The Bonus Book

SCPU but my teacher read this pt. 3

(This was for an assignment. Made it abt creepypasta while being vague enough so that nobody would be able to tell, we know this)

(It was so hard not to make Natalie curse in this. It's in her blood)

—

Natalie turned the corner and blinked. This wasn't the base anymore.

She looked behind her, grip tightening on the ax, and furrowed her brow when she found the hall she had just run down was exactly the same. Still with the cold stone walls and clanging, wheezing pipes that gave off the impression of harboring some warfare gas previously unknown to man. But the hall she stood in now was...clean. Resplendent, or at least, it would have been had it not been completely empty like every hall before, with blinding overheads and pungently sanitized floors and windows.

Windows?

Natalie's gut sank. She recognized this place. The Elder was cruel, of course, but the last thing Natalie needed was for her to be smart; being caught in this morass of a glorified cellar felt undignified. She was above tricks and traps. She was probably a national threat by now, for God's sake. But the Elder was succeeding.

Natalie was back in the hospital.

She looked askance at the white walls, painted with smiling flowers, bees, and clouds. This was the wing she'd managed to escape to that summer. Natalie readjusted her grip on her ax, turning it haphazardly in her hands for comfort. She glanced down at her boots, muddied from the forest trail outside, and smirked as she watched them sully the pure floors of this wretched place. It was all an illusion, anyway; no disgruntled janitors to deal with.

"Natalie?"

She turned around. Something crawled around in her stomach, threatening to lock her chest mid-breath. Fear. Guilt. Shame.

"Natalie, come on, you know you can't be out here," Nurse Glass said as she walked down the hall, her voice thinly lined with honey. But somewhere below that was a swampy disappointment that made Natalie's heart sink. She shrugged Glass off when she rested a hand on her shoulder. She was hardly ever in a mood to be infantilized, let alone now.

"Yeah, so I know."

"Let's get you back to your room, okay?"

Natalie stiffened as the memory flooded back to her. Last she recalled, her "room" was coated in blood and the scattered remains of the so-called doctors who had tried to fix her just hours ago. The only reason she hadn't left for good was because this place was a labyrinth.

Glass touched her again. She swatted the hand away.

"No."

"Natalie—"

"I don't want to go back."

Glass sighed, the patronizing lilt of her voice dissipating with frustration. "What, are you planning to sleep out in the hall? Listen to me—"

"I don't have to listen to you!" Natalie locked her jaw to keep any real vitriol from spilling out. She could have torn Nurse Glass apart right now. She had done it. But the Elder was messing with her, making her befuddled and forget her mission. This was some kind of hologram, or maybe she'd slipped something into the vents to make Natalie hallucinate this; hell if she knew. She wasn't much for science.

Nurse Glass held out a hand with remarkable aplomb, considering Natalie held an ax in her hand. "Look. I know you want to leave. Everybody does. But we can't do that until we're all better, right?"

"You mean I can't do that," Natalie shot back by second nature. It was as if the words were being dragged from her, as if it wasn't even her saying them. "There's nothing wrong with you. You're perfectly fine, you just work here, I'm the one who can never leave because I'm never getting better—"

"The bed's already made, girlie."

Natalie recoiled. "Don't call me—"

Glass stepped closer and patted Natalie's cheek, in some weak attempt to pacify her. "There's a nice hot meal waiting for you in the dining hall once you've calmed down. We dropped a fresh carton of apple juice at your room—"

"Enough of this!" Natalie swallowed down another string of curses. "I'm not here for you. Whoever—whatever's doing this," she called into the bright space, "you can cut it out, because it's not working."

"But isn't it?"

That wasn't right. Glass was smiling now; not that simpering smile, or the one that almost put a crack in her teeth from hiding her frustration, but a chilling one. No one's mouth was supposed to stretch that wide across their face.

"You're such a malleable woman, Natalie. I can see why the Elder was curious of you."

And that wasn't her voice. It was lower, only vaguely human, almost a man's but not quite there.

"Why, you fell right into the part." She snapped her fingers and the happy, polished walls melted away to reveal something dank, dusty and rotten. "I thought it'd be a little harder to enervate you. I mean, it is a good thing you remembered, yes?"

"Remembered that you're just a hologram?" Natalie's voice was dry, wavering. She cleared her throat and shouldered past Nurse Glass, expecting her to dissolve into mist.

But she was still there.

Natalie paused, then turned back to face her. She slowly reached out to touch the nurse's shoulder, but Glass grabbed her wrist and turned her head with an unsettling crack.

"That you're in enemy territory."

Natalie scoffed and ripped her hand from Glass's grip. "Right. I'm guessing you're not her, are you?"

"The Elder? I'm not."

"You're some kind of actor, then? Real flesh and bone?"

"You can't kill me, Natalie. I understand it's your first impulse when met with adversity, but violence won't solve all your problems."

The nurse's attempt to pique her was admittedly a good one; Natalie was calmed only by the fact that she was, of course, dead wrong. "Really? And why can't I?"

"Because I'm quicker."

The lights above flickered on and off, and by the time they stopped, the nurse was gone.