Silent Creatures

I was quite surprised when I saw the hospital for the first time in real person... the administration is a bit strange looking, with the clock tower seeming to be top heavy, but the building carried a presence of awe inspiring fortitude. The detail was incredible, and the wards were very prison-esque in the fact that the windows had thick, heavy jail bars laid across them (although it's difficult to tell from the outside since most of them are boarded or bricked up).

Inside the wards started out interesting... a basement room full of antique electronics kept us busy for a while. Then we walked into a wide tiled hallway which got us excited... surgery? Morgue? No, lots of little benches... really weird. I wandered into the back of the large room and stood there for a few minutes, trying to comprehend what I was seeing. It was a giant shower room, with about twenty stalls, and in the center was a caged area with dials for water temperature; essentially a place where the patients were hosed down en-masse. Perhaps this hospital was once overcrowded and understaffed, but this just didn't sit right with me. Worcester State was the first hospital I have visited where I felt such a strong feeling of sadness.

We made out way upstairs, and explored the very empty wards, constantly dodging bats flying into our faces; you can't hear them coming until they're right on top of you! The fire department seemed to have been using some of the rooms to train in, some had mazes that you had to crawl around in the pitch blackness, I would guess in full gear. There were a few bed frames left, and some miscellaneous objects, but the place was pretty much massive and empty.