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THE WIND BLOWS COLD on his skin as Bishop walked around his old town, Totten's Landing. The townspeople didn't have faces, almost like they were all blurred out. Their voices were distorted too, but Bishop didn't find it strange at all.

     After walking past the town circle, Bishop then headed down a familiar path, stepping on mud and staining his pants and shoes as he did so.

     The voices of the people in town mellowed down behind him until there was complete silence. Bishop stopped walking, and when he looked up, he was welcomed by an old house that was burnt down because of a recent fire incident.

     Ashes were everywhere as Bishop walked closer to it. Despite the aftermath of the fire, the front door was still intact. Bishop walked towards it and opened the door. Expecting to see burnt wood and rubble, Bishop was surprised to see a house that was still intact. Evidence of the fire disappeared, almost like the fire never happened.

     "Bishop! Did you buy what I told you to buy!?" A voice from upstairs suddenly shouted, making Bishop flinch. He wasn't expecting anyone to be there.

     Bishop doesn't answer and walked up the stairs, leaving mud stains on the floor because of his dirty shoes. When Bishop arrived upstairs he sees piles and piles of books just scattered in the corridor. At the end of the corridor was a door. Bishop slowly approached it, grabbing the doorknob before stopping to take a deep breath.

     "Bishop?! Did you buy what I asked you to buy?!" the voice asked, but louder this time.

     Bishop gulped and finally turned the doorknob. He pushed the door open, and to his surprise, chained in bed was a skinny boy covered in bruises. The boy was dirty, probably because he hasn't taken a bath for weeks. The room smelled like old books and urine, which immediately made Bishop cover his nose.

     "Hello?" Bishop called out.

     The boy who was chained in bed was reading a book. He then giggled; he must have read something funny. Bishop didn't dare to disturb him, but when he took a step inside the room, the boy suddenly dropped his book and looked at him, his eyes almost hallow.

     The boy opened his mouth wide, and as the silence rang in Bishop's ear, the boy suddenly started screaming.

     The screams were high pitched that Bishop was forced to cover his ears with his hands. "Winter! Stop!" He shouted, but the boy he referred to as Winter didn't stop at all.

     Bishop dropped to the floor and closed his eyes. After a while, the screams finally stopped. Bishop slowly pulled his hands away from his ears to look back at the boy chained on the bed. To his surprise, the boy was gone.

     Bishop looked around the room, but no one was there. He then walked closer to the bed to check what the boy was reading earlier. The title of the book was 'We have always lived in the castle.' Bishop was about to pick it up, but then a cold hand touched his ankle.

     Bishop's entire body froze. The room falls silent again as he slowly looked down to check who was holding onto him. Underneath the bed was the boy from earlier; grinning at him from ear to ear. Bishop was about to scream, but then I opened my eyes and gasped for air.

     Sweat trailed down my forehead as I look around the room to check where I was. I sighed in relief when I realized that I was still in my bedroom at the manor. "My name is Bishop. My name is Bishop," I repeatedly whisper, almost like I was trying to convince myself that I was.

     I massaged my forehead and stood from the bed. Afraid that the dream that I had become a reality, I immediately looked under the bed to check if anyone was there. When I saw that the only thing there was my luggage, I couldn't help but laugh at myself.

     "I've seriously gone crazy," I say as I walk to the bathroom to wash my face. Afterward, I grab my contacts to cover my blue eye. I stare at my reflection in the mirror for a couple of seconds before finally walking back to my room.

     I head to the door and try to open it but stop midway when I realized that it was locked like usual. Lino explained that he was instructed to keep my door locked in case a different alter wakes up and starts doing crazy things in the manor. So while waiting for Lino to open the door, I head to the desk and take the diary. As I sat on the chair, I made my entry for the day.

August 21, 1952

Dear cold season,

Today's the day little guy. The patients of the infamous Hell House will be arriving soon. That f̶u̶c̶k̶e̶r̶ master of the manor said all eight of the patients will be here so I'm pretty sure everyone's going to be busy.

