With the ring from the pool, James took Luisa back up to the second floor via the elevator.  The ride was slow, not entirely unexpected from the decay of the other hospital.  The raptor took the time to calm down and ask the canine what she knew about the town, resting against the wall to keep pressure off his foot.
	"You know what's really going on here?"
	"Wish I knew, I know just as much as you do."
	"But...you live here."
	"You know everything about where you come from?"
	"...point taken.  But this is a small town, and you said this hospital could help me."
	"I-i didn't expect it to be like this!  It's normally so...dull and...normal, like a hospital should be."
	"I wouldn't call having psychiatric patients here dull and normal."
	"You get what I mean, James."
The elevator doors opened at last, leading them out into the second floor hallway, the mural-covered door still in place with the bell-ring on the woman's toe.  He placed the ring into the indent upon her finger.  He was rewarded with the strong click of an unlocked door.
	"Finally," said the raptor, "maybe we can get somewhere."
	"What are you doing?"
	"I got a clue from this place about something in the basement, maybe we can find a way out there."
	"But...nobody's been to the basement in years.  It's closed off."
	"Not anymore."
The stairwell was black and rusted red with disuse, creaking steps making the task of climbing them all the more difficult for the raptor.  Luisa followed suit, up to the third floor, right beside the main elevator and the storeroom with the mirror.  Despite not having a map, James was certain that this was wrong.
	"...wait.  This isn't right."
	"What?"
	"We went up the stairs in the wards...how did we get here?"
	"I don't even know anymore sweetie..."
Luisa leaned against the wall with a hand to her head, whimpering from a dull throbbing pain.  James checked her over briefly, her head a little warm.
	"I got a couple of energy drinks and first aid kits if you need it."
	"No no I'm fine, I got my pills, I'm just exhausted."
	"Alright then.  Ready to get out of here?"
	"S-sure."
The store room he had a look inside out of curiosity, but found nothing.  No mirror, no supplies.  There was however a note on the ground, scrawled in a bloody hand.

	i cant stop the ancients
	theyll come for us all, theyll make us food and slaves
	im too late to save anyone but if anyone finds this note
	please remember this
	the lady is a witch who must be burned
	the dog is thirsty but he will never beg
	the man has eyes as cold as ice
	and the raven fears the wind that took his wings

He snarled and tore the note up, tired of being pushed around with stupid riddles as he went to the elevator.  Another 10-number panel blocked his way.
	"What's wrong?" asked Luisa.
	"Stupid thing's locked with a code...you know it?"
	"Nope."
	"Shit...hmmmm..."
He tried to think of the best possible solution.  The panel was identical to the one he had found back on the first floor, back when the hospital was normal.
Maybe it's something like that first code, thought James to himself.  What was the code again?  Art?  No, that was ABOVE the door...Rat?  Can't be the same thing twice, right?
He entered the same code as before, 728.  A loud buzz rejected his guess.  Luisa was confused but let him try to figure it out.
Shit that's not it, but it IS three numbers or letters...what could it be?!  Quick, what else is there?  Art...rat...tar...wait.  Tar?
A light went on inside his head.  He had seen the word before, marked quite specifically even.  He decided to spell out T A R on the keypad, 827.  Much to both of their surprise, he was rewarded with a delightful ding.
	"HAH, nailed it!"
	"W-how did you-"
	"Please, this is kid's stuff girl."
He allowed himself a moment of confidence before stepping inside the elevator with Luisa.  All three floors were now accessible, but then he noticed one new button at the bottom of the panel, something that was almost certainly never there before.  It was encrusted with something black, like coal.  He curiously pushed the button as the lift rumbled into life, before heading down into the deepest depths of the hospital.
He leaned against the wall, noticing that his limp was starting to feel better somehow.  Whether it was the nanos or the first aid or both, he was happy to know it was recovering at a surprisingly fast rate.  He took the time to check his handgun bullet capacity as the elevator chugged slowly downwards.  14 bullets left, not bothering to count his refilled ammo clip.  He was starting to hope he would get more ammo soon.
As the elevator descended towards the basement with its two wordless passengers, the radio suddenly came alive with a crackle.  Both of them were startled, with James immediately looking around for any potential threats.  But this time it was different.  It wasn't just emitting pure static.  A voice could be heard through the haze.

