The air in the small clinic tasted of rust and old antiseptic—a metallic tang that clung to the back of the throat. Flickering fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like trapped insects, casting a sickly green pallor over everything they touched. Peeling posters on the walls advertised remedies for ailments that didn't exist in any medical textbook, their edges curling like dead leaves. In the center of this decaying room, bound to a rust-eaten delivery chair with thick leather straps, a woman writhed.
"Doctor! Doctor! I think it's coming!"
Her scream tore through the stagnant air, raw and primal. Blood—some old and brown, some fresh and crimson—smeared her thighs and soaked through the thin hospital gown. The chair groaned under her convulsions, its rusted joints screeching in protest. The smell of iron and sweat and something sweetly rotten filled the small space.
"Hurry! Doctor, come look! He's coming out!!"
She strained against the restraints, veins standing out on her neck and forehead. Her eyes, wide with panic, fixed on the figure standing by a cluttered workbench in the corner. The man wore a stained white coat, his back turned to her as he busied himself with something she couldn't see.
"Why aren't you coming over! Doctor! Doctor!? Are you even a doctor?? Turn around and look at me!!!"
Her voice climbed higher, edged with hysteria. Still, the doctor didn't turn. He merely nodded, his movements deliberate, almost languid, as he responded with infuriating calm.
"Alright, alright, I'm coming. Don't rush. I'm preparing the delivery tools. You wouldn't want your child to fall to the floor the moment they're born, would you, madam?"
The words struck the increasingly frantic woman with peculiar force. Her frenzied thrashing stilled. The wild, animal panic in her bloodshot eyes receded, replaced by a dull, mechanical clarity. Her gaze drifted downward, moving with unnatural slowness to settle on her swollen abdomen. When she spoke again, her voice had taken on a dreamy, detached quality.
"The child... yes, the child... The child mustn't fall to the floor. I must give birth. The child mustn't fall to the floor..."
She began repeating the phrase like a mantra, a hypnotic rhythm that seemed to steady her frayed nerves. The clinic fell into an uneasy quiet, broken only by the rhythmic, jarring *clang* of metal on metal.
*Clang. Clang. Clang.*
The Doctor was making his tools.
With each strike of his hammer, a spray of orange sparks erupted from the anvil before him. They illuminated the dim corner for fleeting instants—flashbulb glimpses of twisted metal, strange implements, and the Doctor's focused profile. The sudden bursts of light drew the woman's attention. Still cradling her belly, she turned her head toward the sound. As she watched the fiery shower, the calm in her eyes began to crack. The red crept back in, a tide of returning madness. Her lips peeled back from her teeth.
"Doctor! What are you doing!? What are you doing!?"
"Me?" The Doctor's voice was light, conversational, as if discussing the weather. "I told you. Preparing the delivery tools. The clinic's been so busy lately—all the nurses are assisting other patients. I'm afraid I have to handle these little tasks myself."
As he spoke, he finally turned. In his hands, he held the product of his labor: a crude, freshly-forged steel saw. Its teeth were irregular, sharp, and gleamed dully in the bad light. The Doctor held it up for her inspection, his face breaking into a wide, cheerful smile that seemed utterly alien in the grim setting. He looked genuinely proud.
"See? All ready."
The moment the woman's eyes registered the saw, her body went rigid, then erupted into violent, seizure-like spasms. The leather straps bit into her flesh as she fought against them. The old chair shrieked in agony, a sound of grinding rust that set teeth on edge. Her legs kicked out wildly, splattering dark blood across the stained concrete floor.
"What are you going to do!? That's not a delivery tool! What are you planning!?"
"Madam, please look more carefully. This is a delivery hysterotomy saw."
The Doctor stepped closer, the saw held loosely at his side. His gaze drifted over the jagged teeth with something akin to affection, as if admiring a fine painting. He clicked his tongue appreciatively.
"This represents the very cutting edge of obstetric technology. Published in *Science*, no less. The procedure is elegantly simple: using this saw, we make a precise incision across the abdomen. This allows your child to be delivered directly onto the chair, intact and secure. It completely eliminates the tragic, and statistically significant, risk of the newborn falling to the floor during a conventional vaginal delivery. Dramatically reduces infection risk, you see."
He gestured with the tool, its shadow dancing on the wall. "Furthermore, the serrated blade creates a larger wound channel. This ensures there's no chance of the child's head becoming lodged due to insufficient space during extraction."
The Doctor leaned in, using the saw to gently measure a line across the woman's taut, blood-smeared belly. He squinted, smiling.
"Most importantly, this method currently boasts a zero percent dissatisfaction rate."
The woman's frantic struggles slowed. The Doctor's words, delivered with such calm authority, seeped into the cracks of her terror. Her eyes glazed over slightly, focusing on some internal point.
