Page 96 of Immersed
Then the moment passed. Whatever remained of her rational mind disappeared behind pure animal instinct. She began pacing back and forth in the narrow space, her movements agitated and unpredictable. Sharp protrusions scraped against the walls, leaving fresh gouges.
“Levi, get back!”Asher shouted.
But itwastoo late. Something triggered her flight response—maybe their voices, maybe just their presence—and she bolted toward them with desperate, uncontrolled panic. Not attacking, just fleeing like a wounded animal trying to escape a trap.
The sharp bone spur jutting from her chest wasaimedat Asher as she charged past them toward what she thoughtwasfreedom.
Levi didn’t think. He just moved, shoving Asher aside and stepping into her path.
The impactwasimmediate and devastating. A jagged protrusion punched through Levi’s abdomen with a wet, tearing sound. Her momentum carried her forward, driving the bone deeper before she crashed into the wall beyond, whimpering and cowering like a beaten dog.
“No!”Zoe’s ruined voice wheezed, her eyes focusing on whatshe’ddone.“No, no, no...”
Levi looked down at the gaping wound in his stomach, watched his intestines spill out through the torn fabric of his clean scrubs. The painwasdistant, shock numbing everything except the surreal sight of his own organs sliding free.
I need to put them back,he thought with strange clarity, pressing his hands against the wound and trying to push everything back inside.They’re supposed to stay in there.
Levi sank to his knees, his strength failing as blood poured between his fingers. Behind him, Zoe curled into a ball against the wall, whimpering and rocking back and forth.
Asher stood frozen for a moment, staring at Levi’s failing body. Then something shifted in his expression—a decision being made.
“I don’t want to keep going without you,”he said, his voice filled with a strange peace.
He reached out and snapped off one of the longer bone spurs from Zoe’s twisted spine, ignoring her whimper of pain. The piece came away with a sharp, jagged edge.
“Asher, no,” Levi whispered.
“I don’t want to do this without you,”Asher said, tears glittering in his eyes. He pressed a kiss to Levi’s forehead and drew the jagged bone across his own throat. Blood sprayed in a wide arc, spattering across Levi’s face as Asher collapsed beside him.
“Together,”Asher gurgled, his hand finding Levi’s blood-slicked fingers.
Together.
35
[SAVE DATA CORRUPTED]
Theworldjerkedbackinto existence with the sickening lurch.
Levi blinked rapidly, disoriented by the assault of daylight where there should have been none. The sanitarium’s exterior loomed before him, bathed in afternoon sun that cast long shadows across manicured grounds. Not the dark, blood-slick passages wherehe’djust died trying to hold his intestines in.
It didn’t make sense.
“Dude, you okay?”Jasper’s voice cracked through Levi’s confusion.“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”He laughed at his own joke, camera equipment balanced against his hip.“Kinda’ the point of this whole thing, though, right?”
Levi’s fingers instinctively patted his pockets. The journalwasstill there. Dr. Faine’s leather-bound research notes survived the reset. Sohadhis own crumpled notepad with the moving map sketched across its pages.
But this wasn’t right.
Every previous reset spawned them deeper into the scenario: first the meadow, then the van, then the sanitarium’s entrance, then thesafe room. The pattern had been clear: each new spawn point represented progress, proximity to some solution.
This wasn’t progress. This was regression.
It’s like I lost my save file. Why?
“Levi?”Owen called, struggling with an oversized equipment case.“Could use a hand here.”
Elliot supervised from a distance, scrolling through his phone. Maddie was arranging the ghost hunting equipment with surprising efficiency. Tyler carried tripods toward the entrance.