	"Status re- - - -ierra-Ni- -"
	"We foun- - - - -source of- - -fire sarge, apar- - - - - - - -brunt of the chop- - - - - -slalomed through- - - - - - -room."
	"Any- - - -vivors?"
	"Can't see- - - - - -wait, I see two- - - - - -arge."
	"Report, Sie- - - - -"
	"It- - - - -Ca- - - - -ells- - - - - -ead."
	"All- - - - -"
	"Seems so- - - - - - -per, just- - - - - -full-on, sarge."
	"Sierra-Nine, confir- - - - - -said two- - - - - - - -listed- - - - - - - -three occupa- - - -ver."
	"Sir, we've only- - - - - - - - -ults, over."
	"Confirm agai- - - - - -nother- - - - - at- - - -ears old."
	"I don't see- - - - - - - - wai- - - - - -think I- - - -"
	"Sierra-Nine, plea- - - - - -firm."
	"Confirmed, we ha- - - - - - -survivor!"
	"Unhar- - -"
	"Was secure in- - - - -closet sa- - - -doesn't- - - - -be wounded."
	"Carry him ou- - - - - - - -don't- - -him- - - - - -place."

The transmission soon cut off with a dwindling faze, leaving James and Luisa rather confused by the broadcast.
	"What the hell was that?"  She asked at last.
	"I...I dunno, that's never done that before."
	"What's the deal with that radio?"
	"I dunno, I found it in the town and kept it with me, for some reason it goes off near monsters so...it KINDA helps?"
	"But that signal...that sounded like an official thing like police or firefighters or something."
	"Yeah?"
	"Well I watched enough TV to know something like that."
It did sound familiar somehow, but he couldn't tell where.  Whatever the report was about, it troubled him deeply, and he wished he could be able to hear it again.  All he could do instead was wait until the lift reached its destination.
The basement was unexpectedly cramped.  Moreso, it was a long narrow corridor stretching out into the darkness, tinted red by the blood-rusted walls.  He'd seen so much red since coming here that the raptor was starting to feel colourblind from it all, stepping out carefully.  Luisa was just as uncertain, feeling like two children in a forbidden area.
The corridor was only wide enough for them to go single file, with James out front, walking better with less of a limp.  Nothing could be heard in the darkness, not even the briefest of a stray breeze.  The very silence made their footsteps echo with a most frightening volume, setting their nerves on edge.  At first they walked slowly to not make any noise.
The darkness stayed ahead of them at all times, but there was enough light from James' clip-on torch to keep them directed up to the first corner.  A sharp turn to the right.  Unusual, and considering the hospital's need, pointless.  But they kept walking, slowly, not daring to make anymore of a sound than they already were.  Until they heard another sound.
A scraping sound.

Luisa was unnerved, thinking it was a broken fan in the ventilation or something.  James knew better.  As soon as he heard that sound, he gently took Luisa's hand silently, and sped up his pace.  Before she could even ask, he turned around with a finger to his snout to keep her silent.  The scraping turned louder, more controlled.  Luisa began to share his fear.
Their steps turned faster, claws clacking upon the steel floor alongside the softer feet of the dog.  The sound of screaming metal followed them, the sound of a hunter proclaiming the beginning of the hunt for its prey.  They turned another corner to the right, running down straight not ten steps more before a sharp left turn.  Every turn they made, the other noise turned louder.
He didn't dare turn.  He didn't want to turn.  If he acknowledged its physical form, he would never be able to escape.  Somehow he knew this to be true, the unseen eyes of the monster piercing into their backs.  Luisa started to run with him, his limp receding as his adrenaline began to throb inside his heart, quickening his blood.  His eyes tightened in panic as he saw metal doors ahead of them, straining to see them through the darkness.  They were starting to close.
The demonic roar that echoed throughout the hall made them both turn and betray their minds.  The red bloody helmet.  James screamed before Luisa did, running harder as his hand slipped from hers.  He raced towards the doors, trying to beckon her to come, but she just wasn't fast enough.  He ran between the closing metal doors, his sight of the hallway thinning out through the gap.
Luisa screamed as she tried to open the door, but her fingers slipped away, calling for James' name.  He screamed back to her, roaring loud enough to make the hallway shake with his outcry.  The last thing he saw before she disappeared from view, was her face suddenly choking, along with the sound of a violent skewering.

