Chapter 14 Reskin
Reskin
“We have n-nothing to discuss,” Levi said, pushing confidence into his voice he didn’t feel. He stepped toward the doorway, refusing to acknowledge the arm blocking his path.
Asher’s fingers wrapped around Levi’s upper arm with surprising strength, spinning him back into the room. Not violent, exactly, but firm enough to make Levi stumble against the metal bed frame.
“Do we have a fucking problem?” Asher’s voice remained level, but something sharp glittered beneath the surface. “Because you’ve been cold as hell this entire trip. Mean-mugging me since we left the city.”
Levi’s breath caught. This wasn’t the measured, predatory speech patterns he remembered. This Asher sounded... frustrated. Almost hurt.
“I haven’t been—”
“Bullshit.” Asher stepped closer, forcing Levi to crane his neck to maintain eye contact. “Yesterday, you were excited about the audio setup. Talking about how we could layer ambient sound with real-time recording. Today you won’t even look at me.”
Yesterday. Another manufactured memory. Another piece of false history the game had crafted.
“I’m just stressed,” Levi deflected, fighting the urge to step backward. The bed frame pressed against his legs, trapping him. “Big investigation. Lots of pressure.”
“Stressed about what?” Asher’s eyes searched Levi’s face with uncomfortable intensity. “I’m trying to do the job you hired me for. Set up clean audio so your content doesn’t sound like garbage. But every time I get within ten feet of you, you act like I’m carrying the plague.”
The genuine confusion in Asher’s voice made Levi’s carefully constructed rationalization waver. This didn’t sound like manipulation or psychological warfare. This sounded like a colleague trying to understand why his working relationship had suddenly deteriorated.
He really doesn’t remember. This version of him has no idea.
“Look, I’m sorry if I’ve been weird,” Levi said, forcing his shoulders to relax. “You’re right. I’ve been in my own head too much. It’s nothing personal.”
Asher’s grip on his arm loosened but didn’t disappear entirely. “You sure? Because if there’s something I did—”
“There isn’t.” The lie came easier than expected. “I just... I have a lot riding on this video. I need this to be good.”
For a moment, something flickered across Asher’s features. Almost like relief. “Okay. Good. I thought maybe...” He shook his head, releasing Levi’s arm. “Never mind. Professional paranoia.”
Professional paranoia. As if he were worried about keeping this job, maintaining this working relationship. It was such a normal, human concern that Levi felt his worldview tilt.
“We’re good,” Levi said, taking a step toward the door the moment Asher’s arm dropped. “Really.”
But Asher moved with him, not blocking this time but walking alongside him. “I’ll help you set up that recorder. Make sure the levels are right.”
No. I need space. I need distance.
“That’s okay. Zoe will be back soon.”
“Two minutes,” Asher said, already pulling the cable from his shoulder. “I want to test the signal strength before we go live.”
Levi found himself nodding despite every instinct screaming warnings. This felt too normal, too reasonable. Just a sound technician wanting to check the equipment before recording. Nothing threatening about it.
Except five different versions of this man have killed you.
They moved back toward the visitor’s room where Zoe had left the first recorder. Asher knelt beside the device, producing a small handheld meter from his pocket.
“Signal’s clean,” he announced, adjusting something on the recorder’s base. “No electromagnetic interference from the building’s wiring.”
Levi forced himself to breathe normally, positioning himself near the room’s entrance where he could see both Asher and the hallway. The fading sunlight cast everything in amber tones, softening the harsh institutional edges of the sanitarium.
Levi’s fingers found the straight razor display case behind him, running along its wooden edge for reassurance. A weapon. Something sharp. Something he could use if this version of Asher remembered his true nature.
“You seem jumpy,” Asher observed, following Levi’s gaze to the display case. “More than usual for these investigations.”
“Just the atmosphere,” Levi said. “This place has a different energy than our previous locations.”
“Noted.” Asher slung the remaining cable over his shoulder before he arranged a series of large backup batteries near the outlets on the ground, then paused. “Levi?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re partners on this. Whatever’s bothering you—professional or personal—you can talk to me. I’m not just the sound guy.”
The sincerity in his voice made Levi’s throat tight. This version of Asher seemed to care about their working relationship, their friendship, whatever bond existed in this manufactured reality.
If only you knew what your other selves have done to me.
“I know,” Levi said softly. “Thanks.”
The sharp crack of power strips snapping into backup batteries echoed through the room, followed by Asher’s methodical testing of connections.
A thunderous slam reverberated throughout the building—doors banging shut in rapid succession like dominoes falling. The sound rolled through the sanitarium, each impact harder than the last.
Asher didn’t even flinch. He continued adjusting cable connections as if massive doors slamming themselves shut was normal behavior for abandoned buildings.
Levi’s head whipped toward the hallway, then back to their room. Both doors—the one they entered through and a second door leading to an adjacent room—had closed completely.
Night’s falling. The next phase is starting.
“D-did you hear that?” Levi asked, his voice pitched higher than intended.
“Old building,” Asher replied without looking up. “Temperature changes cause wood to expand and contract. Drafts catch doors that aren’t properly latched.”
The casual explanation felt rehearsed, too convenient. Levi approached the main door and tried the handle. It turned, but the door itself refused to budge, as if something massive pressed against it from the other side.
