Pitch and Kathryn moved the last piece of furniture from the moving truck to his house before returning the rented truck and then going home to relax. Pitch looked at the spaces, now less open with the addition of new furniture. Rather than feel cramped it felt cozy, more lived in and comfortable. Before the house always felt so empty, especially considering there were rooms that had been previously unused by Pitch since he lived alone. There was an event office area and entire second bedroom that were almost completely untouched until now.
With the hard work done, they sat on the couch in the living room to relax, with Pitch reaching his arm around Kathryn and giving her a forehead kiss. “Now that we share a home it feels less like I'm squatting in an abandoned house.” Kathryn nuzzled into Pitch. “It's definitely nicer this way. Everything feels like it's going right. My brother knows about you and is oddly fine with it. We have a healthy loving relationship. You have a small social circle of people in the know you can talk to about anything. Honestly, what more could we want?”
Pitch rubbed Kathryn's shoulder on the side pulling her in more. “At this moment, I want for nothing. I do worry though, about the future. I try not to spiral out but there are so many things to think about.” Kathryn kissed Pitch on the cheek. “One step at a time, we'll cross bridges as they come. Let's just enjoy this moment.” Just after she said that Pitch's phone rang. Kathryn let out an exasperated sigh. “Jinxed it.” Pitch grabbed it and picked it up with Ishwada being on the other end. “Department of Human Resources, Serving humans since 1923. How may we serve you?”
Ishwada took a moment to respond. “Pitch, I know I said I'd avoid calling you unless I needed you or it was part of the list, but I definitely need you in this case. Shiro said something about sensing a heavy darkness on her way to the lake, remembering what you said I decided to make a surprise visit to Bedlam Asylum shortly after waking up. I'm not sure exactly what I'm dealing with and could use your talents.”
Pitch sighed. “I’ll be there shortly. But one of these days you're taking me on a case outside this city.” Ishwada responded quickly. “Sure thing, next case I get where they ask me to go outside my current post I'll bring both you and Kat with me. Just get over here quickly. I put a siren in your jeep during one of our previous cases in case I needed you to rush, use it.” Ishwada then hung up and Pitch put away the phone. “Sorry love, but looks like I'm needed.” Kathryn smiles and gives Pitch a kiss on the lips. “Go, do good.”
Pitch kissed Kathryn back. “I'll definitely give it my best attempt.” Pitch found the magnetic emergency siren and light on the floor of the back seat and placed it on his jeep before turning it on. The thing blared loud noises while flashing red as Pitch raced down the streets running red lights and dodging cars. He stopped right outside the asylum and next to Ishwada's Humvee, got out his jeep, turned off the siren, and rushed to the door of the building.
As Pitch reached for the door, before he could actually attempt to open it, the door opened from the inside. Instead of it being Ishwada as Pitch expected it was a balding old man with white hair in an oddly expensive looking suit. He spoke in a withered and weathered voice. “I don't know what that damned Jap told you, but I'll tell you what I told him. There's not a damned thing wrong going on in my asylum. I've been running this place for sixty years without a single major incident. There hasn't been an incident here worth reporting since my father ran in in the fifties and I was just a lad.”
Pitch simply scowled at the cantankerous old man. “Listen here you dusty bigot, I don't have time for you to play the denial game. There are potentially lives at stake here. And although you might not care about the lives of the mentally unwell living here, someone definitely should.” The old man crossed his arms. “I don't see no badge or warrant.” Pitch flashed his Black Eagle badge that Ishwada gave him and he forced his way into the building past the old man. “Now get out of the way and let me do my job.”
The old man grabbed Pitch by the arm and pulled it back, with a surprising amount of strength for his age. “You don't have the authority to-” Pitch pulled out his Watt Pistol and charged it, aiming at the old man. “I will not hesitate to fucking taser your dusty ass into the afterlife. I assure you, I have all the authority I need.” The old man took a step back and Pitch went to look for Ishwada. He found him in the cafeteria trying his best to calm and talk to one of the patients who was all out of sorts.
“THE SCREAMING! IT NEVER STOPS! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!” The patient gripped their head and thrashed. The other patients in the cafeteria were sitting with their feet on the seats and their knees up, hands on their heads rocking back and forth and muttering softly to themselves. The moment Pitch entered the room he suddenly felt a wave of vertigo and dizziness and had to steady himself. He felt slightly queasy, gripping his head as he slowly walked to Ishwada. “The air in this room is heavy, oppressive even. On top of that there's this… disorientation. Nothing makes sense and everything is entirely too loud.”