The doors began to close, separating the two permanently.  James could only sit in the corner of the lift and cower in both fear and grief at watching Luisa disappear.  But his fear was not over, when the doors caved in partway with a huge blade stabbing through them.
A horrendous screech was made as metal streaked upon steel, the blade reaching just far enough to rub against the back wall of the elevator.  James' own scream was barely heard underneath the sound of the assault.  Even more strange was that it wasn't the gigantic knife the beast had before.  It looked like an enormous paper cutter, horizontally-bladed with a large well-rubbed plastic handle.
He shivered in the corner, pleading inside his own thoughts.
Go away!  Please go away, I don't wanna be here anymore!  Oh god Luisa why, why didn't you run faster?!  Why won't you leave me alone you fucking monster?!
Soon the elevator finally moved even further downwards, the blade moving upwards to the ceiling.  But it did not stop there.  It tried to stop the lift, slamming against the ceiling to carve entirely through it with an earth-shattering screech of metal being torn apart.  James didn't know what to do as he witnessed the elevator shaft slowly revealing itself.

It was a bright viscous red.  Lights and valves dotted the shaft, rusted and dripping black.  Creatures scuttled back and forth among the ventilation shafts, crawling like lizards in bandages, their heads twitching with the speed of a hummingbird's wings.  But not even that managed to stop the elevator from completing its descent, finally opening its doors once again into a large room.
He could hear a deep humming sound, one that set his teeth on edge.  He was already terrified and weakened from losing Luisa.  But this room made something inside him shiver.  It wasn't his soul, or his bones.  He could feel his very blood start to vibrate.  This wasn't an exaggeration.  He could LITERALLY feel his blood vibrating.
The room was not empty however, for as soon as he stepped out of the lift, the humming turned louder.  Some sort of massive generator was in the room.  Four tesla coils sparking themselves into life, their spiral-tubed tops turning electric blue for the briefest of instants.  Power turbines shuddered with renewed energy at the base of the coils, their own mimicking the same colour as all four of them routed power towards a centralised generator.
The generator however was the most disturbing thing.  Its design was almost certainly alien.  Strange intricate lines of biomechanical origin filtered through the central column, a perfectly grey rectangular cuboid of a pulsating machine.  Wires perfectly shaped like veins snaked along the floor, feeding from turbines and coils, their design also unearthly.
James was already not in the best state of mind to witness such an abomination.  Even less so when it began to speak.

