Page 25 of Devoured

“You’ve been here a year?”I asked after a beat, just to change the subject. I didn’t want to think about Theo, about the past. Especially not here in the dark.

“A year,”she replied. “Twelve months of this place crawling under my skin.”

“That’s a long time.”

“Time doesn’t mean shit here. Could be a year, could be ten. Every day feels the same.”Marion’s voice turned bitter. “Varnar and Alan run this place like their own personal kingdom. And we’re just... entertainment.”

“They’re just doctors.”The words came out hollow, unconvincing, even to me.

Marion laughed harshly. “Doctors. Right. That’s what they call themselves. But there’s something wrong with them. Something evil. I can’t explain it exactly, but you feel it too, don’t you?”

I thought about Varnar’s hands. Alan’s cold embraces. The way the walls seemed to breathe at night.

Those damning red, glowing eyes.

“Maybe when our treatment is done, we can—”

“Get out?”Marion cut me off. “Nobody gets out of St. Dymphna. Not really.”

“But people must leave. Get discharged. Go home.”

“You really believe that?”Her voice went flat. “This place is all levels of fucked up. Take Nurse Patricia. She worked here for years. Started getting... creative with patients. They’d find these strange cuts, thin red lines that made no medical sense. Took them months to figure out she was using surgical thread to stitch patterns under their skin. Called it ’art therapy.’ After they caught her?”She paused. “Nobody saw her again. Not as staff. Not as a patient. She was just…gone.”

The silence that followed was nervewrecking.

“This place is hell wearing a hospital mask,”Marion continued. “I know you can feel it. The wrongness in the air. This place gives me the creeps.”

I wanted to argue, but the words died in my throat. She was right. There was something off about St. Dymphna—beyond just bad dreams and dead husbands showing up at night.

“You want to know what I’ve heard?”Marion’s voice came through the wall, barely louder than breathing. “This place wasn’t always a hospital. Used to be something else. A castle or some shit, way back. Some rich family built it on bad ground.”

“Bad ground? I think Tobias mentioned something about that.”

“Tobias.”I could hear the disgust in her voice. “That piece of shit is part of whatever’s wrong here. Of course he knows. But he’s not gonna tell you the truth.”

“What truth?”I asked.

There was a pause. I heard her shift on the floor, moving closer to the wall.

“Margaret was an old patient here. Real old. She told me stuff.”Her voice got even quieter. “The family that built this place—they brought something with them. Or maybe it was already here. A demon, she said. Something that needs to be fed.”

Margaret. The name sent a chill through me.

I saw her again in that chamber, standing still while the blade fell. Red, thick liquid everywhere. Those robed figures on their knees.

“You okay over there?”Marion asked.

“Yeah.”My voice shook. “Keep going.”

I pressed my ear against the cold stone.

“Margaret said the family tried to contain it. Built special rooms. Performed rituals. But it got out. Killed all of them in one night. Since then whoever owns this place… has make sacrifices to please that entity, demon or whatever it is.”

“That’s just stories.”I lied to her—and to myself.

“Is it?”Marion sounded tired now. “You’ve seen things. I know you have. We all have.”

“I haven’t seen anything.”The words stuck in my throat. “Just bad dreams. The medication—”