Ishwada looked at Pitch and reached out for him. “Are you okay?” Pitch shook his head. “No, but I'll power through it. Whatever is going on here, they're all feeling it. Confusion, and definitely not the normal kind.” Ishwada nodded and moved his focus back to the patent. “I know you're scared, but you help me. Where is the screaming coming from? If we can locate the source we can stop the noise.”
The muttering of the patients suddenly increased in volume, everyone in the cafeteria muttering the same thing in unison. “The stars are screaming. The stars are screaming. Calling out, crying out. Help us help us. The pain, the pain won't stop. Everything hurts, everything burns. We can't see straight, can't think straight.” Then they all shouted in unison. “THE STARS ARE SCREAMING!!!”
Pitch felt a second more intense wave hit him. His skin started to tingle and itch, his vision started to blur, his ears started to ring, and it felt like the air and ground had turned into molasses moving in slow but powerful currents around him. Pitch had to steady himself on a chair as he let out a gag noise. Ishwada looked at him in concern. “Maybe I shouldn't have called an empath to help with a case involving the mentally unwell.”
Pitch waved his hands back and forth. “No, I'm exactly the person you should have called.” He pulled a bottle of water from his hoodie and chugged it. “I just have to fortify myself a little.” Ishwada eyed the bottle that got drained in seconds. “Is that…. Holy water?” Pitch nods. “I managed to get some consecrated water from the Black Eagle equipment warehouse after that time I got it splashed on me. I already feel better.”
Ishwada made a number of faces as if having an internal debate. Then he spoke. “We tested holy water on the other Umbran way back when we drove it away from the woods the day my daughter died. It's one of the few things that hurt it in addition to powerful UV, sound waves, and fire if you do it right. But you… aren't hurt by it.” Pitch knitted his eyebrows for a moment. “I’m not entirely sure what to do with that information. I'll just… set it aside for now.”
Just then the person in charge of the establishment walks in having finally caught up with Pitch. “You people with your badges and your armor and your fancy guns need to leave right now. Your presence is only activating the patients. There's nothing illegal or strange going on here. These people are simply sick and need special care. There's nothing here for you to investigate and you don't have the authority to just waltz in here and act like you own the place. I'm a United States citizen and I have rights.”
Pitch waved his pistol around aiming it at the ground. “You have the right, to remain fucking silent. There's definitely something unusual going on here and you seem oddly keen to hide it. Some of these people may be prone to paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, or what have you. But if everyone is complaining about the same thing even when isolated there's definitely something behind it even if it's not what they think. I'd suggest you cooperate or things might take an unfriendly turn for you. I'm normally a calm and reasonable individual, but you are really trying my patience.”
The man angrily pointed his finger at Pitch and waved it between him, Ishwada, and the small number of Black Eagle personnel helping with the case. “I'm not going to just sit idly by as my rights are violated by some foreigner, his PMC goons, and a ghostly drug addict looking skeleton with skin draped over it!” Pitch could feel the anger rolling off of the old man and did his best not to let it affect him but couldn't help but growl. He was then distracted when he saw the nurses bringing out meds for the patients. Instead of pills in a small paper container like one would put ketchup in at a fast food restaurant and a disposable cup for water they were handing out colored sports bottles like a jogger or cyclist would use. The ones unable to take meds traditionally get injections into I.V bags attached to stands.
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Pitch knitted his eyebrows and pointed to the bottles. “That's unusual.” The old man crossed his arms. “We find they take their meds better if we dissolve them in water and act like it's just a normal drink to wash down food and hydrate with.” Pitch squints at the old man. “I would like to see the patient sheets and the meds each person is taking.” The old man shakes his head. “That would be a clear violation of HIPAA.” Pitch rolled his eyes and walked over to a patient, kneeling down to talk to them. “I'm awfully thirsty, do you mind if I take a sip?”
The person slowly looked at Pitch with a dead lifeless stare. The life that was in them when they were chanting and yelling earlier seemingly gone. Pitch grabbed the sports bottle and lifted it. The old man scolds him. “Those are expensive antipsychotics, and you don't have the authority to take and test-” The old man stops mid sentence as Pitch squirts some contents into his mouth. A dark tea-like liquid came out of it. Pitch swirls it in his mouth and swallows.
Pitch then smacks his lips together a few times. He then shivers and makes a bleh sound. “I’d recognize this taste anywhere.” He points and moves his finger from table to table. “Grab every one of these sports bottles and handcuff that man. This right here is the opposite of an antipsychotic. It's Black Lotus tea, with an extra kick from having the mold that grows from oranges aka unprocessed LCD in it. Alexander Tsukolos created a similar concoction in highschool via special milk tea.”