I apologize for what happened during your session. I didn't mean to cut you short, but if you ever fucking talk about me again with that doctor, I will never let you out, do you understand?

Don't be a pain for the others while you're there.

See you in a week.

- B. Lancaster

     After writing my entry, I put the diary aside. I then spot the sketchpad that master Claudio bought for me when we first went to town. I have not drawn a single thing on that pad, but now I was given the assignment to draw something for Winter's next session. I don't exactly know what I'll draw, but if something comes up, I'll just draw that.

     "Bishop, you awake?" A voice asks from outside my room.

     The door to my room opens, revealing Lino who was holding dozens of keys. As always, he was wearing his gardener uniform, but not like before, he wasn't covered in dirt...yet.

     "Took you long enough," I tell him as I step out of my room.

     Lino shuts the door for me and starts walking beside me. "I had a lot of things to do okay," he complains so I just shrugged my shoulder as a response.

     "So, you excited?" I ask him.

     "Why would I be excited to meet crazy criminals?" Lino asks back as we walk down the stairs.

     "I don't know. It's exciting to do something different in this manor for once, don't you agree?" I tell him, and surprisingly enough, it looked like Lino agreed with me on that because he didn't say anything against it.

     "Man, I haven't smoked anything for weeks now. The master hasn't been going to town lately so I haven't bought a new pack," I then say before suddenly having an idea. "Wait, you know your plants right? Do you have something in that greenhouse that I could smoke?"

     "You want us to get in trouble?" Lino asks, lowering his voice a little because one of the nurses wearing the weird gas mask suddenly walked past us.

     "Aha! So there is one!" I excitedly say, making Lino groan in annoyance.

     As I continue to bug Lino into giving me something to smoke, we eventually arrive at the dining room. Adie was already sitting on her usual seat, as well as father Laurence who was reading a newspaper and drinking coffee.

     In the middle of the table was, of course, our dear master, Claudio Romano, to who we are all very indebted.

     "Good morning master," I say as I bow to him.

     Claudio acknowledges my greeting and Lino and I finally take our seats. All of us waited for Claudio to start first, so when he grabbed his fork to take a bite of his food, every one of us finally started eating as well. Not to brag, I taught them that, as well as other table etiquettes.

     "Laurence, our breakfast today is exquisite as ever," Claudio says. I'd want to disagree with him and say that it's mediocre just to piss Laurence off, but hats off to father Laurence, he really knows how to fucking cook. No offense to Adie of course who cooked for us for a while before Laurence arrived. I do miss my burnt toast at times.

     "I'm glad," father Laurence says as he bows his head to thank the master for the compliment. He then looks at me and suddenly says, "So Bishop, do you have anything you want to say to me?"

     I look back at him and furrow my brows before asking, "What? Is it your birthday?"

     Laurence instantly looked irritated as he angrily explained, "It was your turn to wash the fucking dishes last night. You freakin' ditched me so I had to do it myself."

     "Oh come on, it's not like I do it all the time. Besides, Adie didn't do the dishes last week too but you didn't say anything," I say as I continue to eat my breakfast, completely ignoring how mad he looked.

     "That's because she's fucking mute! I can't just get mad at that poor thing," Laurence then says, making Adie pout when she heard it.

     "Great job Laurence. You just gave Adeline more reasons to hate you," Lino then says, making me chuckle.

     Laurence and Lino start arguing, and surprisingly enough, Claudio doesn't stop them. They've always been like this, or rather, we've always been like this during meals. I don't want to admit it, but I've been used to such an atmosphere. I don't want to say that we look like a family– because god forbids me to say such a word–but I feel comfortable with them now, a feeling that I find very troublesome.

     As I enjoy my meal, I unconsciously steal a glance at Claudio who was eating his meal in peace. He wasn't even looking at me, but then he asks, "Have you started on that assignment that I gave you?"

