Chapter 16 - The Abandoned Hospital
The hospital had closed after a bankruptcy nine years earlier.
Its windows were boarded.
Its parking lot was a forest of weeds and cracked asphalt.
Mason and Tessa entered through an ambulance bay at two in the morning.
“This is how horror movies begin,” Mason whispered.
Tessa turned on a flashlight.
“No. Horror movies begin when somebody ignores obvious danger.”
Mason’s interface highlighted the red marker deeper inside.
“I feel judged.”
“You should.”
The building was thick with residual intent.
Hospital beds carried WAIT.
Wheelchairs carried ENDURE.
Crash carts carried URGENCY.
An old defibrillator glowed with RETURN.
Mason stopped beside it.
“That one feels important.”
Tessa looked uncomfortable.
“Medical objects collect stronger intent than normal items. Life-and-death use leaves marks.”
They followed the marker to the basement.
A locked steel door blocked the hall.
The sign read ARCHIVES.
Argument Ender convinced the lock it had already been broken.
Inside, moldy boxes filled shelves.
At the center of the room sat a hospital bed.
A man lay on it.
Alive.
Barely.
He looked sixty, though starvation might have added years. Tubes connected his arms to a jury-rigged formation built from medical equipment and cultivation talismans.
The red marker hovered over his chest.
[HUMAN: ELIAS WARD]
[STATUS: LIVING]
[FATE CONDITION: FORCIBLY ABANDONED]
[MERIDIANS: 6%]
[SOUL INTEGRITY: 43%]
Tessa went pale.
“Elias Ward.”
“You know him?”
“Everybody does. Or did.”
She stepped closer.
“He was the last recognized Reclaimer.”
Mason stared.
“I thought they were extinct.”
“They thought he died twenty years ago.”
A tube led from Ward’s body into a black crystal tank.
Mason’s system highlighted it.
[EXTRACTION DEVICE]
[FUNCTION: HARVEST RECLAIMER AUTHORITY]
His stomach turned.
Somebody had kept this man alive for decades to drain his cultivation.
Footsteps echoed upstairs.
Tessa killed the flashlight.
Voices.
Men entering the building.
Mason looked at Ward.
The system opened a prompt.
[LIVING RECLAMATION AVAILABLE]
[OBJECTIVE: RESTORE ONE ABANDONED HUMAN FATE]
[WARNING: HUMAN FATE CANNOT BE OWNED.]
[RECLAMATION WILL RETURN OWNERSHIP TO SUBJECT.]
Mason understood.
This was not healing.
It was giving back what someone had stolen.
He placed one hand on Ward’s chest.
The man’s eyes opened.
Gray.
Sharp despite everything.
He looked at Mason.
Then at the Interface only Mason could see.
Elias Ward smiled weakly.
“About damn time.”
---
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