The Black Eagle soldiers eye one another before shrugging and doing what pitch said. All except one who's armor had the name Anderson on it who just stood there. Pitch continued as Ishwada handcuffed the old man. “I woke up three days later after having met god. This stuff may be watered down but it contains illegal substances and giving to mentally unstable people is clearly an abuse.” The old man objected. “No evidence you find here is admissible in court without a warrant.” Pitch waved his pistol at the old man. “I will fucking gag you I swear to God.”
Anderson crossed his arms. “How can you be so sure that it is an enhanced version Black Lotus? I've had it before and one wouldn't know it wasn't a normal herbal tea just from tasting it.” Pitch sighed. “Run it through one of those portable scanner things like what Ishwada used to check the DNA of that pregnant woman from… you know the case. Ugh, having a civve in earshot kinda sucks. Do we have code words or something we can use?”
Ishwada chuckled. “I'll get you a pamphlet, but it's a number thing like what cops use.” He then hands the portable scanner to Anderson while holding the cuffs with his other hand. Anderson puts some liquid into the test tube and loads it into the scanner. “Ingredients include water, cannabis extracts, peyote extracts, hallucinogenic mushroom extracts, ergot fungus extracts, and small amounts of refined LSD. By the way it infests grains not oranges but that confusion could be due to old naval stories. The mold on oranges is basically the same as the so-called black mold on other fruits.”
Ishwada looked at the old man. “Okay, explain why the hell you are giving a high grade mind altering hallucinogenic to mental ward patients.” The nurses suddenly tried charging for the old man and trying to attack Ishwada but were quickly detained, complaining the entire time. The old man tried to get free but couldn't. “You don't understand, you couldn't possibly understand. You haven't seen what's on the other side of the white door.” He then looked at Pitch. “You… you've seen it. Why are you trying to stop me when you've seen the white room? You've heard her voice, felt her embrace. I'm just trying to regain what I lost when I left the white room.”
Ishwada forced the man into a chair and used a second set of handcuffs to tie him to it. “It looks like the guy running this place is more insane than the people in it.” The old man struggled. “They are vessels now, so that I may record the word of God. The whispers of Creation.” Pitch groaned and gripped his head. It seemed as if the shadows were moving. “Ugh… I think I might somehow be hallucinating even though that shouldn't be biologically possible for me.” He wobbled a bit and had to steady his footing.
Ishwada moved over to Pitch. “Do you need more water?” Pitch shook his head as he started to hear what sounded like a heartbeat once more. “(It's like with the Banshee and Whispering Despair. When there's an actual threat to me my body starts weighing out and I hear a heartbeat.)” “This cult stuff isn't the only thing going on here. There's an A.L.F. here somewhere.” One of the patients grabbed Pitch’s shirt by his shoulder. “Brilliant blue star, deep in the darkness. Why won't you let me see you shine? I hear your sparkle, I know you're there, but your light is lost to me. The stars are screaming, only your light can push back the darkness. The Beast of Bedlam watches from The Hollow.”
Ishwada grumbled. “This would be a lot easier if we had a credible witness who wasn't talking nonsense or in riddles.” Pitch looked around the building. “Does this building have a basement?” Anderson looked through a folder. “Blueprints show one, likely used for storage.” Pitch gives a nod. “This place may be big but not that big so I imagine you guys have been in every room outside the basement.” Anderson nodded. “Did a full sweep of all the rooms with people in it, but the basement was locked and the codger wouldn't open it.”
Pitch looked at a small ventilation shaft. “Alright, I could probably get in there without a key but then I wouldn't have backup. Breaking down the door is our best option if we want someone besides me down there.” Ishwada chuckled. “Maybe you can pick the lock.” Pitch knitted his eyebrows. “I have no experience with such things and the keyhole is too small for my normal tricks. If it were an old fashioned lock I could do it.” He then walked over to one of the doors leading to the basement and jiggled the locked handle. The old man seemed oddly calm, and started humming.
Pitch looked over to the old man. “When you saw the lady, what did she say to you?” The old man perked up. “I thought you'd never ask. Once she got my attention I only got one word. Return.” Pitch hummed and put his hand on his chin. “Return?” Pitch grumbled. “Anderson, did you check his desk for the key?” Anderson nodded. “Desk is locked as well.” Ishwada patted the old man down and found a small key and tossed it to Anderson. “This should unlock the desk and the basement key will be in it.”
Pitch sat down as the shadows waved around more intensely. “In absolute darkness, when all else is lost.” Ishwada tilted his head. “Is that part of a phrase?” Pitch shrugged. “When I nearly died I had this strange dream-like experience. I stepped into an old looking white door with an oblong handle and the little bumps in a circle. You know those old oval shaped handles… the door had claw marks across the little rectangle shapes on the face. Inside the door was a hallway of dingy looking arms and hands. Whispering, grabbing, pleading.”