“It’s stuck,” Levi said, pulling harder.
Asher stood, brushing dust from his knees. He tested the door himself—a gentle push, then increasing pressure. Nothing. The door remained sealed tight.
“Interesting,” Asher murmured, examining the frame. “No external lock mechanism.”
Levi grabbed his walkie-talkie, thumb jamming the transmit button. “Tyler? Zoe? Anyone copy?”
Static hissed back, broken by fragments of electronic noise that almost sounded like whispers.
“Zoe, do you copy? W-we’re locked in up here.”
More static. If anyone was responding, their were voices lost in electronic interference.
“Could be interference from the building’s electrical systems,” Asher suggested.
Levi tried the second door with growing desperation. Same result—immovable despite having no visible locking mechanism. Even the handle turned freely, as if the doors themselves became solid barriers.
“This has to be some kind of safety system,” Asher said, circling the room like a predator inspecting territory. “Places like this housed dangerous patients. They needed rooms that could be sealed from the outside for containment purposes.”
“Containment?” Panic crept into Levi’s voice despite his efforts to control it.
“Think about it—psychiatric patients in the 1960s weren’t treated with modern understanding. Violent episodes, suicide attempts, escape risks.” Asher’s explanation sounded reasonable, clinical. “The building might still have mechanisms designed to lock down sections automatically.”
Levi pressed his shoulder against the door, straining with all his weight. The wooden frame didn’t even creak.
“We’re trapped,” he said, more to himself than Asher.
“Temporarily contained,” Asher corrected calmly. “There has to be a release mechanism. Hospital administrators wouldn’t have installed permanent locks—too much liability if staff needed access during emergencies.”
Fighting down hysteria, Levi forced himself to think like Ethan would. This was a game. Ethan always said games had rules, patterns to figure out. If they were trapped, there had to be a way out—some action or discovery that would trigger the next sequence.
“You’re right,” Levi said, his voice steadier. “Let’s search for anything that might control the doors.”
They began exploring the room systematically.
Asher checked electrical outlets and wall panels while Levi examined the furniture and medical equipment displays.
The visitor’s room contained more artifacts than he’d initially noticed—vintage medical instruments, patient records, even personal items that might have belonged to former residents.
Behind the straight razor display case, Levi discovered a leather-bound logbook chained to a small lectern.
The pages were yellowed with age, covered in handwritten entries dating back decades.
Most were routine administrative notes, but bloodstains darkened several pages, the brown stains forming abstract triangular patterns across the text.
“Find something?” Asher asked, appearing at Levi’s shoulder without warning.
Levi’s body went rigid at the proximity, but he forced himself not to step away. “Patient log. Looks like visitors had to sign in.”
The entries revealed a pattern—one name appeared repeatedly throughout the years. Dr. Faine had signed in almost daily, sometimes multiple times per day, visiting patients across different wards. The frequency seemed obsessive, irregular for standard medical rounds.
Dr. Faine. That name means something.
At the bottom of the lectern, a pen dangled from a thin metal chain, its ink should have been long dried. Levi lifted it, testing its weight. Still functional despite its age.
Sign the book. It’s what the game wants.
Without fully understanding why, Levi positioned the pen above a blank line at the bottom of the current page. His fingers hesitated, hovering over the paper.
“What are you doing?” Asher asked, genuine curiosity in his voice.
“Following procedure,” Levi replied, scrawling his name in the logbook with deliberate strokes. The ink appeared darker than expected, almost black against the yellowed page.
He placed the pen back in its holder, the chain clinking softly as it settled. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the building groaned around them like something alive.
A soft mechanical click echoed through the room as the second door—the one leading deeper into the hospital—disengaged from its frame. The sound was barely audible, like a lock tumbler falling into place, but in the tense silence, it might as well have been a gunshot.
Levi’s head snapped toward the noise, relief flooding through him despite every rational thought screaming warnings. An exit. A way forward. Even if it led deeper into whatever nightmare the game constructed, it was still movement, progress, escape from this increasingly claustrophobic room.
Thank God. I don’t care what’s waiting out there—ghosts, monsters, anything—as long as it’s not—
Asher moved closer to examine the guestbook, his shoulder brushing against Levi’s arm as he leaned in. The contact sent electricity racing across Levi’s skin, every nerve ending suddenly hypersensitive to the warmth radiating from Asher’s body.
“Smart thinking,” Asher murmured, his voice dropping to that familiar register that whispered threats and promises across multiple deaths. The words ghosted against Levi’s ear, intimate and dangerous. “Good boy.”
Heat shot straight to Levi’s core, his body responding before his mind could intercept the signal.
His breath hitched in the quiet room. The praise shouldn’t affect him like this—shouldn’t make his chest flutter, shouldn’t send tremors of want spiraling through his abdomen.
But his treacherous body remembered that tone in different contexts.
Fuck. No. Don’t react.
Asher straightened, stepping back to a professional distance. When he spoke again, his voice returned to normal—casual, collegial, completely innocent. “Let’s go find the others.”
The shift was so complete, so seamless, that Levi almost convinced himself he imagined the entire exchange. Almost. But his flushed skin and racing pulse told a different story.
This isn’t the same killer. Different scenario, different personality. He doesn’t remember what happened before.
Right?