It was far from his imagination: the Institute looked less run-down than it did altogether abandoned, moonlight striking the unkempt walls in a way that turned everything grey. The patients' footsteps stirred up thicker and thicker layers of dust as they proceeded through the hallway, and a strip of loose wallpaper fluttered free in a faint breeze of indeterminate origin.

The hallway stretched out before them, seemingly elongated, the far end buried in shadow thick enough that it was nearly tangible. Around them, indistinct and barely-there, there sounded the faintest rattling breath.