	"Eklusierah...kahunshi...schlaashioh..."
	"Wh-what the...what is this?"
	"To open entrance of coming.  Dawson has failed."
	"D-dawson!?  ...oh god.  He wasn't crazy at all was he?"
	"Your name, be the subject."
	"Wh-what the hell are you talking about?!  What the fuck are you?!"
The machine slowly began to reveal itself from the darkness, lights slowly flickering into existence to reveal more of its disgustingly intricate texture.  Bones and muscles somehow imprinted within the steel, weaving a delicate tapestry of agony and misery within.  Some of the shapes seemed familiar, hinting at the darkest corners of his mind.  Incomprehensible, yet all too familiar, the sort of shapes one saw just out of focus within one's dreams.
The most unsettling thing of all however, was the face firmly planted within the centre of the column.  The face of a human, open-mouthed and dead-eyed.  He had the look of a military man, short blonde hair and eyes of steel.  James was sure he recognised it, as the generator spoke again.
	"We must have ancient origin.  We need...another..."
	"Wh-what the fuck is up with this thing?"
	"Begin the degenerator program.  It shall become the subject where we are new."
The generator slowly began to pull its veiny cords upwards from the floor, becoming electrical tentacles that searched the air for their prey.  The humming turned louder as the machine powered up to its fullest, causing James' entire body to tingle badly.  It was immensely uncomfortable, like a constant electrical shock that stung throughout his entire body.
	"Wh-wh-wh-what's h-h-happeniiiiinnnng?!"
	"Begin the opening of obedience."
	"Wh-wh-WHAT?!"
In his state of unease and fear, he didn't even notice the electric cord that shot straight for his neck, sending a good strong volt into him.  To a normal person, it was as strong as a farmyard's electric fence, disorientingly sore.  To James, it was pure agony in the span of seconds, his body convulsing into a seizure-like twitching.  His nanos suddenly felt white-hot, as if his very blood was starting to boil.
	"N-NYAAAAAAARGH!"
	"Subject to be abnormal weakness in electricity.  To be containment vessel shall come expected first from directly."

He tried to run, backing away from the machine, the damaging shock waking up his mind enough to try and find a way to shut it off.  He contemplated shooting it, but not with the rifle.  He tried a few shots from his handgun instead, but despite hitting the main structure, the bullets didn't go through.  Struggling for a solution, he quickly ran to one side.
More electrical tentacles reared up before him, blocking his path and suddenly shocking him with three of the same shock as before, his body twitching in a screaming fit of anguish.  He stumbled through them, his body suddenly starting to stumble and lose coordination.  His veins were burning all throughout his body, his nanos struggling not to overload.
He had to find a switch, something, anything to turn the machine off.  Passing around one side of the generator, he saw another new thing to note of its design.  A dog's head, placed firmly upon the structure with an open mouth.  Something clicked in James' head, but he couldn't figure out what, especially when he was trying to avoid electrocution.
He was failing to do so due to the many wires that slithered all throughout the room.  Some of them were dead, others were not.  He couldn't tell which was which until he felt the twitching sting surge through his body, forcing him to stutter and scream.  Reaching the back of the generator, hoping to find a giant plug or something simple, he felt his vision start to drift and fade.

The room was slowly developing black spots on his eyes, as he struggled to focus against the unearthly current that pierced inside his body.  But he was starting to lose it.  If the generator keeped this up, he would surely slip into a catatonic state.  He leaned hard against the wall behind the generator, begging to see something.
No plug, no main power cord, nothing.  Except for a woman's head.  A black-haired woman, her lips closed in silence with piercing grey eyes.  Suddenly the idea from before was revealed.  A lady, a man, and a dog.  He had no other choice, stumbling his way towards the woman's head and readily charging up a blast of fire.  His nanos were trying to keep up, but the electric shocks did nothing to improve them.
The raptor roared with exertion as he shot out a violent blast of flames.  A thickening cloud that poured unto the woman's face, burning her with a wretched scream.  Her face was charred within seconds, red then black, skin peeling off into blackened cracks until the skull beneath started to show.  The generator's apparent error message was enough for him to know he was doing something right.
	"It caused the mistake.  The waterway of R1-7A now inoperable.  Conversion to secondary stage of obedience."

