I love this soundtrack.
It starts slow and quiet with a mechanic sound, something that isn’t natural. It’s unfamiliar. At the same time, the beat is a little like a heartbeat.
It gives me the feeling that we’re in a foreign environment, a place we aren’t familiar with. An office, a clinic, a laboratory, or something of that sorts, but it’s been abandoned. It’s dark, wet, messy, equipment is lying all over the place. There might even be blood. Something is very wrong here. There is a slight sense of danger, but there is nobody else nearby, no other sound other than your own heart beating loudly as you nervously bear your surroundings.
Then in comes the melody, slowly creeping in with this sound that’s like a groan from something unnatural. What is making it? It doesn’t sound human, and it sounds like whatever it is it’s struggling from the what made it be this way. (Possibly what awaits you too, if it finds you.)
It starts out faint, almost like a whisper, and then it gets louder and clearer. That thing is getting closer. But it still isn’t fully in your ear - like it isn’t in your sight, just lurking around you. It’s a few rooms or corridors over, just wandering, groaning non-stop.
All the while this unsettling melody keeps repeating. It’s going in circles, the way you are going in circles in the dark hallways, wandering from room to room, trying to find a way out before you find out what is making that noise.
Every now and then you hear something like a gate creaking open. Something or someone is going around. Or perhaps it’s you, trying to progress through the building, entering new parts of the place without knowing what awaits you there.
But every time you do so, the song gets more intense, the groaning is louder. You are entering more and more dangerous areas, and whatever is lurking around you is now closer.
But the song doesn’t only get more intense as you open a gate or door. Slowly it gets more intense on its own, the groan gets louder and clearer. So even if you don’t move, you aren’t safe. You aren’t the only one making progress, that thing is also coming closer and closer to you. The song gradually gets more intense, more dangerous sounding - because you’re in more and more danger with each passing second. You’re running out of time. You need to keep going.
Then the gate opens again. Now the song is at its most intense, and the groaning gets the loudest it is in the entire track. You, and whatever is making the sound, are right on top of each other. It’s lurking right near you, groaning in your ear, and it might already know that you are there. It’s looking for you. Now your life is truly on the line, you have to find a way out NOW.
And then, just like that, the song ends. All elements are stripped back suddenly. The groan doesn’t fade out slowly, meaning that you evaded whatever was hunting you and you’re now in the clear. We don’t even hear a door closing. No, everything just suddenly stops, even the heartbeat. It’s like time has stopped and you’re frozen in fear, even your heart skips a beat - you may be looking at something terrifying right in front of you.
The tune that has been repeating over and over as you stumbled your way across the building plays one last time, almost like saying “well, you tried”, and then the soundtrack ends. That’s it. It’s over.
The way I understand it, it isn’t just the song that’s over. It’s over for you, too. You failed to escape. You’re still alone in that destroyed, dark and bloody building with nobody to help you or even hear you scream, frozen in fear, and the thing hunting you is looking right at you. That’s it. It’s over. You’re about to die.
But we don’t get to hear that. We’re removed from the situation, left to wonder what’s going to happen, even though we’re pretty sure we know. We never really find out in the end.
And that’s another eerie aspect to the soundtrack. It ends with a mystery, it doesn’t give you a clear answer, it just leaves you to guess exactly what is happening to that person who’s standing face-to-face with a monster. You’ll just have to imagine how they might be desperately fighting for their life, not even standing a chance, and how they may be getting mauled to death in the end. That’s always more chilling than simply being told that someone has died.
