Lloyd's attack struck home. Bone and rotted sinew snapped, both arms pulping open until they dangled freely, connected to Al only by the ferocious strength of their fingers: for even as decaying flesh oozed black slime down his back, they clung on, pulling without the logic of physics, until --

Even as Ed reached for his brother, the darkness reached back. The sluggish mess staining his shirt, cold to the touch, suddenly writhed into motion at the same time as the blackness behind him did: it whipped around Al, grabbing at him like myriad tiny hands dragging him back into the darkness. Except these were no hands. If the patients took the time to look, they would see: it was hair, a sea of it, creeping along the shadows cast in the hallway and making them alive.

Strands crawled over his face, writhing around the hand still clawing into flesh until it subsumed it altogether and the fingers became hair themselves, funneling into every crevice: mouth, nostrils, ears, seeking even to creep between his eyelids and eyeballs.