The vibrations of the room turned stronger, making him panic even more with a badly-disoriented body.  He stumbled around to the last part of the generator that he had not seen until now.  The strange poem he had torn up was all making sense to him now.  A raven's head, surprisingly large, almost as big as his own.  James' vision was blurry, and he tried his utmost best to focus a good solid blast of wind.  He knew he could do it, he could FEEL the air change around him into a subtle breeze.
The serpentine cords hunted for him, sizzling with sparks like forked tongues.  He managed to assault the raven head before they reached him however, his mind clearing up just enough for him to focus his nanos into summoning the particles around him.  They built themselves up around his arms, two miniature tornadoes to combine into a furious blast of wind.
It almost sliced the air itself in half, and in turn it sliced the black-feathered head in a diagonal cut.  It squawked with a terrible shriek that sent deep shudders into James' scales.  With a desperate growing sense of exhaustion, he ran back to the front of the generator, to the face of the military man.  A loathsome face, one that lied within his memory, but his mind was still suffering from the electric shocks.
He needed to summon the power of ice, blasting a jet of water straight into the mouth and on the lips of the man's face, before immediately sending a thick cold air across the liquid.  The ice slowly crackled down into whatever the face had for a throat.  He would have frozen it completely had he not been electrocuted once again, wired vipers stinging him in the back with lightning fangs.
He screamed and spasmed as he fell to the ground, wretched hands twitching wildly.  His nanos shivered and heated up inside his veins.  His pulse turned irregular without pace.  His left eye started to turn red and bloodshot.  He struggled to get up, whimpering and shaking with a sudden vomiting from his spasms, screaming and regurgitating in agony.
	"G-G-GUUUURRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAGH!"
He wanted to cry.  He wanted to sit in a corner somewhere and weep until the pain left him.  But he steeled himself, knowing he would die almost certainly if he did not fight back.  He saw the human face slowly choke to death with solid ice in its gullet, lips pulsing with asphyxiation as a wretched mechanical gurgling came from within.
	"Serious error.  The waterway of GU-570N now inoperable.  Conversion to the third stage of obedience, begin backup procedure."

Now it was getting serious.  He knew that if he took one more hit, maybe two from its terrible volts, he would be dead.  He hadn't felt this close to death in a long time.  The thought should have frightened him.  And it did.  But it also exhilarated him.  He wasn't sure why, but he did not question the strange urge to stand up inside him.
His adrenaline surged within his blood, fighting against the electrocution's effects as best as it could to the point of managing to stagger back up onto his own two feet.  His blood screamed for the pain to stop, littered with millions, perhaps billions of nanos all struggling to not self-terminate inside him.  He could feel them at their limits, somehow.  In his struggle to reach the fourth and final head of the Degenerator, he forced himself onwards with self-encouragement, born from both anger and desperation.
I can do this.  It's a fucking machine, I can kill a machine, I'm not stupid.  I'm a fucking raptor, I'm not afraid of a fucking taser shock!  I'm the FinalGamer!

Reaching the dog's head, he quickly forced his nanos back into action with one last effort, just one more before he could rest.  His hands slowly began to fill up with water, forming a liquid ball between them as he shifted his palms vertically.
He guided the water into a small stream in mid-air, plugging it down the canine snout.  It whimpered with a grating sound, but James didn't care, groaning with all of his efforts to keep forcefeeding it water while trying not to collapse.
	"Drink it, f-fucking drink it you mutt!  Drink until you CHOKE!"
Soon it did just that, the water ending up to be far too much for the dog as it suddenly convulsed with a gasping whimper.  No sympathy came from the raptor at such an aberration, as the entire machine went down with it.  The wires began to pull back, slowly slinking back down onto the ground.  The coils and turbines started to flicker out like candle light.
The biomechanical monolith soon followed the same fate, shutting itself down with a violent screech from within.  James felt it sounded like the screams of an asylum.  Insane, pleading against imaginary terrors.  He worried how close he was to joining that choir, as the generator made its final message.
	"It caused...the mistake.  To be sorry...subject...is incompatible.  Important...errrrrorrrrrrr..."
A screeching halt resonated throughout the room, like a steam engine suddenly braking.  James collapsed onto the floor with exhaustion, trying to regain his strength with a good rest.  But the sounds did his mind no mercy, as the screeching was followed up by a most terrible siren.  The same siren call that had taken him to this other world.
It pierced inside his mind once again, blaring a white fog of noise that made him whimper before passing out.  He laid amongst deactivated wires, a fossil amongst technology as the world around him began to recede.  He could barely think any coherent last thoughts, except for one that seemed to faintly call out to him.  It was a familiar garbled voice, with an even more familiar plea.
	"James...wake up."