disorder or maybe they just don't trust anyone at an unbelievable level.

They hastily marched in, wanting to get away from the security guards even for a second faster. The information desk is not very hard to find as it was so visible that it is very hard to ignore it. It's painted with matte brown almost in the shade of gingerbread. Making it stand out all the more in the almost all-white interior of the clinic.

Waiting for them at the information desk is a woman wearing a turquoise long-sleeve button-up collared shirt. Her auburn medium-length hair is tied into a rather loose and slightly messy knot but still looked smart somehow. She stopped with what she was doing as she pushed her gunmetal framed glasses with her index finger before smiling at them enthusiastically.

"Hi! Good day! How can I help you?" Her cordial countenance made them less wary in some way.

"W-We're here under the referral of Doctor Milani Clemintine. Is Doctor Ava Adorjan here? I mean, is she available at this moment?" Odette was surprised at how Zach sounded decently confident knowing the current states of their minds.

"Okay, got it! Let me check for a moment." the personnel then started fiddling on her keyboard. "How fortunate! You came at the right time! You can meet her at her office. Just go along that hallway until you reach a double swing door, from there, turn to your left and just go a little bit further. Her office is very easy to find, it has a glass door and her name is basically written on it. Is there anything else I can be of assistance with?"

"No, we're fine. Thank you."

Following the personnel's directions, they went to the hallway that she pointed. They only noticed it now, but it seems that this clinic doesn't seem to make interior design a priority. It has an eerie feel to it, not in a creepy way. Needless to say, it was pretty bare.

The walls were all painted with white almost similar to that of an eggshell that goes along to the ceiling. The floor is epoxy coated, it also has the same shade of white. If not for the single line of navy blue paint on the wall of about four inches, one meter above the floor that goes along the hallway on either side, this hallway would have looked like a white room.

Along the way, they come across a young woman, probably at the age of thirteen, seated on a wheelchair being escorted by a nurse who wore a scrub. She made eye contact with them, but somehow, she appeared to be hostile at them. As if she was looking at some heinous criminals making Zach and Odette stop on their tracks. For some reason, it ignited a foreboding sense of dread within them, slowly, and surely, making its way into their system. Slowly eating them.

Odette held onto Zach's hands as they continued but this time, their speed slowed, feeling like the floor they walked a few minutes back transformed into a wooden hanging bridge. And now it is swinging side to side violently from the wind.

As the different kinds of smell wafted into their noses, the weird combination of antiseptics, the artificial fragrances contained in soaps, medicine, and many other things. It somehow triggered a memory in them. A lot of people who work in the medical field said that a hospital, a clinic, or any other medicinal facilities' scent smells like life and death altogether.

Some people upon smelling this kind of smell, a memory of their loved ones' death can be triggered. For others, the survival of an almost dead patient, to others, the screams of those who were rushed to the emergency room after an accident, for a few, euthanasia. Or the what you called mercy killing wherein you'll play God to end the prolonged suffering of the patient knowing that he no longer have the chance of survival.

But for Zach and Odette, a totally different case is happening. The sight of the white walls, ceiling, epoxy coated floorings is all gone. Instead, another place from their distant memory overlapped with their surroundings.

A filthy wall that has already lost its original color with all the black molds and mildew covering it, moldy tiled floor, wall-mounted telephone not too far away from them near the old and rusty wheeled stretcher. Soon enough, they began hearing footsteps from multiple people. They hastily jerked their heads to see where it's coming from only to discover three shadowy figures walking behind them.

The image of this and the clinic they're supposed to be at flickered back and forth. They wanted to scream and run away from this messed-up place but the tension seem to have made them lose control over their body movements.

They tried walking backwards away from the shadowy figures but it would also move along with them, then they felt the cold sensation of the steel double swing door with their backs. And it snapped them from their hallucination, or so they what they would call at what they just experienced. The first to come to his senses was Zach, grabbing Odette in one hand, he hauled her towards the entrance where they came in. They started sprinting as if their lives depended on it. The woman who assisted them at the information desk turned wide-eyed looking at them as they charged forward at full speed passing the guards who were also stupified at what had just occurred. They were caught off guard.

Thinking that Zach and Odette perhaps stole something valuable from the clinic as to why they started sprinting away, they chased them.

Seeing that they were being chased, their hearts started beating erratically. They can almost feel it breaking out of their rib cage. And maybe it's their adrenaline at work, they can feel that their senses heightened and they ran a speed they never imagined they could run.