"Child... safe... my child... will be safe..."
"Exactly, madam. You can rest assured. I am the most experienced delivery specialist in this entire clinic. Your child's safety is my utmost priority."
The promise, once given, acted like a trigger. The woman's fear transformed into a frenetic, desperate excitement. She began slapping her own mountainous belly with surprising force, straining her neck forward, her voice a hoarse shriek of urgency.
"Quick! Quick, deliver it! My child is coming! Hurry, Doctor!! Hurry!"
"To serve you is my honor."
The Doctor raised the crude steel saw. His hands, remarkably, did not tremble. The tool was an extension of his will. With a touch as light as a lover's, he placed the first tooth against the skin just above her pubic bone.
Then he drew it upward.
***Shhhhht—***
The sound was not of tearing, but of parting—a wet, deliberate separation. A thin, precise red line unfurled up her abdomen like a morbid zipper being pulled. The flesh beneath did not resist; it yielded like the rind of an overripe fruit, splitting open under the slightest pressure.
***BANG—***
The woman's body, strained beyond all endurance, did not simply bleed. It *ruptured*. It was a balloon sliced open, a dam giving way. A torrent of blood and viscera exploded outward, painting the walls, the floor, the ceiling in a grotesque fresco. The coppery stench of blood became overwhelming, mixed with the sour smell of bile and released bowels.
She was not dead.
Agony, pure and absolute, ripped a scream from her that was beyond sound, a raw tearing of the vocal cords. She bucked against her restraints with a strength born of ultimate suffering, her limbs flailing in a macabre dance. Her eyes, wide with betrayal and a horror so deep it had become crystalline, locked onto the Doctor. Her voice was a gurgling, venomous rasp.
"What are you doing? WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL ME! YOU WANT TO KILL MY CHILD!!"
The Doctor was drenched. A fine spray of arterial crimson coated his white coat, now a Jackson Pollock of gore. Yet his face remained curiously, impossibly clean. He moved the saw—now dripping—away from his line of sight and offered the woman another beatific smile, his expression one of patient, wounded understanding.
"Madam, it truly hurts me to hear you say that. I am saving you. And your child. Look. Your child... has been safely delivered."
The woman's frantic movements ceased abruptly. A wave of transcendent joy, more powerful than the pain, washed over her ravaged features. With tremendous effort, she looked down at the ruin of her abdomen.
There, nestled amidst the glistening loops of intestine and pulped flesh, was a pair of eyes.
They were large, perfectly round, and a pure, depthless black—like chips of obsidian. They were clear, intelligent, and strikingly beautiful. They blinked slowly, gazing up at her with serene curiosity.
They would have been utterly captivating, were they not set at the tip of a thick, ropy, tentacular appendage that squirmed gently amidst the carnage.
The Doctor followed her gaze and beamed, a connoisseur appreciating fine work. "Look how healthy your child is! Such bright, spirited eyes! Clearly going to be a... well... a child with... large eyes."
The woman's joyous expression faltered for a microsecond at this bizarre praise, but her overwhelming maternal instinct surged back, undiminished. From her sunken, bruised eye sockets, tears welled up. But they were not clear. They were thick, black, and viscous, tracing dark paths through the blood on her cheeks.
"My child! My child!!"
"Yes. Your child."
"Bring my child to me! Let me see! Is it a boy or a girl?"
The Doctor's smile froze. A flicker of genuine professional quandary passed over his face. He peered more closely at the writhing tentacle, its slick surface glistening under the fluorescent lights. Strictly speaking, if one had to assign a gender to a cephalopod-like limb...
"Congratulations, madam. It's a... a... boy. Definitely a boy. Has the... necessary equipment."
He reached into the bloody cavity with bare hands, his movements clinical and unbothered by the warmth and slickness. He carefully disentangled the tentacle—it was about the length of a human infant, though its texture was all wrong, cool and muscular and covered in fine, sensitive cilia. The large black eyes at its tip continued to blink placidly.
The Doctor placed the squirming newborn onto the woman's ravaged chest, just above the horrific wound. The tentacle coiled slightly, its tip—the part with the eyes—lifting to brush against the woman's chin.
A profound, beatific peace settled over the woman's face. The agony, the terror, the betrayal—all melted away under the gaze of those large, black eyes. She tried to raise a trembling hand to touch it, but the straps held her fast. She could only nuzzle it with her chin, her black tears dripping onto its slick surface.
"My beautiful boy..." she whispered, her voice fading. "My... beautiful..."
Her breath hitched. The light in her human eyes—the ones filled with pain and love—dimmed and went out. Her head lolled to the side. The tentacle-child nuzzled against her still-warm neck for a moment longer, then became still, as if sensing the change.