     I wasn't expecting him to actually talk to me, so I swallow the food in my mouth and lied, "Not yet. Adie and I agreed to draw together on the weekend, right Adie?"

     Adeline was surprised by what I said as she looked back at me with a confused look. Not to sound mean, but these are the moments where I'm glad that Adie doesn't talk.

     "I see. It's also a good activity for her so I look forward to it. Tell me if you're going to draw, I'd like to join you," he suddenly says, making me clench my fist in irritation. Adie, who obviously hasn't said anything, suddenly released a quick laugh, making me step on her feet.

     "Y-Yes, of course..." I say, and Claudio finally looks back at me and smiles.

     His smile made me stiff for a second, but I immediately blinked and looked back at my plate so I could continue eating. I hear Claudio chuckle, but he doesn't comment anything about it as he tells us instead, "Alright everyone, let's settle down first."

     Father Laurence and Lino finally stopped bickering at each other like they weren't two grown men. As we all look back at him, Claudio looks at his side, making me realize that there's a folder sitting there. He takes the folder and suddenly hands it over to me.

     "As you may all know, the patients are arriving today. I've explained to you all the various experiments that we'll be conducting, but before that, I want you four to know the patients better first," Claudio explains.

     I open the folder and see different profiles who I suspect are the patients that master Claudio is talking about.

     Adie, who's sitting beside me, moves closer to check the profiles as well. While I hand the other profiles to Lino and father Laurence, master Claudio starts introducing them to us one by one.

    "I will not be revealing to you their real names, so you will refer to them by either their given codename or their patient number."

     The profiles that were given to us had their picture, their number, their codename, age, and a quick summary of who they are. It wasn't as detailed as I expected it to be, but somehow, it was all that we needed to know.

  DISCLAIMER: the people in the photos do not associate with anything that is said in this book. It is only for visual and storyline purposes.

Patient no. 000

Codename: Pacific

Gender: Male

Age: 52

     "The first one is Pacific. A husband, a father, and a regular salaryman," Claudio introduces first, and the four of us started looking at his picture.

     "Man's creepy-looking," father Laurence commented.

     "Creepy doesn't even describe him. Pacific was a normal man living a normal life, not until he witnessed his wife having an affair. He killed his wife and threw her in the ocean. He was caught by the police and later on revealed that he killed his son too, but till this day, he has not revealed where he hid his son's body," Claudio explains.

     I stare at the picture for a couple more minutes before saying, "Maybe he didn't actually kill his son?"

     "If he didn't then he'd be unfortunate," Claudio says, making all of us look back at him confusingly.

     "And why is that?" Lino asks.

     "Well, in their house the police found his son's eyes inside a container. Pacific openly explained that he gauged his son's eyes out. If the boy was alive he'd be...eyeless," Claudio finally explains to us, making me gag.

     "Next we have Wednesday."

Patient no. 001

Codename: Wednesday

Gender: Female

Age: 23

     "We're almost the same age," I say as I stare at her smiling face.

     "Wednesday is a bubbly and friendly girl. Her parents are divorced so when she was a kid her father had the right to spend his Wednesday with her. Long story short she was constantly raped by him and so she killed him," Claudio casually explains.

    What happened to this girl is definitely terrible, but I couldn't help but find this situation humorous. The four of us were listening to Claudio tell these patients' backgrounds as if this was a normal thing to do on a Sunday morning. To top it all off we were even eating breakfast. How fucked up is that?

     "That's all she did? Why'd she get the death penalty?" Lino questions and Claudio looked like he just remembered something that he should have told us first.

     "That's right, she killed his father when she was fourteen but was never caught for it. The following years Wednesday learned a disturbing habit of killing her partners, leaving her with eight more victims."

     "Ah," was the only thing Lino could say.

     "Moving on..."