Pitch took a breath. “Then a pristine and feminine hand reached out from a gap in front of me and pulled me away from the hallway. There was a bright light that blinded me, then I found my head in a lap and face being slapped awake by a woman trying to get me to focus and stay with her. I opened my eyes to a white room and a glowing lady in a white dress with hair of liquid gold flowing as if we were underwater. A common description many give of an angle during near death experiences. Despite this being a bit different from both popular depictions of angels.”
Pitch's hands started becoming expressive. “Apparently not only is seeing this lady or something like it a common experience near death but even more so for those that almost die from Black Lotus overdose. Most who come back only remember one or two words spoken by this lady of light if any. Usually it's something like: Live or Incomplete. Letting the person know it's not their time being the interpretation. However, during my three days I got a full sentence. She seemed insistent that it was important and that I remember everything I saw in the white room.”
Ishwada squinted. “So there might be something behind his madness and not just your normal anomaly?” Pitch shrugged. “I'm not sure, but I sometimes refer to the lady of light as the Mother of Creation or Spirit of Creation. Because that's what it felt like she was intended to represent. I didn't put anything behind it at the time besides how scared I was at nearly becoming past tense.” Anderson finally came back with a different key and unlocked the basement door. Once it opened Pitch nearly fell over as he was hit with a new and intense wave of emotion and other more primal feelings.
The moving waving shadows suddenly creeped out from the corners and started covering more of the room. Pitch gripped the chair he was using to steady himself. He heard Ishwada calling his old name but it was distant despite him being nearby and the shadows overcame his vision leaving him in darkness. Pitch's hand gripped tighter and finally some of the darkness cleared. Pitch was still in the hospital but it looked like it was nighttime and the building was suddenly empty. Not just empty but it looked like it had been abandoned for years.
The windows were all broken and the area was overgrown with vines and other plants. The thorny vines had little flower buds on them that suddenly started blooming like a wave in a stadium crowd then shut just the same. The door to the basement that was closed again slowly opened and Pitch watched it with anticipation as his hands clenched tighter, breaking the chair. Then he saw a shadow moving from the stairwell. Out from the shadows of the stairwell crawled an unholy abomination. A human arm that looked like melted and burned flesh slapped out dripping a strange liquid and it pulled itself into view.
An amalgamation of twisted melted blackened flesh like a dozen people all melted together and missing parts like plastic figurines placed in an oven. Twisted and broken off limbs and bits of melted flesh dripping off as numerous melted faces twisted and contorted to face him. Eyeless and skulls partly showing the mouths of the three two five distorted faces that could aim his way all opened as if to scream but all that came out was a garbled and distorted bubbling noise. Despite this, Pitch still heard a voice. It was like a choir of whispers all trying to reach out at once.
“Pain… endless pain. Suffering. Suffering. Please… peace. Bring me peace. End the screaming. Bring me… silence once more. Send me back to the void.” The twisted, melted amalgamation reached for Pitch causing him to jump back and let out a scream. Pitch hit the floor and it was like someone flipped a light switch. The room was back to normal and everyone was looking at him as his shocked face darted around the room. He could still hear the sound of a rushing heartbeat but he knew it wasn't his own. Pitch slowed his breathing as he had started hyperventilating as if out of muscle memory.
Pitch pointed to the open, empty basement doorway, his arm shaking. “N-no one else saw that just now?” Ishwada had his hand reach out for Pitch. “Maybe you should take a breather outside.” Anderson handed him a silver metal flask with a golden cross on it. “Holy water, I heard you say it calms your nerves.” Pitch chugged the flask and felt a wave of calm wash over him. “I'll be fine, just keep the holy water coming. Whatever is affecting this place it's far more powerful and dangerous then anything we've encountered before.”
The old man started to wiggle and shake in his chair. “You saw it, didn't you? The angel of God. Be not afraid of its appearance for it is a messenger of his word.” Pitch got up with the help of Ishwada and Anderson and brushed himself off. “I'm not sure what I saw, but it sure as shit wasn't an angel. It was like… the amalgamated pain and anguish of the people abused here given physical form and molded into one twisted flesh. I'd throw up if I could.”
Pitch took a few breaths out of habit to try and calm himself more before making his way to the basement. “Getting rid of the anomaly isn't going to fix things, not fully. What we need is to overhaul this entire facility. Or at least the staffing. Killing and containing monsters doesn't do much good if you don't remove what created them.” He then entered the door into the stairwell, looking down into the dark basement, unsure of what exactly to expect.