The Doctor watched the scene, his head tilted. He pulled a relatively clean cloth from his pocket and began meticulously wiping the blood from his hands and arms. The saw he placed back on the workbench with a soft *clink*.
"A successful delivery," he announced to the empty, blood-soaked room. "Mother expired due to pre-existing complications and blood loss. Child is viable and healthy. Standard post-natal procedures may commence."
From the shadows near the door, a figure stirred. He had been standing there so still, so quiet, that he had become part of the scenery. A young man, perhaps in his mid-twenties, with hair that needed cutting and eyes that had seen too much too quickly. He wore simple, worn clothes that marked him as neither doctor nor patient. His name was Chen.
He had witnessed everything.
His stomach churned, a hollow, sick feeling that had nothing to do with the overwhelming stench of blood. His mind screamed at him to run, to vomit, to scream himself. But his feet were rooted to the spot. He had come here for answers, drawn by rumors of a place where the desperate could make contact with something beyond the mundane world. He had heard whispers of the Faith Game, of Trials set by incomprehensible powers. He had not expected the waiting room to be a charnel house.
The Doctor finally turned his clean, smiling face toward Chen. "Ah. The next applicant. I apologize for the mess. We're understaffed, as you can see." He gestured vaguely at the corpse and the... child. "Do you have an appointment?"
Chen's mouth was dry. He tried to speak, but only a croak came out. He cleared his throat, forcing his voice to work. "I... I was told to come here. About the... the Wish Trials."
The Doctor's smile didn't change, but something in his eyes sharpened. The professional geniality took on a new, more assessing quality. "The Wish Trials. Of course. Sponsored by our generous patrons, The Entities. You seek to change your Path, then? To earn their favor?"
Chen nodded mutely. His life had been a series of dead ends and quiet desperation. The news feeds were full of stories—some whispered, some screamed—of ordinary people who had entered the Faith Game and emerged different. Powerful. Blessed. Or utterly destroyed. He had nothing left to lose.
"Excellent," the Doctor said, stepping over a pool of congealing blood as if it were a puddle after a light rain. "You've just witnessed a minor affiliated procedure. Consider it an... orientation. The old rules of biology, morality, even physics... they become flexible under the gaze of The Entities. To become a Believer, to walk a new Path, you must first understand that."
He stopped in front of Chen, looking him up and down. "You wish to enter a Trial. To prove your potential worth to one of Them. Which aspect calls to you? Order? Civilization? Chaos? The sweet whispers of the Abyss? The clever lies of Deception?"
Chen hadn't gotten that far in his planning. He'd just wanted *out*. "I... I don't know."
"A blank slate. Refreshing." The Doctor reached into his bloody coat and pulled out a small, ornate token. It was made of a dark, warm metal, etched with shifting, non-Euclidean patterns that hurt the eyes to follow. "This is an invitation. The Trial is simple in objective: survive. Succeed, and you may attract the notice of an Entity. You may be granted a sliver of their power—a Divine Blessing to start you on your Path. Fail..." He glanced back at the delivery chair. "Well, failure has many faces."
Chen took the token. It was heavier than it looked, and cold. The moment his fingers touched it, a shiver ran up his spine—not of fear, but of something else. A dreadful, exhilarating sense of *possibility*.
"Where do I go?" Chen asked, his voice firmer now.
"The token will guide you when the time comes. It will grow warm. Until then, live your life. Try to enjoy it." The Doctor's smile finally faded, replaced by an expression of weary professionalism. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a newborn to process and a clinic to sanitize. The paperwork alone is a trial in itself."
Chen needed no further dismissal. He clutched the token tightly, turned, and pushed open the clinic's creaking door. He stumbled out into a narrow, rain-slicked alleyway. The air outside, thick with the smell of wet garbage and diesel fumes, was the sweetest thing he had ever breathed.
He leaned against the damp brick wall, shaking. The image of the woman's joyful face as she gazed at the tentacle was burned into his mind. The calm, black eyes of the thing she called her son. The Doctor's cheerful, blood-spattered efficiency.
*What have I just gotten into?*
He looked down at the token in his hand. The twisted patterns seemed to move in the dim alley light, suggesting shapes that were almost familiar, yet profoundly wrong. A game. A Faith Game run by beings called Entities. With Trials that offered Wishes.
He thought of his tiny, empty apartment. His dead-end job that barely paid for that apartment. The silence of his life, punctuated by nothing but the distant sirens of a decaying city. He thought of the woman's black tears of joy.
He pushed himself off the wall and began walking. The token, nestled in his palm, felt less like a key and more like a shackle. But it was a shackle he had willingly clicked shut around his own wrist.
