The second floor of Blackwood Asylum stretched before Marcus like a corridor from a fever dream. The institutional green paint had faded to a sickly yellow-brown, and water damage had created abstract patterns on the walls that resembled organic growth. Emergency lighting cast harsh shadows that seemed to move independently of his flashlight beam, creating an environment where every doorway promised either revelation or threat.
Marcus's condition had continued to deteriorate as he climbed the stairs. His fever had climbed high enough to make him feel disconnected from his surroundings, and strange red streaks were spreading up his arm from where he'd scratched at an irritation. But the voices had grown clearer, more insistent, and they seemed to be guiding him toward specific areas of the building.
"The dormitories first," Lin Chen's voice suggested, as clearly as if she were walking beside him. "You need to see how we lived."
Marcus followed the corridor toward what appeared to be residential areas. The first door he opened revealed a large room filled with iron bed frames, their mattresses long since removed or rotted away. Small personal items were scattered across the floor—a hairbrush, a small mirror, photographs of family members who had probably given up hope of seeing their loved ones again.
But it was the walls that told the real story. Scratched into the plaster were messages from patients, desperate communications that revealed the reality of life at Blackwood. "They're poisoning us," one message read. "Dr. Voss is not a doctor," said another. "Tell my family I love them" was etched near one of the beds, along with a date from 1983.
Marcus photographed everything, but found himself working more slowly than usual. His hands were shaking badly enough to make it difficult to hold the camera steady, and his vision was becoming increasingly distorted. Colors seemed more intense than they should be, and he was beginning to see movement in areas where he knew nothing was there.
The voices were becoming more numerous and more distinct. He could hear conversations between patients, discussions of treatments and experiments, whispered plans for escape that had obviously never succeeded. The voices overlapped and intersected, creating a kind of auditory chaos that made it difficult to focus on any single thread.
"Marcus," Lin Chen's voice cut through the noise, "the medical wing. That's where they did the worst things."
Marcus left the dormitory and followed the corridor toward what appeared to be a medical facility. The doors here were heavier, with small windows that could be covered from the outside. Many of the rooms contained restraint devices—leather straps attached to bed frames, metal cuffs designed to immobilize patients during procedures, strait jackets hanging from hooks on the walls.
In one room, Marcus found evidence of electroshock therapy equipment. The machine itself was massive, with dials and switches that looked more like instruments of torture than medical devices. Burn marks on the floor suggested that the equipment had been used extensively, and Marcus could almost smell the acrid scent of electrical discharge.
But it was the photographs he found in a cabinet that truly horrified him. They showed patients before and after various treatments, and the progression was invariably the same. Admission photos showed people who, despite their mental health struggles, retained their essential humanity. But the later images revealed individuals who had been systematically broken—their eyes vacant, their expressions blank, their bodies marked with scars and injection sites.
Marcus recognized several faces from the files he'd found in Dr. Voss's laboratory. These weren't just medical records—they were documentation of torture, evidence of crimes against humanity conducted under the guise of scientific research.