12:00pm, Friday, the end of another day at work.
When you imagined what your life would be like at 26 years old, you certainly didn't picture yourself washing dishes late at night at a crappy restaurant. Of course, very few young men would happily picture themselves in such a position, but bills don't pay themselves.
Even worse, although you lived close enough to walk to and from work, your daily commute took you through the condemned block.
Years ago, the city condemned an entire block of older buildings that had not been built up to code and were considered health risks. The condemned block was evacuated with plans to demolish the decrepit old warehouses and factories and rejuvenate the area, but for reasons beyond your understanding, the plans had been halted indefinitely.
It wasn't quite so bad during the day, but at night the eerie silence became infinitely more sinister. Occasionally you would peer at a boarded-up window and imagine that you saw something move. You found yourself flinching at the most innocuous sounds, from a tree branch gently scratching against a concrete wall, to the distant scratchy footsteps on unseen vermin as they scuttled across the rooftops.
Holding your phone aloft as a flashlight, you steadied your breathing and continued down the same path you took every night.
Something caught your attention; a soft scraping sound, perhaps just a piece of trash caught in the wind. You reflexively shone your light in the direction of the sound, mostly just to reassure yourself that it was nothing.
The light from your phone failed to reveal the source of the sound, but you did spot something you had never noticed before, a narrow alleyway between a massive decaying hospital and a half-demolished concrete building.
As much as you hated the idea of passing through a dark alleyway at this hour, you realized that this shortcut could potentially shave a minutes or two off of your usual winding journey through the condemned block. Holding your trusty light aloft, you began to slowly make your way down the alleyway. You kept your head tilted down, shining the light in front of your feet. This was partially so you could avoid tripping on the trash and debris that had accumulated over the years, but mostly to keep your overactive imagination in check.
That's when you heard it, a sound that turned your veins to ice. From directly behind you, a sharp intake of breath.
Whipping around as quickly as you could, you shone your light in front of you, revealing a thin human figure dressed in a filthy nurse's uniform, her face completely covered in bandages. The slender woman began to advance, her movements strangely twitchy and her posture limp, like a human-sized marionette operated by an unseen puppeteer. A shiny silver syringe glinted menacingly in her left hand.
Choking back a scream, you began to back away from the nurse and instantly collided with something solid, causing you to drop your phone. With your only source of light laying face-down on the floor, you never got to see who -- or what -- you had bumped into, but you certainly felt the massive hand that tightly gripped your shoulder as a chemical-soaked rag was pressed to your face. As your consciousness faded and your body went limp, the last thing you heard was a deep, raspy chuckle.
Blurry images faded in and out, ever so briefly.
You saw decaying roof tiles pass overhead as someone wheeled you down a hallway, a feminine voice humming tunelessly.
A face pressed uncomfortably close to yours, the features obscured by a surgical mask. Wild eyes stared into your soul, the pupils fully constricted.
Blinding lights, beeping machinery. Leather straps attached to your wrists and ankles.
Finally, darkness.