As the sun set in the sky over Sparks, Nevada, two young women could be found in a car, driving to a location one had found online a few days ago. Lorelai, the older of the pair, liked to research the paranormal, including hands-on investigations. Lily, her best friend, always tagged along due to a slight interest in the topic, and also so that her friend wouldn’t get hurt. Lorelai turned onto a road off the highway leading into the woods, her GPS leading her to an abandoned building she’d been looking into on the internet. A large concrete structure rumored to be haunted, absolutely something that would catch the young girl’s eye.

“Are you sure we’re headed in the right direction?” Lily asked quietly after around ten minutes of driving down the empty side road. She was surprised at the lack of desert, but the trees surrounding them seemed to mesh together with the darkness and create warped, tall figures looming over the pair as they traveled.

Lorelai sighed, “Unless I entered the wrong address, I’m pretty sure. You’ve gotta realize, we’re not going to a currently operating establishment.” The car’s headlights flickered, but the pair wouldn’t notice.

“Yeah, I’m aware,” Lily stopped looking at the trees for a moment, her eyes focused on the road, much like Lorelai. They continued driving in silence for around five more minutes until they reached their destination. The only thing lighting up the brutalist concrete structure was Lorelai’s headlights, which soon would flicker off as she turned off her car. Lorelai got out of the car and Lily followed, although hesitantly.

They went to the back of Lorelai’s car, an SUV, and popped open the trunk. Pulling out all sorts of equipment and stuffing it into a bag, Lorelai stuck Lily with a flashlight and a camera. Lorelai had her own flashlight as well, but she also had a lot of other things in her bag. Lily watched as Lorelai sorted her stuff, an EMF reader, spirit box, blacklight, and some other devices Lily couldn’t identify. There was a ouija board as well, despite how stupid that may seem.

“Are you ready?” Lily was snapped back from her stupor by Lorelai’s voice.

“Uh, yeah,” Lily shivered as Lorelai closed the trunk and started walking, gesturing for Lily to follow. There were no doors to the structure, just empty doorways leading inside. The closest to them was one that brought them to two sets of stairs, one leading up and the other down. Lorelai sighed as she turned on her flashlight. Lily, who’d already had hers turned on, looked at her strangely. She couldn’t ever find it in herself to ask why Lorelai operated the way she did.

“Which way do you wanna go?” Lorelai stood up straight, putting a hand to her hip. Lily had once again been caught up in her own thoughts and was caught off guard by the question.

“Uhh…” Lily began to stammer, “...does down sound okay?” Lorelai nodded, adjusted the straps of her bag and started venturing down the concrete steps.

“Ah, careful when you follow, it’s a little wet,” Lorelai called up as Lily started to follow. The concrete steps were wet, yes, and one could smell it in the air. It smelled like mold, but it also smelled slightly bitter. Some of the steps were broken with pieces of rebar sticking out, rusted to hell and back. Another thing of note was the graffiti, lots of it. Various tags and profanities, although among the average blank was here graffiti, there were some odd symbols and fairly well-drawn portraits.

The girls eventually made it down to solid ground, and Lorelai huffed. It was really dark down there, they could barely see anything aside from the wall they were closest to. Lily often wore bright clothing, pastel pinks and yellows and blues. Even her hair was a light blue shade! But Lorelai, on the other hand, appreciated more gothic fashion, wearing mostly black. Although fashionable, the black clothing mixed with her dark red hair made it hard to see her in the dark, aside from her pale skin and reflective jewelry. Lily had begun to think that this may not have been the best idea, but ended up stomaching the feeling. The wall closest to them had some graffiti on it, nothing much of note but the same old thing as before.

