Holy guacamole! It's been a while! Sorry about that. I've been busy with life throwing all kinds of stuff at me, and then I wanted a break for this weekend. That said, enjoy the new chapter! I really hope this is the last time I have to go on Hiatus for this long.

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The man walks behind James and Abby, while the woman walks ahead of them. When they reach the building, she pulls open the door, and holds it only long enough for everyone to pass through before continuing on. The interior of the building is as rundown as the outside. The large single room has several rectangular pillars spaced out evenly to support the roof. The white paint on the walls peels, and the floorboards creak under the group’s footsteps. This place must have been abandoned long ago, for obvious reasons. So why were these two white-haired people here?

The four continue silently through the space, stepping over broken or missing floorboards. At the end of the room are two doors, one marked men, and one marked women. The men’s door is boarded up, and the male stick figure is barely noticeable behind all of the wooden planks nailed across the door frame. The woman leads everyone into the women’s bathroom. The stalls reek of piss and vomit. Once the door squeaks closed behind him, the man walks over to the sinks, presses down on one of the soap dispensers four times, and then turns the hot water on in the next sink over. A rattling sound comes from the pipes. James half-expects brown sludge to erupt from the faucet. But the rattling continues, growing louder by the minute, and eventually resonates throughout the entire room. It then transforms into a low groan, like metal scraping against metal. For a split second, James feels a bit lighter, then a bit heavier. They are moving. The room is moving. ‘It’s an elevator’ James realizes. Abby appears to also figure it out.

Eventually, the scraping sounds cease, and the room comes to a halt.

“Through the door,” the man orders. James and Abby push open the door, revealing a much cleaner area than the room that door previously led to. A long hallway, similar to the ones in the hospital stretch out in front of them. Only this hallway has every florescent light shining steadily, reflecting off of the clean tile floor. James feels the man push him forward. His shoes squeak on the shiny tile as they are led past countless doors on either side of the hallway. They eventually come to a stop, and James and Abby are forced into separate rooms next to each other on the left side of the hallway.

The man follows James into his room. He orders James to sit down on the bed. Once James has sat, the man plucks a hair from his head.

“Hey!” exclaims James. “What did you do that for?” The man ignores him, pulling a small device from his pocket, and placing the hair inside. A small noise comes from the device, and it speaks.

“Hair dye detected. Pigment hex code 000000.”

“As I suspected.” The man mumbles to himself. “Handcuffs! Run tests for F1 through F6, as well as BWF.”

The box on James’s hands makes a small whirring noise, and James feels a quick sharp pinch in each wrist.

“Aah!” he cries out in pain. The machine continues to make odd noises. It then speaks.

“Subject tests positive for BWF and F5.”

“So, a wiped Knight huh?”

The machine speaks again. “Subject tests positive for BWF. Release subject now?”

“No, keep him restrained for now,” the man tells the box. He then begins out the door.

“Wait!” says James. “What’s a wiped Knight? What did your box just do to my wrist? What is this place?”

“Just be quiet and stay here until I come back.” And with that, the man closes the door.