TW: Slight gore, death

Word count: 778

 

 

You’re Fredrik, a 30-something newly hired process operator at Ulrichs Medizin Wissenschaft (UM), located in Frankfurt, Germany. 

The company itself has a horrid history. A history which has contributed much to their present success and advancement within the medical field.

     The story says that back in the late 1800s, Ulrich Wagner’s one true love fell ill with tuberculosis - a then near incurable disease. Heartbroken, the man tried his best to treat her, and when common medicine failed him, ultimately taking the life of the woman he loved, he was driven to near derangement. It was said that on that very same day the man spoke a vow into existence; that he would be the one to bring an end to all diseases. No matter how far he would have to go to make it so. 

 

It is said that Ulrich left his clinic shortly thereafter and disappeared. Very few knew to where, but as we know now, he showed up in Frankfurt. What is now a medical research facility began as a small mental asylum for the criminally insane. Upon its opening, families of the assailants sentenced to Ulrich’s care were quick to notice maltreatment - often even being denied visitation rights. Yet no one batted an eye when they brought it to the public’s attention. Why would they? The people committed were often those charged with a crime of a more violent nature and people were happy to see them off the streets. 

 

Eventually the rumors began circulating, however. First brushed off as mere gossip but eventually catching enough traction to become ghost stories told to children to keep them away from crime.

 

It was said that if Ulrich got his hands on you, you were never seen again. That you’d be killed by the killer of killers.. or worse. 

 

But it was all mere speculation.

 

The stories told always differed from household to household, and the degree of viciousness varied greatly. But what always remained the same was the mention of lobotomization and purposeful injections of viral diseases. Occasionally there came mentions of extreme temperatures, exposure therapy, forcefully induced comas and vivisections. 

 

Then came another rumor.

 

It started when, one day, a highly esteemed worker of the asylum experienced an episode mid-shift. It was clear to many that this person was no longer of a sane mind - they were seen clawing at their own skin and, on multiple occasions, attempting to remove their own eyes, swearing they had witnessed something. Something big. 

No one batted an eye at it, merely assuming they had been overworked and were now suffering from waking hallucinations. Not even when he personally called out for Ulrich did they care. He claimed Ulrich was solely responsible for bringing the world to its knees. That the man couldn’t even begin to comprehend what he had brought into this world, but that he would die regretting it. He begged him to stop the rituals, to close down the tunnels and leave. To let the beast go back to its slumber peacefully.

 

It didn’t take long after that first incident until another worker experienced similar symptoms and broke his own skull against his desk.

 

Several more incidents occurred thereafter. 

 

The public catching wind of it was inevitable, and that is when the urban legend started. 

 

Several workers throughout the years have sworn by the legend and have reported seeing shadows in the facility, as well as hearing whispers beckoning them into empty hallways they could have sworn weren’t so empty moments before, or experiencing minor wounds they don’t know how they got. There’s also been several reports of hooded figures and chanting coming from somewhere within the walls of the facility, often late at night. 

 

Then came the whispers of a very peculiar book: The Moodamarium. It is said that, one day, a worker happened upon it out of the blue and quickly went insane after reading it - but not before he could spread its word. He said it watches us all, that it knows our darkest sins and deepest desires. That it will one day return to claim what is rightfully its - the earth - and that mankind would then go extinct.  

 

Of course it is all explained away as lack of sleep or “too much work”, but what Fredrik - as well as most of the remaining workers at the facility - doesn’t know is that this final segment is not a mere rumor. Ulrich did indeed manage to connect to something all those years ago. Something that still lingers in the facility to this very day. Something that is now feeding off of the paranoia and fear that Fredrik suffers throughout his very first night shift.