The smell of antiseptic and rust clung to the air like a warning. Hannah's eyelids fluttered closed, every inch of her body aching as Timothée held her close. For a few moments, they remained still. The flickering fluorescent lights above them buzzed, casting harsh shadows across the room and the silence that followed was deafening.


Staying hidden in a storage room full of medical supplies—IV bags, unlabeled bottles, boxes of gloves, Hannah grabbed a pair of surgical scissors and tucked them into her hospital gown. 


"Just in case," Hannah said when Timothèe raised an eyebrow to which he then followed her suit and grabbed a used scalpel. 


When it was decided it was safe enough to leave the supply closet, they pressed on, this time with their steps slower and more deliberate. 


"Look an exit," Timothèe whispered. 


They didn't make it to the exit. 


Hannah was beginning to weigh heavily onto Timothée as she put all her weight on him. Timothée paused. "We can't stop, we have to keep going." She pleaded as Timothée motioned towards her bloody hospital gown. The crimson liquid soaked red as the thin fabric clinged to her small frame like a second skin. 


Timothée held her in place, "You'll bleed out before we make it to the exit." 


Hannah staggered, her knees buckling as she was about to collapse but he caught her before she hit the dirty, grimy floor. Timothée lifted her hospital gown to reveal her stitches had come out, leaving her wound open and oozing blood. Her torn flesh looked as if she was a piece of raw meat. 


"Shit," he muttered, pulling her weight up and dragging her back towards the morgue as Hannah pleaded not to go back there. She didn't want to become one of the many corpses that laid there. But Timothée threw the doors open anyway, leading her towards the metal table where she had first woken up. 


Timothée guided Hannah to lay down as he prepped for surgery. However as Timothée paused once more, his brain reckoned him if saving Hannah was worth it. She was practically already dead. He could escape. Maybe get help. But then he shoved down his guilt and continued to disinfect the scalpels and prepared the needle and thread. 


Hannah slurred her words, "Please . . . Don't cut me back open again." But Timothèe's hands were already moving. "You're already open." Timothée commented, lifting Hannah's hospital gown while held his breath and began to clean away the blood with some gauze. Yet the crimson liquid kept pouring out of her gaping wound. "Shit." 


"I'm going to stitch you back up." Timothée informed a half-conscious and half-butchered Hannah. "This is going to hurt."


Hannah's body jolted as he weaved the thread in and out of her bloody flesh. With each carefully calculated motion, the bleeding oozing out of Hannah slowed as he then began cleaning the edges of the incision. Hannah screams haunted Timothée as his hands trembled inside of her as if he was trying to sew a raw chicken. 


The stitches came slow, uneven, bloody. He was crying by the fourth one, silent tears streaming down his face as he forced her flesh closed. He had to blot constantly and to push torn muscle back under the skin.


"You're doing good." He said. 


"You're... full of shit," She said, eyes fluttering open and closed. 


When he finally tied the last knot, he leaned back, his sweat-drenched shirt clinging to his chest, hands soaked in her blood. Hannah similarly resembled Frankenstein. It was as if her lower abdomen was no longer apart of her. It was like he sewed the lower half of a corpses body onto her torso. 


Timothée looked back at the camera, cursing whoever was watching and suddenly gulped, "We have to move," he said, barely above a whisper. "Can you walk?" To which she nodded weakly. "Help me up." And so Timothée pulled her arm over his shoulder and lifted her down from the metal table. Her legs were trembling, but she stayed upright and together they hobbled toward the door.


Hannah began biting the flesh off her hands to keep herself from screaming any further. Now her throbbing, wounded hands bled onto Timothée. It just occurred to them that they were like cattle, ready to be fed on by their predators. 


"I'm going to get you out of here," he promised.


"I'm going to get you out of here." Hannah retorted weakly. "And you say that like you're not bleeding too."


Timothée hadn't noticed until now. The blood, the crimson wetness dripping down his thigh. A slice along his hip, reopened. "Shit." 


"Do we go back?" Hannah asked, referring to stitching Timothée back up. 


He shook his head, "Besides we're running out of time." 


They agreed to move forward. They continued on passing through the hallway when a hand suddenly came down on Timothée's shoulder that didn't belong to Hannah causing them to jump out of their skin. 


"Please, you guys gotta help me get out of here . . . Please, they're coming!" A young man coated in blood pleaded. 


Timothée shushed him vigorously. "You're going to get us caught!" He whispered yelled, pulling him into the supply closet. 


"Follow our lead but don't make a sound." Timothée instructed the estranged young man. 


They pulled each other along making it through the gates of hell. 


They did it. They were outside swallowed by the woods in the middle of nowhere. 


Trees pressed in like walls, tall and skeletal, their bare branches clawing the sky. The moon lit the path in fragments, just enough to see where not to trip, but not enough to know where they were going. "Which way? Hannah asked panicked. 


But the stranger was already on foot escaping through the trees before pausing to motion Hannah and Timothée to follow him. 


"Are we sure we can trust him? What if he's one of them?" Hannah said. 


"Let's hope not." Timothée responded taking her hand an dragged he towards the stranger whomlead them deeper into the woods.


"Almost there." He whispered, his voice hollow in the dark.


Hannah nor Timothée responded. Instead their heads bobbed like they were on the verge of passing out again.


The stranger stopped near a fallen log where another victim hid, a girl with nearly half of her guts and insides spilled out onto the cold, forest floor. 


She out of all of them was in the worst condition. And if she didn't get help soon, she was going to die. 


Together these four victims will drop like flies.