“Over there,” Lorelai’s voice broke Lily out of her thoughts once more. She looked to where Lorelai’s flashlight was pointed, and saw an oddly reflective surface. Lorelai looked to Lily, “The camera, turn it on.” Lily did as told, following as Lorelai stepped closer to the reflective surface. On the camera, it looked like a blob of white in the darkness, but as they found themselves right in front of it, they found it to be a door of some kind. Almost reminiscent of that of an elevator, and extremely well-kept compared to the rest of the building. It certainly didn’t belong in the dirty, damp concrete building.

“We’ll…” Lorelai huffed, looking towards Lily, “We’ll come back to this.” She took Lily’s hand and started walking away from the door, following the wall as Lily nodded in half-agreement. But Lily’s mind wouldn’t stop racing with thoughts about the elevator door. Thoughts about Lorelai. They eventually found their way to another staircase, going deeper underground with less moonlight pouring in. There seemed to be some sort of iron gate at the bottom, although rusted, but it seemed to be slightly open. Lorelai smiled at the sight and held Lily’s free hand as they walked down. Lily’s hands were soft, squishy. Lorelai’s weren’t, but Lily’s soft, silky skin against Lorelai’s evened it out.

When they reached the bottom of the staircase, Lorelai was able to slip through the gate easily, although getting a bit of rusty residue and water on her clothing. Lily, on the other hand, had struggled a bit. She wasn’t skinny by any means, though she wasn’t obese. Just larger, had some meat on her bones. After a few long seconds, Lily was able to get by, although her clothes had gotten a bit scratched up, and so had her skin. A light prick causing a thin flow of crimson down one of her arms, the one holding the camera, tainting her soft skin. She quickly wiped off the impurity, and the pair started moving forwards.

What met them past the gate, shining their flashlights on it, was an odd sight. The majority of the room was overall the same, just lacking graffiti. It was a smaller room than the last, each wall could be seen with two doorways opposite one another, on the left and right wall from where the girls stood. In front of them, though? Against the far wall was a polished mahogany table, one you’d see in a fancy dining room. On top of it appeared to be a small puppet-show stage, with a glowing backlight of orange and red LEDs that would illuminate the scene of the show. There was a small puppet that seemed reminiscent of a wolf, but with a canine skull for a face. He was wearing a flannel jacket, too.

Lorelai walked up to the table and picked up the puppet as Lily followed, making sure she was recording it all. It gave her an odd sense of danger, this room. It didn’t belong. Her mind started to race with thoughts that the articles Lorelai read could have been planted by human traffickers or whatnot, but her thoughts were interrupted by Lorelai.

“The fur and skull on this are real,” Lorelai said, placing the small wolf puppet down. Her flashlight caught another reflective surface through the right doorway, which caught her attention. She looked to Lily again, “Let’s go right.”

“Are you sure..? We can always just leave,” Lily said, rubbing the small prick wound in her gentle, pale skin that would expose the ugly flesh beneath.

“Nah, we’re in too deep now,” Lorelai chuckled, wrapping an arm around Lily’s shoulders, essentially forcing Lily to walk with her. Lily’s mind raced again. Lily was large enough that she could have absolutely hurt Lorelai. Why was she thinking about hurting Lorelai? She wouldn’t have done that to her best friend. Lorelai was kind to her. But on the off chance that she wasn’t, Lily could have easily killed the girl. But why would she ever think of those nasty things? She didn’t desire that. She couldn’t have.

They entered the doorway to their right and immediately noticed an odd change. It smelled different. Like mold. Some bugs could be heard nearby, which irritated Lily. Lorelai didn’t seem too bothered by them, as she was more focused on the multiple rooms off to the side of the room they were in. It wasn’t a hallway, but it had two doors on both sides of the room. Each door was made up of rotting wood, and each one had glass windows held sturdy by iron bars. Some of the panes were broken, but most were in-tact. It smelled like rot.

Lorelai went to the first door to their right, Lily following along with her flashlight and camera. After about a minute of trying to open the door, it came loose and fell flat on the damp concrete floor. Inside was an old box TV, unplugged, without a plug to be plugged into. It was still on anyway. It seemed to be playing some show about a group of odd figures playing pool with one another. The screen was too fuzzy to make much out, though, and eventually shut off. Lorelai didn’t react much to this, but Lily was caught off guard and frightened. This feeling carried on as they went through the other rooms, although nothing of note was found, and so they continued on.

