Their situation would soon become quite literally suffocating if the patients did not move quickly: as they drew closer to the exit, they would realise that it was not further away but closing in. And if they came close enough, they would realise that they recognised the substance weaving shut their escape, that they were in fact quite familiar with it.

Though probably not in this context. Dark black hair was sprouting from the ceiling and walls, thick swathes of it looping towards the centre of the hall until all the exits were completely obscured by it. The regular dimness of the Institute at night suddenly seemed bright compared to the strange opacity of this darkness; depths of hair absorbed the beams of flashlights, slithering over itself and glinting distractingly in the light.

And now that the exits were blocked, it was creeping along the walls, the ceiling, the floor: as if it sought to encircle them completely in its masses, smother them with the rage soaking into the air.