Chapter 77
“... I’m sorry, but the person you called is out of the coverage area....” it was probably the 10th time Jason called Caroline, but she was still not reachable.
“Hey Jason, your friend still not picking up?” Tim came over and asked.
“No, I don’t know what happened.” Jason sighed: “Can we wait 10 more minutes?”
“Sorry we can’t dude, we already pushed back 15 minutes for you.” Brian from the Branston gang told Jason: “We made a promise to our viewers, we must enter now and start streaming.”
“Okay.” Jason frustratedly rubbed his forehead for a short while, and then he turned to Evelyn, who was not planning to come to the haunted hospital but still came nonetheless and Jamie, who will work with other members of Branston’s channel to coordinate stream shots in the van: “Evelyn, Jamie, if there’s a girl named Caroline came here and asked for me, just told her that I went in earlier, alright? Thank you!”
“No problem.” Evely was drinking boba tea in the van rented by Branston’s crew: “You guys be careful.”
“Will do.” Jason sighed and went into the premise of the deserted and haunted hospital with the people who will be appearing on the livestream, leaving Evelyn and Jamie in the van.
“Alright, Branston Gang!! What’s up! Sorry for the wait, but as a wise old man once said: the good thing’s worth the wait! ” right in front of the front gate of the hospital, Branston started streaming with his camera: “Tonight! As promised, we are going to explore the famous haunted hospital, whose name was no longer available on any official California government documents - Clearwater Municipal Hospital!
“And here we are going to split into two groups, me, Adam, our old friend from the Prime Royals Hotel Jason and his buddy Tim will be one group. And in the other group, it will be Brian, Lester, Jenny, our latest member to the channel, and Ricky, who is also a friend of our friend Jason. Each group will be equipped with one EMF detector and we will keep in touch with each other through our handheld radio. They have a wonderful skit and animation channel named Creative Eye Media, you should go and check them out!”
“What? Two groups? What is this?” Jason grabbed Tim and asked: “Did you know about this? Why are we splitting up?”
“No… I don’t. But it makes sense right? There are two wings to the hospital, North Wing and West Wing, it’s better to split up to cover more ground.”
“Motherfu - why didn’t they tell us?”
“They are always making on the spot decisions like this. I’m already used to it.” Adam heard Jason and Tim’s conversation: “It’s okay, we’ll remain radio contact with each other.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Jason scratched his head in frustration: “What the hell is he thinking!? We need to stick together.”
“Hey hey hey!” just as Jason was about to go to Branston, who was excitedly announcing his plan to the audiences, Tim grabbed Jason’s arm and tried to pull him over: “What do you think you’re doing? Don’t ruin this, or we’ll be out 20 grand.”
“What… what ? What 20 grand?”
“The contract breaking fine.” Time explained: “If we break our collaboration or attempt to stop the stream within 45 minutes of filming, we’d be in violation of our contract. The fine’s 20 grand. ”
“That’s crazy! When is anybody gonna tell me that!?”
“It’s a pretty standard live stream collaboration contract.” Adam was slightly embarrassed: “I just knew that as well - we’ve never done live stream collabs before, our lawyer drafted it and it’s completely new.”
“Shit.” Jason paced around where he was for a short while, then said to his hand held radio directly: “Jamie, Evelyn, can you hear me?”
“Yep, loud and clear, what’s up?” Jamie replied.
“If Caroline looked for me, then tell her to go into the wing of the hospital where Ricky and Brian are. Don’t come find me unless it’s an emergency.”
“Understood. You sure you don’t wanna meet up with your friend first?”
“Don’t worry about me, she’ll understand.”
“Roger that, be safe!”
“Okay! Now, we’re ready to go! I will go with my group to the North Wing of the hospital, where the psychology department resided. And Brian will lead the team into the West Wing. And we will be streaming from both wings of the hospital, with two separate streams! Right now if you are watching our main channel, then you are watching our main stream. If you want to check out the two individual streams, find the links in the comment below!” Branston walked over to the side of Adam, Jason and Tim and included them in the camera angle: “Hi folks, say hello to my team! We’re going to kick Brian’s ass in ghost hunting tonight! Let’s go to the North Wing!”
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In the house where Kane and Alex were staying while they were in California, Caroline was on one side of the living room with only the wooden tomahawk in her right hand, and Simon, with a broken giant knife in his right hand, was standing on the other side at the entrance to the kitchen.
Kane and Alex were still lying on the staircase after being impacted by the explosion of the green energy, and judging from the sound coming from upstairs, there was still some enemy upstairs but they seemed to be heavily wounded and were moaning and whining. Caroline’s left waist had a deep cut on it from the knife, but luckily the wound seemed to have stopped bleeding.
“You are different now, Caroline...” Simon said in a low voice pointing at the symbol one his chest : “I guess it is kinda sad that I still have to kill you for this.”
“Tell me more about Los Diablos, Simon.” Caroline slowly got a hold of her breathing cycles and balanced her flow of Xuanli, she carefully reached into her left back pocket and took out the wooden card with a relief sculpture of a hornet on it, for some reason her pocket was filled with small pieces of broken wood splinters and wood dust and it came out the same time as the wooden card.
“It’s not a cult, it’s a family of learning, and power.” Simon raised both of his hands in front of him and showed Caroline his bigger than before hands and sharp fingernails: “Too bad, you won’t be able to see it.”
“So I’m the sacrifice huh. What gives you that idea?”
“Oh, you wanna know, don’t ya?” Simon scoffed: “Too bad, Father Corpius don’t want no backstabbing bitch!”
“I didn’t backstab you. You hit me and my friend, and you go to jail.” Caroline said: “Just like the piece of shit you are. Should’ve kept your hands to yourself.”
These words clearly angered Simon, as it caused him to lunge at Caroline with full force.
Almost the same moment at which Simon moved, Caroline put the wooden card in front of her, with the side of the hornet sculpture facing Simon, the card was fully infused with her Xuanli and was glowing in orange flamely light.
The wooden card started vibrating, as Simon approached, and Caroline’s Xuanli continued to infuse it.