Somewhere in the city, or perhaps in the spaces between cities, a Trial was waiting. Somewhere, an Entity might be watching. And Chen, with nothing left to lose and a terror in his heart that was slowly hardening into resolve, would be there when it began.
The path from the clinic led him into the neon-drenched heart of the city's night district. The glaring signs for bars and clubs and illicit pharmacies were a jarring contrast to the grim intimacy of the delivery room. Here, life pulsed with a cheap, desperate energy. Laughter sounded too sharp, arguments too loud. The air smelled of spilled beer, fried food, and the ozone crackle of faulty signage.
He walked without seeing, the token a lead weight in his pocket. The Doctor's words echoed. *Order. Civilization. Chaos. Abyss. Deception.* They were just words, but the way the Doctor had said them—like flavors of ice cream or brands of cigarette—made them feel tangible, dangerous. Which one was he? He'd never considered himself an agent of Chaos, but he certainly didn't uphold Order. The Abyss sounded... final. Deception required a cleverness he wasn't sure he possessed.
His feet carried him to a all-night diner he frequented when the silence of his apartment became too loud. The bell above the door jingled with a hollow cheerfulness. The air inside was greasy and warm, smelling of old coffee and bacon. A few lone patrons hunched over chipped Formica counters, lost in their own worlds.
Chen slid into a booth by the window, the vinyl seat sticking to his legs. He ordered coffee from a waitress whose face was a mask of perpetual exhaustion. When the thick white mug was placed before him, he wrapped his hands around it, seeking warmth his body didn't actually need.
He was about to take a sip when the token in his pocket grew warm.
Not just warm. It became suddenly, unnaturally hot, like a coal plucked from a fire. He yelped, fumbling in his pocket, and dropped the metal disc onto the table with a clatter. It steamed slightly on the cool Formica.
The etched patterns were glowing with a faint, sickly green light. As he watched, the light pulsed, and the patterns rearranged themselves. They no longer suggested abstract shapes. Now, they clearly formed words in a script that was alien yet perfectly comprehensible:
**TRIAL INITIATED: THE CUCKOO'S NEST**
**OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE THE NIGHT.**
**LOCATION: ST. MARY'S ABANDONED HOSPITAL, RIVER DISTRICT.**
**COMMENCING IN: 02:59:57... 56... 55...**
A countdown. Three hours.
Chen stared, his blood running cold. He'd expected days. Weeks, even. Time to prepare, to research, to back out. Not three hours. Not a location like St. Mary's. Everyone in the city knew about St. Mary's. It was a monument to urban decay, a sprawling complex on the polluted riverbank that had been shut down after a series of unexplained patient deaths decades ago. It featured prominently in local ghost stories and dare videos from stupid teenagers. Some of those teenagers hadn't come back out.
This was it. No more preparation. The Faith Game didn't offer a practice round.
He became aware of someone standing by his table. He looked up, quickly palming the still-warm token. It was the waitress. She was looking at him, her tired eyes slightly concerned.
"You alright, hon? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Chen forced a laugh that sounded brittle even to his own ears. "Just... bad news. On my phone."
She nodded sympathetically, as if bad news was the only kind this diner ever served. "Want a refill?"
"No," Chen said, standing up too quickly. He threw a few crumpled bills on the table. "I have to go."
He fled the diner, back into the chaotic night. The countdown was a drumbeat in his mind. *02:58:21... 20... 19...* He had to get to the River District. He had to face whatever was in that hospital.
He was no longer just Chen, the man with nothing to lose. He was Chen, a prospective Believer, walking blindly toward his first Trial. The Path, whatever it would be, started tonight, in the rotting halls of St. Mary's. And the only thing waiting for him there was the promise to survive.
As he hailed a beat-up taxi, he glanced back in the direction of the clinic, now swallowed by the city's gloom. He thought of the Doctor, calmly cleaning up the aftermath of a "successful delivery." That was the world he was stepping into. A world where the rules were written by capricious, unfathomable Entities, and the price of playing was paid in blood, sanity, and things far worse.
The taxi pulled up, its exhaust coughing a cloud of fumes into the damp air. Chen got in.
"Where to?" the driver grunted.
Chen took a deep breath. The token burned a hole in his pocket, a constant, accusing reminder.
"River District," he said, his voice steady now, hollowed out by resolve. "St. Mary's Hospital."
The driver gave him a long, wary look in the rearview mirror but said nothing. He just put the car in gear and pulled into the relentless flow of traffic. Chen watched the city blur past, a tapestry of light and shadow, of life utterly oblivious to the Games being played in its darkest corners. He was part of those Games now.
The countdown continued its inexorable march in his mind. The Trial awaited. The Entities watched.
And Chen, armed with nothing but fear and a desperate wish for something more, went to meet his fate.