They found themselves at another downward staircase. They couldn’t see the bottom, but an oddly bitter taste began filling Lily’s mouth as they went down.

“Should we really go any further?” Lily asked, drops of saliva slipping off her tongue. Her own spit had begun to fill her mouth as though her body was preparing to vomit, but she wasn’t nauseous.

“I want to go deeper,” Lorelai said softly, “Something about all this is just so strange to me. It strikes you as odd too, doesn’t it?”

“Ah…” Lily placed two fingers to her wound from earlier, the painful sensation of dirty skin touching ugly flesh filling her with an odd emotion. “I guess… I don’t understand a lot of what I’m seeing, though.”

“Hence why we’re looking for answers,” Lorelai said calmly, proceeding down the stairs. Lily felt strange when those words lingered in the air, trusting Lorelai’s detective skills, although with skepticism. She hadn’t read the articles Lorelai spoke of when talking about this place. Were they even real? She had no way of knowing. They were too deep underground to be able to look anything up online, no service reaches this far down. The air was heavy and thick, the bitter taste growing exponentially.

When they made it to the bottom of the staircase, they were met with an odd sight. The room they’d reached was much larger than any other rooms they’d seen in the structure prior, large concrete pillars holding up the tall ceiling. Along with this, lights on the ceiling and walls dimly lit the room, allowing them to see an array of strange things. Rusty hooks protruding from the dirty, damp walls, moldy ropes that haven’t been used in decades, and multiple bookshelves full of books written in a language neither of the girls could identify, much less understand. There were also several doorways leading down strange hallways, and one such doorway caught Lorelai’s eye.

As Lily was busy trying to look at the books, stuffing them in her bag to bring to the surface, Lorelai ventured down one of the hallways. At the end of it was a white door, extremely clean considering the rest of the environment, and on the wall adjacent to it was another elevator door. Lorelai huffed and tried opening the white door, and when successful, ventured forth. She found herself on a metal platform in a large, dimly lit concrete tunnel. A bitter smelling liquid flowed through the bottom of the tunnel, and at the end of the platform was another door. She made her way through the tunnel and through the door.

Upon opening the door, Lorelai was immediately overwhelmed by the smell of rot and decay, multiple bugs flying out. The room on the other side of the door was a very old tiled room with shower heads on the walls and drains on the floor, but the room was nowhere near clean. It was dirty, rusty, and smelled of decay. On the other side of the room was a doorway, at one point closed off by metal bars, but they’d been pulled back. They were rusty and dirty, much like the rest of the room, but on the other side of that door was another hallway with a candle at the end.

Lorelai ventured forth into the hallway, but the smell started getting to her, especially paired with the bitter taste. Her mouth filled with saliva as she grew fatigued. The hallway felt much longer than it appeared to be. Lorelai’s mind began to wander as she walked, wondering odd things about the place. Wondering about everything she and Lily had seen. Not paying any attention to the room, Lorelai hadn’t noticed that there were steps leading down. She tripped and fell onto the cold, wet concrete floor. Her body began filling with pain as blood began draining from the side of her head, as well as her nose and mouth.

Lorelai was winded. She stayed on the ground for at least a minute. Maybe two or three, bleeding out as her wounds started to get infected by the dirty, rusty water. She had definitely broken some bones, most notably her skull and jaw, but also her right arm. Inhaling the dirty air and water had also taken a toll on her, but she somehow managed to find the strength to get up. Lorelai’s head had a sharp, yet throbbing pain soaked deep inside it, but she continued to walk to the candle, even if weakly. She was so close to the candle. She was… so close…

When she made it to the end of the hallway, the candle flickered out. Lorelai wasn’t able to breathe through her nose, but even when breathing through her mouth she noticed how little oxygen there was this far down. Her hair shed some of the water it held as she quickly turned around. Something seemed off about the hallway, though. Something had changed. Maybe Lorelai was just seeing things, she was lightheaded after all, but there seemed to be someone at the other end of the hall.

