Sublunar Photography

Prison #7 operated for about 80 years and closed in the 2010's.

Click here for the video.

The Groundhog Incident

I was minding my own business exploring this large prison alone and had just gone inside a smaller outbuilding when, on the second floor, I encountered the devil in the shape of a groundhog.

The groundhog was sitting in the middle of the hallway of the second floor and staring at me with a fiery and intense anger burning in his eyes. I think we were both equally surprised to meet inside this building and especially here on the second floor. He bade me to depart at once but I delayed heeding his warning. I checked out a couple rooms on my side of the building and left him to his side but he was very unsettled and making a commotion the whole time. We crossed paths again and he warned me a second time, but "nay", I thought, "I shall stay for you are but a groundhog and nothing more." Oh, what a fool I had been!

And so it was that I descended the stairs to complete my exploration of this building on the ground floor when I heard the meaty menace angrily plopping down the stairs after me. He stopped near the top of the last flight of stairs. With chest puffed up and with a murderous countenance, he looked me directly in the eyes and he warned me, thrice, to begone or be-perished like so many of his foes who have fallen before him. He seemed to elicit a sick pleasure in recalling the gory demise his victims endured at the chisel shaped ends of his large incisors and it was at this moment that I realized this was no ordinary groundhog. I paused a moment to reflect upon his words. I decided to move towards the door because I didn't want to be cornered by him in case he was rabid or had some other disease, or demonic possession, to explain why a groundhog-shaped devil came to inhabit the second floor of this old building. Sensing my fear and utilizing his advantage on the high ground, the ornery abomination made his move. He charged at me down the stairs -not walking but running down- directly at me. I ran out the front door as he taunted me with threatening language and obscene gestures, the likes of which common decency forbids description thereof. His foul temperament overshadowed even the sunny day and the bright blue skies in which we now found ourselves outside the front door of his gloomy gothic abode. I turned around on the front porch and shouted "Fuck you, you beaver ass lookin' bitch!"

I then ran until I couldn't run anymore. I saw his face behind every blade of grass and in every doorway I passed. The winds carried his gamey odor to the furthest corners of the prison yard. I wished I was far away from this cursed place. Even still when I close my eyes, I am haunted by his beady eyes which pierce my tortured soul. In my dreams I am forever running in slow-motion from a bloodthirsty rodent with an insatiable lust for violence and a mastery of stinging personal insults which he delivers with unreasonable amounts of attitude and sass.

Fortunately, I was able to capture this terrifying ordeal on video:

The first encounter is at 23:24

The horrific attack occurs at 25:46

Hospital #6 began in this location 150 years ago although most of the original buildings were demolished and replaced in the 1950's-70's. Over the last decade or so, they began to slowly decommission various portions of the now sprawling complex. At some point within the past couple of years, it finally closed for good.

Click here for the video.

When this hospital was still semi-operational it was a pretty surreal environment in which to find yourself; On one floor you'd encounter a typical medical office with clean hallways and receptionists who occasionally called out the names of bored magazine readers. Just around the corner from the waiting room, a normal looking staircase transported you to an alternate-reality version of the same space you just passed through. The muffled sounds of a still active hospital wing faintly reverberated through the long unswept hallways and heavy shadows of the floor above. There's a definite tension in the air when you know that you're not alone inside and you've become unsure of the quickest route to the nearest exit. Some stairwells were locked on one floor but open on another which effectively made the whole place a sprawling 3D puzzle you needed to solve in order to get to the next level. Occasionally a nurse would require something stored in a deactivated wing and they were always escorted by security. The elevators would randomly come to life with sudden buzzing/rattling noise which usually gave you just enough time to duck before the familiar "ding" as the doors opened. Sometimes it dinged on the floor above and other times it happened right around the corner from you. Most of the time you were too far away to hear anything so you never could be sure where exactly the riders disembarked-or if anyone was there at all.