The Patient Speaks

Gideon watched the dark stairwell for a long moment before taking the last bite of his meal. He set his fork down on the ceramic plate and looked at the three people sitting near him.

"Were you all just exploring upstairs?" Gideon asked.

Edgar nodded in confirmation. "Besides the patient's room and our designated bedrooms, there are no other hidden spaces on the second floor. The layout is rigid. The patient's room takes up the entire left wing. Our individual rooms line the opposite side of the hall."

Gideon tapped his fingers against the wooden table, his brow furrowing as he processed the information. "Did you find any other clues?"

Maya glanced toward the ceiling. "There is always a strange smell up there. I cannot pinpoint what it is, but it makes you feel deeply uneasy. It lingers in the air."

"Does every room carry this scent?" Gideon asked.

Maya nodded slowly. "I would say the entire second floor is saturated with it."

Haley leaned forward, her eyes darting around the shadowy corners of the dining room. "There is something else that bothers me. It is strange. Every single room has its own attached bathroom. The layout is exactly like a prison."

Edgar let out a harsh scoff, pushing his glasses up his nose. "How would you know what a prison layout looks like? Have you served time behind bars? What is so strange about having en-suite bathrooms in a large mansion?"

Haley pushed her heavy wooden chair back and stood up, glaring across the table at the professor. "Have you never watched television, Edgar? You do not have to be a convict to recognize a cell block structure!"

Gideon stood up as well, placing his hands on the table to cut off the rising tension. "Haley makes a valid point. It is a strange architectural choice. The whole estate supposedly only houses the host, hostess, and their children. We saw a large group of kids earlier, meaning they likely all occupy the third floor. Logically, the second-floor guest rooms should not require individual bathrooms with identical setups."

Maya rubbed her arms as if trying to ward off a chill. "Maybe the hostess just values hospitality, even in a remote place like this."

Her voice trailed off into a whisper. She sounded unconvinced by her own desperate excuse. Silence fell over the dining room once again.

A sharp crash of shattering glass broke the quiet.

Chloe’s piercing scream echoed down the wooden staircase, tearing through the heavy atmosphere.

Every person at the table shot up from their chairs in an instant.

"What happened?"

"Should we go check it out?"

"Let us move, all together!"

The group rushed out of the dining room and scrambled up the stairs. As soon as Gideon stepped onto the second-floor landing, the scent hit him like a physical blow. It was a bizarre, rotting protein odor, thick and nauseating. There was no time to investigate the source of the smell. They shoved the heavy wooden door to the patient's room open.

The sprawling room was cloaked in deep shadows. It was illuminated only by a blood-red moonlight filtering through the heavy velvet curtains. The bulky man on the bed breathed with a wet, rattling sound. His swollen stomach rose and fell with each labored gasp. The steady beep of the heart monitor cut through the gloom like a metronome.

Gray sludge from the blender splattered across the hardwood floor, mixing with sharp shards of a broken glass bowl. Chloe sat curled in the far corner of the room. She hugged her knees tightly to her chest, muttering under her breath in a frantic rhythm.

Tessa rushed forward and knelt beside her on the floor. She wrapped a comforting arm around the trembling blonde woman.

Gideon walked over, his shoes crunching slightly on the spilled food, and crouched down. "What just happened here?"

Chloe kept her head tucked down. She raised a shaking finger and pointed directly at the massive, immobile figure on the bed. "He talked to me."

The group turned their collective gaze to the man. He lay motionless on the mattress, a true vegetable, doing nothing but drawing harsh, irregular breaths. The large room offered no other sounds but the rhythmic beeping of the machine beside him.

Edgar crossed his arms over his chest, his face set in a stubborn scowl. "Ms. Benson, there is no need to create such a panic. Comatose patients are not dead. They can vocalize or talk in their sleep. It is a basic medical phenomenon."

Chloe snapped her head up, tears streaming down her pale face. "No! It was not sleep-talking!"

Gideon studied the comatose man for a long moment. He stood up and gestured to Tessa. "Let us take her downstairs to rest and calm down."

He turned his attention to the doorway. "Duncan, help me clean up this mess."

Duncan leaned against the doorframe, crossing his thick, muscular arms. "Why do I have to clean up? She is the one who dropped it."

Despite his intimidating size and grumbling tone, Duncan grabbed a mop resting near the bathroom door. He began pushing the gray sludge around the floor. It was a dramatic contrast, this massive bruiser dutifully following Gideon's quiet instructions.

The tense atmosphere kept everyone else silent. The group was too rattled to care about Duncan’s minor complaints. They only wanted to get Chloe away from the oppressive red-lit room to find out exactly what the vegetative man had said to her.

Once the floor was somewhat clean, Gideon walked over to the edge of the bed. He bent down slightly, bringing his face closer to the patient.

The man remained frozen in his vegetative state. His heavy, rattling breaths were the only sign of life. His facial features were squished together from severe obesity. Gideon stared at the thick, overlapping folds of skin around the man's jaw. He wondered if the patient possessed the physical ability to open his mouth at all.

Finding no answers, Gideon straightened his posture and turned away. He followed Duncan out into the dark hallway.

But what he did not know was that the moment the heavy bedroom door clicked shut, the man on the bed twisted his stiff neck and slowly opened his eyes.