Chapter 16 Respawn
Respawn
Levi jolted awake with a violent gasp, phantom gas still burning his throat.
His lungs expanded desperately, drawing in clean air with such force that his chest ached.
For several disorienting seconds, he couldn’t process his surroundings—only that he was alive, breathing, and no longer dying on a cold kitchen floor.
“Whoa, easy there,” Jasper said from somewhere nearby. “Bad dream?”
Levi blinked, the interior of the van coming into focus around him. Daylight streamed through the windows, illuminating the concerned faces of his companions. His head rested against something warm and solid—a shoulder. He was leaning against someone.
He turned his head and found himself staring into Asher’s mismatched eyes, mere inches from his face.
“You were muttering in your sleep,” Asher said. “Something about vents.”
Levi jerked upright, putting distance between them. His hand went to his throat, searching for lingering damage from gas exposure. Nothing—no pain, no rawness, no chemical burn.
“J-just a nightmare,” he managed, forcing a weak smile. “Felt real, that’s all.”
His body performed an instinctive inventory, searching for injuries that should have carried over. His lungs expanded without resistance. His stomach no longer cramped with nausea. The memory of dying remained vivid, but his physical form had reset.
“Looked intense,” Maddie observed, leaning forward from the seat behind him. “You were twitching and everything.”
She held up her phone, screen turned toward Levi. A photo showed him asleep against Asher’s shoulder, his face relaxed in unconsciousness, Asher’s arm draped casually around him. They looked comfortable together. Intimate.
“You guys were so adorable I had to document it,” she teased, zooming in on where Levi’s head nestled into the crook of Asher’s neck. “Seriously, it’s like you were made to fit together.”
Heat flooded Levi’s cheeks as memories cascaded through his mind—Asher’s hand on his cheek as they died together, the tenderness in that final touch contrasting sharply with the violence of previous encounters.
“D-delete that,” he stammered, reaching for her phone.
Maddie pulled it away, laughing. “No way! This is going in the behind-the-scenes compilation.”
Asher remained expressionless beside him, neither acknowledging the intimacy nor denying it.
“You know,” Jasper drawled from the front seat, “Asher’s single. Just saying.”
He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at Levi through the rearview mirror.
Levi felt his face burn hotter. “Can we please focus on the investigation?” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “We’re supposed to be professionals.”
“Professional ghost hunters,” Tyler corrected from the driver’s seat. “Not exactly Harvard professors.”
“Still,” Levi insisted, desperate to change the subject. “We should review the plan before we arrive.”
Owen perked up, always eager to share his research. “Drosselmeyer County Sanitarium operated from 1927 to 1972,” he began, flipping through his notebook. “Primarily treated psychiatric patients, but rumors suggest experimental procedures in the east wing during the 1960s.”
Levi half-listened to Owen’s detailed rundown, using the distraction to check his pockets discreetly. His fingers encountered the familiar shape of his flashlight, his notepad, a phone this time, and—his breath caught as he felt leather-bound pages.
Dr. Faine’s journal had carried over.
“Forgot something?” Asher asked, noticing Levi’s movements.
Their eyes met briefly—Levi searching for any hint that Asher remembered their shared death, finding nothing but polite curiosity in his gaze.
“Just checking my equipment,” Levi replied. “I don’t want any technical issues when we’re inside.”
He doesn’t remember, Levi reminded himself. He’s just an NPC in this version. The game reset him along with everything else.
As Owen continued his historical overview of the sanitarium, Levi made a strategic decision.
Despite his wariness, staying close to Asher might be his wisest move.
The sound technician had proven surprisingly capable in the previous loop—knowledgeable about emergency procedures, quick to identify dangers, genuinely helpful in crisis situations.
Better the devil you know. At least this version seems to want to keep me alive.
He watched Asher check sound equipment, those long fingers working with practiced precision over dials and switches.
The same hands that tried to save him from gas poisoning.
The same hands that touched his cheek with surprising tenderness as they died side by side.
The same hands that undressed him in Riverbend.
Focus on the mission, Levi reminded himself, pushing away the confusing memory. Find answers. Break the loop.
The van slowed as they approached their destination, gravel crunching beneath the tires. Through the windshield, Levi could see the imposing structure of Drosselmeyer County Sanitarium silhouetted against the late afternoon sky.
“We’re here,” Tyler announced unnecessarily, parking near the main entrance. “Let’s get set up before we lose the light.”
The team moved just as it had before, unloading equipment from the van and distributing it according to some pre-established routine. Levi followed their lead, accepting a camera bag from Maddie and a tripod from Owen.
He took a moment alone while the others organized gear, staring up at the sanitarium’s facade. The building looked like something straight out of one of Ethan’s horror games—the kind where the player collected audio logs to piece together what went wrong.
The realization struck him—night was when the danger escalated. Daylight offered a window of relative safety for exploration. If he could gather information now, before darkness fell...
