What Lies Beyond

Chapter 8 - Further insight

A slight awkwardness filled the sanatorium halls as the 7 patients just stood there in silence, Aviva directed her gaze upon Brinley for some sort of signal, but in response she gave nothing but an awkwardly wide grin and a nudge from the siblings.

She sighed, "Uhh hello.. there?" Brinley internally facepalmed, Aviva positioned herself in-front of the three newcomers and deeply inhaled. "So, as Brinley here already said, it won't be exactly fun here, you're gonna have to overcome a lot of things that'll make your insides turn inside out, sometimes quite literally. But Y'know, we got each other, and no matter how fucking cheesy that sounds, you're lucky." Aviva tried to smile only to form a weird smirk, she shook her head a little and took a step back. "So uhh.. Let's go to the cafeteria, don't wanna miss breakfast, again..". One of the boys who previously never said anything spoke "So, why are you treating us like we're toddlers? We're literally in the same generation as you, I think?" The boy was black, had short poofy hair with the standard turquoise sanatorium uniform on, and spoke in a calm voice. "I'm genuinely just curious though. My name's Elijah, as for these two? I don't actually know them, ha!"

The fearful lime eyed girl and anonymous boy had a good look at each other and everyone else in the area, they nodded before the boy spoke. "I'm Colton, and this is Audrey, we talked a bit on the boat." He was a white boy, with shoulder length light brown hair, and brown eyes, wearing the standard blue sanatorium uniform. Audrey had the blue one on also, she felt more comfortable in it.

"So can we get food now?" Lewis butted in, "And we better move fast because they're gonna stop serving shit." He extended his arm and pointed in the general direction of the cafeteria, and everyone mutually agreed to his statements, following him to what would undoubtedly be Urchin Stew.

8:15am
As anticipated, they were served Urchin Stew, Aviva and Brinley groaned while the siblings just accepted it as fact, however the newcomers were pretty fascinated by it "Urchin Stew? Does it taste good?" Colton asked. Aviva inhaled "Oh hell no it doesn't, trust me y-" Her mouth was silenced by Brinley's hand "Just try it." She grinned. Elijah shrugged "Eh whatever let's go for it" He scooped a portion of the soup up with the oversized spoon he was given, and placed it in his mouth. Instant regret, for all of them actually.

"THAT'S DISGUSTING" Elijah yelled, uselessly trying to scrape whatever off of his tongue in an exaggerated overreaction. "Look man you'll have to get used to it." Aviva shrugged, patting him on the back, clearly enjoying this. Colton slid his bowl to the side, pretending like it never existed, Lewis and Layla just sucked it up, eating whatever was left with scrunched faces, Brinley glanced at Aviva's over-confident face and body language, her face tinting pink a touch before attempting to keep her mind off of it, and Audrey.. Audrey seemed to be enjoying the soup? Yes yes, as expected this shocked everyone at the table, and the table next to them.

Audrey felt a poke on her shoulder, she swirled her body around slightly to face an extremely twitchy girl, her head and arms spazming out of control with a face covered in what appeared to be blood mixed with actual feces. "H-H-How could you eat that d-" Her head twitched furiously "Di-isgusting excuse for f-food?.." The girl's mouth curled into a blood thirsty smile. "I-I uhh. I-It's g-got a nice taste to me.." Audrey replied before quickly standing up from her seat "G-Guys we gotta go.." She left her plate and power walked right out of the door. "Wait why?" Lewis asked her, he heard heavy breathing and turned his head, seeing the same girl as she did. "Yeah! Let's get the fuck out of here." Lewis grabbed Layla by the arm, walking out, shortly followed by Brin, Avi, and the two boys. The cannibalistic girl giggled devilishly and licked her lips "How fucking cute~"

The rest of the day went as normal as it could get there, our main four showed the newcomers around, informing them of the daily routines and stuff like that. Audrey, Elijah and Colton were informed of the blurs, and how they can be controlled and cannibalistic tendencies contained by a good mental state. That all cannibals were taken by their sanity, allowing the virus to spread and turn them. The only way to save them from themselves was to give them the cure, what the nurses called "Holy Water" it was highly sought after by the sane, patients would keep stashes of it in their dormitories, hidden under floorboards and such.