THE GOD IN THE ASYLUM WALLS: SEASON 2
Where the Building Learns, the Walls Remember, and You Are the Next Assignment
CHAPTER 5: THE RECRUITMENT OF LAINE
The newspaper arrived at 3:33 AM, though Simon Voss hadn't ordered a subscription. It lay coiled on his welcome mat like a dead thing, the headline screaming in a font that didn't exist....letters squirming like worms in daylight. The obituaries section pulsed faintly, as if breathing.
Simon's fingers left damp prints on the page as he peeled it open. The ink smelled of formaldehyde and burnt hair. Between announcements for Eleanor Pritchard (1892-2023) and an infant named Daniel XIV (1931-1931), the job posting glistened like a fresh wound:
$300,000
For documentation of Willowbrook’s architectural anomalies
Requirements:
Must answer to "Laine"
No mirrors, cameras, or recording devices
Willingness to work the midnight-to-dawn shift
The word "documentation" stretched unnaturally across the column, the thirteen Ns in its middle vibrating like piano wires. Simon's vision blurred as he counted them—thirteen, always thirteen, no matter how many times he blinked.
The taxi that picked him up at 11:47 PM had no driver. The steering wheel turned itself, the radio playing a chorus of whispers that harmonized with the engine's growl. When Simon pressed a $20 bill into the payment slot, the dashboard swallowed it whole with a wet, satisfied sound.
The gates recognized him.
They didn't open.
They unpeeled, layers of wrought iron curling back like skin from a fruit, revealing a glistening underside that pulsed in time with Simon's heartbeat. The shadow he cast on the path ahead didn't match his movements....it walked three paces behind, taking notes in a tiny book that hadn't been there before.
The lobby greeted him with a sound like a thousand filing cabinets sighing in unison. The front desk was empty, but the ledger lay open to a page that hadn't existed yesterday:
"Laine I ...Assigned 6/18/2023 - Reassigned to West Wing"
"Laine II ...Processing - You're already here"
Simon's fingers itched. The pen beside the ledger was warm.
CHAPTER 6: THE WALLS THAT REMEMBER
The notes came at 3:03 AM, slithering from the air vents in a rustle of paper and something softer....fingernails, perhaps, or the dry scales of a snake's belly. They piled at Simon's feet, forming a nest of warnings in handwriting that shifted from elegant cursive to childish block letters mid-sentence:
"Rule 1: The building eats time before it eats you. (It's always eating.)"
"Rule 14: When you hear singing, it's not the walls. It's you. From later. (You'll understand when you join the choir.)"
"Rule 33: The teeth aren't for chewing. They're for counting. (Count yours tonight.)"
The last page wasn't paper at all, but a strip of X-ray film showing Simon's molars. Each one was numbered in red ink.
Thirty-two.
He was missing a tooth.
The blueprint of his childhood home was worse. Drawn in his own hand (he recognized the shaky star he'd always added to the attic window), it included rooms that had never existed....a porcelain-tiled chamber beneath the basement, a corridor that spiraled like an nautilus shell where his parents' bedroom should be. The date in the corner read "10/17/2024".
The walls inhaled sharply when he screamed.
Somewhere deep in the asylum, something clicked in satisfaction.
CHAPTER 7: THE CHORUS OF DANIELS
The rib-staircase had grown new bones.
Simon counted them as he descended....thirty-three ribs, then thirty-three again, then thirty-three more, though he'd only taken seven steps. The seventh sub-basement smelled of iodine and overcooked meat, its walls lined with jars that pulsed like jellyfish in time with the singing:
Daniel IV's vocal cords screamed the Lord's Prayer backward, the Latin twisting into something that sounded like "Save us from the Father, who art in Hell."
Daniel XXI whispered the 1987 stock market crash in perfect sync with the dripping of his jar's preservative fluid.
And Laine...or what had once been Laine...recited Simon's obituary in a voice that cracked like old parchment: "Dr. Simon Voss, 1989-2023, reassigned to the East Wing after unsatisfactory performance."
The surgical tools had organized themselves into a chessboard on the autopsy table. The scalpels were bishops, the bone saws rooks, the rib spreaders trembling pawns. They moved without being touched, playing a game whose rules Simon couldn't fathom.
The teeth watched from the sidelines.
All thirty-two of his.
CHAPTER 8: THE PROMOTION
Simon's wallet had gained weight.
The director's note nestled between his license (which now listed his name as "Daniel XXXIV") and a photograph of a woman who might have been his mother, if mothers had hourglass pupils and too many teeth:
"Congratulations. You've been reassigned."
The ink bled through the paper, staining his fingertips with words that hadn't been written yet:
"You'll make an excellent Daniel XXXIV."
"The walls are hungry."
"The walls are you."
When he looked up, the asylum had rearranged itself into a funhouse mirror of his face—his own features stretched across acres of brick and mortar, his lips forming the front doors, his left iris a stained-glass window that wept rust-colored tears.
The new job posting appeared in his mouth.
Not metaphorically.
He coughed it up at dawn, the paper tasting of blood and burnt sugar:
$350,000
For documentation of Willowbrook’s architectural anomalies
Requirements:
Must answer to "Simon"
No mirrors, cameras, or recording devices
Willingness to become the midnight-to-dawn shift
The typo this time?
"Become" instead of "work."
The extra E stood for eternity.
And the salary?
Paid in teeth.
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The building is hiring. The teeth are counting. You’re already late.
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Disclaimer: "This work contains original horror concepts. Any resemblance to actual sentient architecture is purely coincidental.
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About the Creator
Tales That Breathe at Night
I write what lingers in the dark—true horrors veiled in fiction, fiction rooted in truth. Some tales are whispered in graveyards, others buried in silence. If it gave someone nightmares, I’ll write it. Some stories remember you, too.
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CHAPTER 1: THE BLUEPRINTS THAT BREATHE The envelope arrived at precisely 3:33 AM, wedged between her apartment door and the frame. Dr. Laine Mercer hadn't heard the delivery, hadn’t even stirred from her restless half-sleep until the scent hit her—old parchment and something metallic, like a scalpel left to rust in a wound.
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Comments (2)
I loved the part about the surgical tools organising themselves into a chess table. That was a great image.
So haunting! The way the asylum rewrites reality is spine-tingling—amazing work! 😮