September 8, 2022 at 4:16 PM

Philadelphia Hospital (Closed), Philadelphia, PA

Daniels drove across town, watching the approaching clouds in the distance that signaled rain. It was in the high 80s and Daniels hoped that the rain would bring a slight change in temperature. At least it would wash the streets, cleaning off a layer of grime and dampening the rising smell of garbage that seemed to swell as it got hotter.

Turning onto 6th street, a hulking structure slipped into his view. An old affair, the retired hospital was a massive brick structure with its boarded arched windows hung over the neighborhood like a creepy uncle watching your every move. It had been closed two years ago during budget cutbacks and has sat, waiting, since then.

Daniels parked across the street and got out his phone.

I'm here.

A moment later: Check in with the uni outside.

See you soon.

Nothing.

Daniels sighed and got out of the car. He grabbed one of his crime scene kits that he kept in the back of the car and crossed the street. Two uniformed officers stood outside a chain-link fence that seemed to surround the place. One of them looked at Daniels as he crossed the street, but made no reaction. Daniels signaled to them as he approached. "Good afternoon, officers."

The other glanced his way.

One gave the barest of nods.

Okay... "What's the best way in?"

They signaled to the left and started walking in that direction. Daniels followed them around the corner, a construction awning appearing on the other side. Halfway down the block, they stopped at a place in the fence, a circular courtyard visible behind it. One officer gestured to the fence. "This is the best way in."

"Okay," Daniels said and put his hands into the chain link, pulling himself up onto the fence.

"What are you doing?"

Daniels glanced back to see that they'd lifted a section of the fence back to reveal an opening.

"Right," Daniels hopped off the fence, nodded to them, and ducked through the opening.

As he made his way into the courtyard, he could hear the officers snickering behind him. Some days, Daniels wondered if it was better if he found a job where he didn't have to interact with other humans.

Shrouded in shadows by the empty hospital, the courtyard was a circular drive that led to massive double doors. The drive must have been for ambulances, the old horse and carriage kind when the place had first opened, then motor vehicles later. Scattered around the courtyard were unlit burn barrels. With each step, he moved further into darkness, the old hospital enveloping him as if it made to swallow him whole. Daniels pulled out a flashlight from his bag but didn't put it on.

He glanced back to the fence, but the uniformed officers were gone.

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Daniels walked up to the massive double doors, pulled and found it open, then entered the derelict building.

* * * *

Daniels stepped through the double doors into a long room dimly lit by the little light that slipped in through the spaces between the window boards. He switched on his flashlight and swept it across a room. It might have been the Emergency Room waiting room if the rows of mint green pleather seats were any indication. Chunks of the seating were torn up. There were a couple of desks that had once been for nurses that were turned over, as if someone was expecting to repel an invading army. On the walls, someone had written MONEY IS A PRISON and DO YOU HAVE ALL YOUR SHOTS?

Daniels listened, his footsteps still, his flashlight not moving. He heard the scuttering of small feet, creatures on the move. A few larger creatures too, by the sound of the stumbling, but Daniels didn't see anyone. He knew a place like this would be home to vagrants and transients, but he had no idea how many. How long had people been living here?

He left the Emergency waiting room and walked through another set of double doors. This led to a long hallway with many paths and signs for different departments. Along the hallway, he saw left-behind blankets and sleeping bags and what looked like half of a tent. All along were the debris of people who had slept here now or in the past.

At the next intersection, a hallway stretched off to the left, getting darker as the last of the ambient light from the front of the building disappeared. Daniels spied a sign for the cafeteria pointing in that direction and heard the muttering of voices, so he headed in that direction. That led him further down the hallway to another intersection where a set of double doors was open to the cafeteria.

* * * *

The flashlight that he carried had illuminated his time until now. However, walking into the hospital, he found the place lit up by flood lamps that the scene of the crime technicians had set around the room. It was a vast space full of square columns and a tiled floor that had a layer of grime that you didn't want to think too much about. A couple of cafeteria tables, but the space was mostly open with a few more burn barrels and the debris that he'd seen in the hallways. No one was sleeping here right now: too many cops.

Daniels pocketed his flashlight as an unformed officer by the door turned to him, a clipboard in hand. He made to speak to Daniels, but a voice barked from the other side, "He's with me." The cop just nodded and handed Daniels the clipboard. Daniels signed himself into the crime scene, slung the bag over his chest, and stepped into the cafeteria.

Pockets of officers and technicians either clumped together in spots or moved around, going about their jobs. Sol was ahead of him to the right, talking to Bendis and a SOC tech by the name of Manos. She had looked up at Daniels and gestured, but he didn't immediately head in her direction. Instead, he saw Porter across the room, carefully taking photographs of a figure that seemed to hang in the air. Porter met his eyes instantly and sadness passed in their gaze. Daniels walked towards her and the victim.

She hung about three feet off the ground, her hands draped on either side of her, and her head canted forward. The material that held her up was thin, like fishing wire, but strong enough to support her weight. She wore a dark canvas jacket, open to reveal a pair of olive green scrubs underneath.

Porter moved slowly around the body, her camera scanning in everything. From this scan, she'd be able to make a 3D render of the crime scene that they could use to examine the crime scene as it was in greater detail. Still working the camera, she asked, "She's one of yours, right?"

Daniels nodded. "Lin Zhang. She was a nurse for a dermatology office in Old Town."

"Daniels!" Sol yelled from across the room.

"We're going to find who did this," Porter said, pausing in the scanning to look at him.

He glanced past Porter to Lin. "You're damn right."

As Daniels slowly turned around to head to Sol, something caught his eye: a tree outside in a small courtyard beside the cafeteria. The shape of the oak tree, tall and proud, seemed familiar and Daniels felt what he'd felt earlier today: of being here. The tree, the cut of the window that framed the tree, and the grid of the other side of the building beyond it felt familiar. He crept past it, the view staying with him as he moved. His feet seemed to tread previous footsteps. He felt cold plastic in his empty hands, like a tray that wasn't there. The phantom tray had weight, as if he carried a tray of food.

In that instant, Daniels knew that he'd been in this room before, had been here many times. That he'd eaten food in this room. But just like earlier today, though, he had no active memory of it, just a phantom remnant.

"Daniels!"

He pushed past that feeling and went to talk to Sol.