“H… Hello?” Lorelai asked weakly, blood leaking from her mouth. The figure, who was once shrouded in darkness, lifted their head to reveal a strangely disfigured face. His eyes were much too large and angular, his skin too pale, his mouth too wide.

“Hello, Elora,” said the figure as he stepped closer, brushing his long black hair away from his face. As he did so, his hands became visible. Long, pale, pointy fingers that felt more monstrous than human. “And just what are you doing all the way down here? Does it remind you of home?”

Lorelai could only find herself able to weakly huff as the man’s presence drew ever closer. The man smiled as he stood over her, a thick black substance dripping down from his hair and onto her skin.

“Ah, or would you remember the name 'MOLD Amygdala Sample 34-LYNN'?” the man asked with a chuckle. Lorelai squinted and flinched as the gooey black substance touched her skin, causing a burning sensation. She couldn’t understand what the man was saying. Slowly, to Lorelai, she fell again, eyes closed. Instead of hitting the cold, wet concrete floor, though, she hit a clean tiled floor. Opening her eyes, she was met with warm lights from lit chandeliers and candles.

Weakly getting up, Lorelai found herself within a large, fancy foyer, one that would be found within a mansion. In front of her was a large staircase heading up, the railing made of fancily polished wood and detailed with metals and jewels. The stairway split around halfway through, going to two hallways that appeared just as fancy. Lorelai turned behind her, a pain growing in her left eye as she did so. She saw a door that seemed to be the front door to the mansion, and began dragging herself towards it, blood staining the floor as she did so.

Upon making it to the door, Lorelai slowly pulled it open, finding herself deeper within the concrete maze. A long, dark hallway stood before her, candles dimly lighting the way. A cinnabar moth slowly flew past the girl and into the darkness, which she smiled at, and began to walk with the moth. It was dark. Cold. The pain in her eye grew worse, slowly, a throbbing pain. An itch started to grow around her mouth area, which she began to scratch, unknowingly tearing skin from her face as she did so. After around ten minutes of walking, the lower half of her face was gone, revealing her gums and teeth, torn muscles and little bits of flesh hanging off.

The black substance that had fallen on her arms and whatnot had begun rotting them, cells turned visibly necrotic as blood dripped onto the concrete and mixed with the water. As Lorelai reached the end of the hallway, she found herself in a large room, not much larger than her own apartment. On the walls, there were meat hooks. On the meat hooks, there were pieces of Lily.

Lily’s beautiful exterior was almost entirely removed, the ugly interior strewn about the wall as though some child was trying to make artwork. Her intestines were wrapped around what used to be her neck, the top half of her head hanging loosely off of the dislocated jaw. The limbs were broken and contorted into odd positions, stuck onto the meat hooks. Her stomach had been cut open in the shape of a cross. It was ugly. Lily was ugly.

“You shouldn’t have left her all alone like that, Eleanor,” the man’s voice sang from behind Lorelai. When she turned, there were only cinnabar moths. The pain in her eye grew worse, and as she went to foolishly rub her eye, it popped. As she screamed out in pain, a viscous, black substance much like what dripped from the man’s flesh began to pour from her empty eye socket. Writhing in pain, Lorelai could not stand upright, and ended up falling backwards, cleaving her head open on one of the rusty meat hooks.

Weeks later, the carcasses of two young women, identified as Lily September and Lorelai Willow, washed up on Norfolk Beach in Virginia. The two women were covered in self-inflicted wounds, as well as defensive wounds. Each girl had the skin of the other under their fingernails, and their stomach contents revealed the flesh of the other. It is unknown what happened to them.