“Hey,” Levi called to the group, “Elliot, Tyler, why don’t you two lead the investigation this time? You’ve got more on-camera experience.”
Tyler perked up. “About time you recognized my star quality.”
“You just mean we’re prettier,” Elliot added with a grin, flexing dramatically.
“Excuse me?” Maddie protested, hands on her hips. “The audience consistently rates me and Zoe higher in the comments.”
“Yeah, but sometimes they want conventionally attractive guys instead of sensitive, elf-y types,” Tyler teased, gesturing toward Levi. “No offense.”
“Tons taken,” Levi replied dryly, but he found himself smiling despite the tension. The banter felt genuine, comfortable—these people functioned as a real team, with established dynamics and inside jokes.
Zoe adjusted her camera strap. “I think the audience appreciates when Levi gets scared. He’s more relatable that way.”
“True,” Jasper agreed. “People love watching him face his fears. It makes for good content when he jumps at every little sound.”
Levi studied their faces, struck by how real they seemed—not just NPCs following programming, but individuals with distinct personalities and motivations. The camaraderie felt authentic in a way that made his sternum ache with unexpected longing.
“Can I see the floor schematics?” Levi asked Tyler, deliberately shifting focus back to practical matters.
Tyler handed over a folded paper from his back pocket. “It’s incomplete. But it should help us navigate the main areas.”
Levi studied the blueprints, noting exits, stairwells, and potential danger zones.
The kitchen where he and Asher had died was marked on the first floor.
The Research Wing appeared as a separate section, connected by a single corridor.
He pulled his phone out and snapped pictures of them, struggling to get a picture that wasn’t blurred from the tremor in his hands.
“Asher,” Levi said, keeping his tone professionally neutral, “can you handle the cabling and battery setup separately? I want to do a preliminary walkthrough of the upper floors while we still have daylight.”
If Asher found the request unusual, he didn’t show it. “Sure thing. I’ll get the base station established in the main entrance hall.”
Levi nodded, creating distance between them while maintaining the appearance of a normal working relationship. “Great. I’ll check the third floor—it looks like it hasn’t been documented yet.”
As the team dispersed to their assigned tasks, Levi headed toward the main stairwell, flashlight in hand despite the afternoon sunlight streaming through broken windows.
The sanitarium’s interior felt different in daylight—less oppressive, the shadows lacking the menace they’d held during his previous exploration with Asher.
The third floor revealed a series of abandoned patient rooms similar to those on the second, but with significantly more damage.
Water seeped through the ceiling in several areas, creating dangerous soft spots in the floor.
Levi tested each step, mapping a safe path through the deteriorating corridor.
In what appeared to have been a supply closet, he discovered an abandoned messenger bag, its canvas faded but intact. Inside, he found a cache of medical supplies—gauze bandages, adhesive tape, and several bottles of pain medication with labels dating back to the 1960s.
Levi emptied the ancient medications but kept the bandages and tape, thinking pragmatically about potential injuries in future loops. The messenger bag itself would be useful for carrying items that might transfer between resets.
Like finding a bigger inventory bag in an RPG, he thought, shouldering the canvas strap. Now I can carry more between loops.
Further exploration led him to a recreation room, its furniture vandalized but mostly intact. A piano stood in one corner, its keys yellowed with age. Card tables and chairs remained arranged as if waiting for patients to return for their daily activities.
Levi settled onto a relatively stable chair, hanging the messenger bag from it as he pulled out his notebook.
Time to document everything while the memories were still sharp—the gas death, Asher’s unexpected humanity, Dr. Faine’s experiments.
His pen moved rapidly across the page, recording details while they remained fresh in his memory.
Loop 7
Hospital scenario.
Exploring with Asher revealed Dr. Faine’s experiments
Found journal (CHECK POCKET—CARRIED OVER).
Trapped in kitchen, gas leak. Asher tried to save us both. Died together.
A distant scream interrupted his documentation—a woman’s voice, high with panic. Zoe.
Levi froze, pen hovering above the page. His first instinct was to continue writing, to prioritize recording information that might help him break the cycle. But the scream had come during daylight hours, when the sanitarium should have been relatively safe.
It’s just part of the game. Scripted event to create tension.
But what if it wasn’t? What if the rules changed again? What if danger no longer waited for darkness?
Levi closed his notebook and stood, torn between continuing his documentation and investigating the scream. The rational choice would be to stay put, finish recording his observations while they remained clear in his mind.
But it’s Zoe, he thought, remembering her mutilated body in the forest. I couldn’t save her then.
Levi checked his phone—4:47 PM. Maybe two hours of daylight remaining. Time enough to investigate Zoe’s distress and return to safety before nightfall triggered whatever horrors this loop had in store.
Or time enough to get myself killed before I figure out what’s really happening here.