Const Orphanage 10

Elvira snapped his fingers in front of Blair, startling her awake.

Blair looked at Elvira with her blue-green eyes full of certainty, "She's still here."

"That sure?" Elvira crumpled the paper again, tossing it in his hand.

"You don't believe me?"

"Where do you want to go?" Elvira pointed in two directions. "The basement or the expanded area?"

"You choose."

Blair tore off the doll's head and placed it in his hand, whispering, "I've already checked the new infirmary, let's go to the expanded area."

Suddenly, Elvira frowned and covered his ears.

A sharp monkey scream, coming from not too far away, its sound coarse and frenzied.

Blair looked puzzled at Elvira's action. Elvira, still covering his ears, got up and motioned for Blair to follow him forward.

The two figures, one tall and one short, walked down the deserted hallway, the weak lights flickering, emitting a low hum of electricity.

"What is that thing? I mean—" Elvira tried to recall the dog creature, gesturing with his hands.

It was a distressing and rather unpleasant memory.

"Hostel management," Blair replied with an air of it being obvious, even showing a hint of disdain in her gaze, "Didn't you guess?"

Elvira was taken aback, "You call it 'Hostel management'?"

Blair rolled her eyes, "The nearest entrance to the expansion area, I suspect, is on the basement level."

"Alright, let's go look for it."

Altair walked around the expansion area, noting the exterior seemed to lack windows. His hand brushed against the building's outer layer; the windows must have been cleverly concealed within the external walls. Breaking a window to enter might trigger an alarm.

He followed Elvira's scent, sensing that Elvira might have noticed something. At least, it wasn't too late for him to provide protection secretly.

Altair, hands in his trench coat pockets, followed the scent to the main entrance of Const Orphanage.

This was a Catholic orphanage, built during World War II, with its exterior made of stone walls. The mottled stone walls were covered in the traces of time, with moss and vines growing in the crevices.

At the entrance, he could smell the scent of children, like pure dandelions and the clean aroma of white birch trees on a snowy night. Predominantly, though, was the foul, sticky odor emitted by dirty, sinful souls entrenched within.

Accustomed to venturing alone into these earthly hells, he found a certain satisfaction in detecting any hint of normalcy amidst the mire.

Holding his breath and focusing, he reined in his own presence, stepping carefully through the first floor.

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At the end of the hallway on the first floor was the entrance to the basement stairs. Elvira listened intently to the sounds around him, sensing strange, faint noises coming from the other side of the basement walls.

Sounds like hands slapping against glass, and knocking.

Every door has a gap; by seeking out where the sounds are loudest and feeling for the slightest draft, one could find the door.

Elvira, holding Blair's hand and using the dim light from his phone, made his way down the dimly lit staircase.

Blair's hand trembled slightly, she whispered, "What are you listening to?"

Elvira patted Blair's hand, signaling her to be silent.

From not too far away, a childish song floated towards them, crisp and melodious, yet eerie as it echoed through the empty stairwell, accompanied by a knocking sound, two long and two short.

"Friends flutter away, like specters they swoon,"

"Dong-----Dong---Dong---Dong-----"

"Water pipes knock, a peculiar tune."

"Dong-----Dong---Dong---Dong-----"

Suddenly, Elvira's vision flashed, presenting him with fragmented images.

He saw a person in a lab coat, carrying a child over their shoulder, the child with brown hair, their face indiscernible.

In the staircase, at the fifth step from the bottom, the person pressed something on the handrail, and a door by the wall opened.

That was the entrance to the expanded section!

Elvira snapped back to reality. What had he just seen?

He quickly bent down and whispered to Blair, "What just happened to me?"

"You zoned out." Blair mimicked Elvira's dazed expression, "Like a dolt."

Narrowing his eyes, Elvira walked to the fifth step from the bottom, where he felt a faint breeze and slightly louder noise.

Gripping the handrail, he indeed found a protrusion that felt like a switch.

Under Blair's astonished gaze, he opened the door to the expanded section.

The door swung open to reveal darkness. It was like the gaping maw of a monster, hiding unknown fears within.

Altair, following the scent, arrived at the end of the first-floor hallway, likely where Elvira had passed through not long ago. He opened a door there, leading down to the basement stairs.

He paused at a particular step, reaching out to feel the handrail on one side and opened the door to the expanded section.

As Elvira and Blair stepped into the expanded section, they were hit by a bone-chilling coldness, as if they had stepped onto the edge of the underworld. The laboratory inside was enveloped in deep darkness, with the weak light from the phone flickering like a ghost's phosphorescence, eerie and frightening.

Around them, complex machinery and bizarre devices clung to the walls, resembling some kind of forbidden scientific altar. Some of the equipment blinked autonomously, emitting cold, harsh lights. The air was thick with a suffocating stench, assaulting their sense of smell.

Suddenly, a strange sound of hands slapping against glass echoed around them, now hidden, now apparent, like a ghost's call. Clutching the phone tightly, Elvira stepped towards the source of this terrifying noise. When the light from his phone shone on a glass cover, through the mirror, he saw his own reflection.

"Thud—"

That muffled knocking sound echoed once again in the expanded section, sending shivers down their spines. Elvira's eyes widened in shock—there was a person inside the glass cover!

The glass enclosure, measuring between 1.8 to 2 meters in height, was narrow and cramped. Inside was a beggar, not old but with a haggard face, hair dirty and disheveled, eyes dull and lifeless, mouth slightly open, emitting unintelligible murmurs that were chilling to the bone.

His clothing was ragged and torn, wearing a worn-out gray cotton jacket and dirty cotton pants, with feet shod in cloth shoes that revealed his toes.

He pounded on the glass in the light frantically, the sound growing louder and more intense. It echoed as if hundreds of people were knocking on the glass together.

Blair gripped Elvira's hand tightly, their heart rates accelerating.

Elvira's phone light revealed further in, where hundreds of glass enclosures, resembling upright coffins, were lined up, each imprisoning a person inside. They twisted their bodies like maggots, struggling to escape their invisible chains, their forms skewed as they banged against the glass.

This desperate struggle became the eternal action of this terrifying place.

Suddenly, a series of knocking sounds came from above them.

Using the light, Elvira saw countless glass coffins suspended overhead, filled with people. They too seemed to be desperately struggling to break free from this endless darkness and confinement.

This truly was a hell on earth.