Patient no. 002

Codename: Hunter

Gender: Male

Age: 34

     "Hunter, a charming salesman and a consistent drunk, went home one night intoxicated as he always was. Driving at 5th avenue, he hit a mother and her 6-year-old daughter, instantly killing them. In fear of getting sent to jail, he hid the body and continued his life for two more years until finally getting caught."

     "Could have hidden the body better," I jokingly say, making Lino kick my leg under the table.

     "What? Have a little humor smiley face," I tease, angering Lino even more, but thankfully father Laurence went in between us and interrupted, "Next is this gentleman Oz, right?" he asks before showing us the profile of the said patient.

Patient no. 003

Codename: Oz

Gender: Male

Age: 19

     "So what did this wizard do?" I ask.

     "Oz, who grew up in poverty, became a con artist at the age of seventeen. He fooled people with his charms and fancy way of speaking, then stole their money and killed them afterward. Did this 38 times before finally getting caught."

     "38 fucking times?!" father Laurence asks in shock. "How terrible is the police, honestly?"

     I laugh at the priest's comment and then we moved on to the next patient.

     "Now we have this fellow," Master Claudio says as he points at the next profile.

     "Fellow?" Lino asks in confusion until he sees the gender specified.

Patient no. 004

Codename: Lady

Gender: Male

Age: 46

     "This is interesting," I say as I continue to stare at the photo. "What's this guy's story?"

     "Codename Lady is a 46-year-old male who has a severe mother complex. He dresses up as a woman and uses that to fool men into gaining their trust, raping them, and then killing them after. Lady confessed that he does not like men and he is, in fact, very straight, but he loves the pleasure of overpowering men, which is why he did what he did," Claudio tells us, and the picture that I was staring at suddenly felt disturbing.

     "Alright, we have three patients left, but where are their pictures?" Father Laurence next before taking a bite of his food.

     "Yes, we have three other patients, but the reason why I did not attach a photo of them is because you will not be handling them yet. I will study them for a while to see who is fit to take care of them, so for now, I will handle them," master Claudio explains to us, making me realize that these remaining patients are actually part of the SWL or the suicide watch list.

     "So these three are..." Lino pauses and takes the remaining patient's profiles that didn't have a picture attached to them.

Patient no. 005

Codename: Messiah

Gender: Male

Age: 34

     "What did he do?" I ask out of curiosity.

     "Actually, what did they do?" Lino clarifies, gesturing at the other two patients without a picture since they didn't have any descriptions either like the other patients.

Patient no. 006

Codename: Tomorrow

Gender: Male

Age: 13

     "Whoa, this one's only thirteen. He's younger than Adie. Why is he receiving the death penalty? Is that even okay?" I ask as I stare at the kid's profile.

     "And this one's almost my age," Lino then adds, showing us the last patient on the list.

Patient no. 007

Codename: Doll Face

Gender: Female

Age: 43

     For a second the patients seemed normal, even pitiful, but then you realize that before they were called patients, they were criminals first. These were people who did terrible things to other people. There's no time for me to feel bad about them.

    "Their crimes are classified for now. After some tests, and if they're ready to meet you, I will introduce them properly. These patients are hanging on the edge. Given the opportunity, they will jump and kill themselves, so I will do everything I can to not make that happen. They are important assets..."

     I don't know why, but the way master Claudio just called them assets suddenly made the hair on my skin stand. I'd be fine calling them criminals or patients, but assets just feel a bit...inhuman.

     "These are all the patients. They will be arriving this afternoon so finish your breakfast now and get ready. And when I mean get ready, I mean wear your uniforms," master Claudio says, and in an instant, all of us became excited.

     We received our uniforms two months ago and we have not opened that box ever since. Master Claudio said that our uniforms reflect our roles, so even Lino and Laurence are excited to see what it looks like.

     "Now...my four horsemen," master Claudio pauses and looks at us one by one before showing a sadistic grin. "It's time for us to open the Hell House."

to be continued...