2:48 A.M.

I was asleep when he came down. I actually heard him before I saw him, heard him yelling about something – it’s what woke me up.

There was that sound of his boots on the stairs and everyone who was still awake tensed up the way you do when you’re trapped in some insane asshole’s murder basement. He walked up to the first person he could, the redhead guy closest to the stairs, barely more than a kid, late teens, maybe early 20’s.

“Just LOOK at this!” mister boots says to the guy as he holds out a phone with I guess a video on it. The kid looked, of course, did whatever the hell mister boots asked him because what else are you gonna do? I couldn’t see, but boots was describing everything and apparently it was nanny-cam footage of a babysitter smacking a baby around.

This really pissed mister boots off and he sure as hell let everyone know about it. “How the hell could anyone do that to a baby?” he said, honestly sounding aghast like he couldn’t imagine some of the awful shit humans do to their own kind.

”What the fuck is wrong with people??”

Red just shook his head slowly, unsure of what the hell was happening Because he was pretty new here as far as guests in this place go. He hadn’t seen some of the shit the rest of us have.

”Yeah, that’s really bad“ the kid managed.

”This world…” mister boots said, looking down at the phone as he turned to head back up the stairs.

Somewhere else in the place, somewhere deeper below us was the sound of someone screaming suddenly, the kind of scream you imagine characters in a Lovecraft novel would let out when whatever happens to their tiny unraveling minds happens.

I’ve been here a while, and I’ve seen some fucked up shit but that scream got to me, but mister boots just kept walking slowly up the stairs, distraught about what he was watching.

”This world…” he said again before disappearing.