The little black rat who stares at your cameras is not an anomaly — he's the game's most important informant, and the questline he leaves behind unlocks the deepest piece of lore in Animal Hospital (Anomaly).
Small black rat — white muzzle, buck teeth, curled pink tail
Around Shifts 2–4, then roughly five visits across your run
No — explicitly not an anomaly, despite the camera staring
A key to the Room 5 safe, and a note
Room 5 is at the far back-right of the hallway. Remove the cat posteron the wall and a hidden safe appears — Ratthew's key opens it. Inside:
The community widely reads that note as the origin story of the Stalker — and the suitcase matches the ones Dr. Harlow and Ron from Accounting carry, tying all three storylines to the same Animal Corp experiment.
The Animal Hospital Ratthew key is not something you find or buy — it is handed over at the end of a conversation that runs across a whole shift block. He first turns up around Shifts 2–4 and returns roughly five times over a run, saying a little more each visit: anonymous at first, then his name, then that being mistaken for an anomaly bothers him, and finally the goodbye where he tells you the government is hunting him, names his twin sister Rattina, and leaves the key and a note behind.
So the only real requirement is letting him talk. He is explicitly not an anomaly — the one animal in the game the wiki states that about outright — which matters because he stares at the camera the way several anomalies do. Tasing him because he looked at you the wrong way is how people lose this questline, and it costs −15 sanity for shooting a normal animal on top of it.
The contents are easy to read as souvenirs and are closer to a case file. Alongside the photo of Rattina sits another TOP SECRET briefcase — the same one Dr. Harlow carries — and a note recording that an experiment succeeded, ending with the line that Shadow can now see everything.
The community reads "Shadow" as the Stalker, the one threat in the game with no kill method and a single rule — do not meet its eyes. That reading is inference, not confirmation: the note never names it and the game has not said so. We are flagging it as the community's best guess rather than a fact, because the difference matters on a page people arrive at looking for answers.
While Ratthew is in the office, he warns you in red text whenever an anomaly approaches check-in. That is worth more than it sounds. Identification in this game is normally a job you do yourself, split across three channels: your own eyes, the Polaroid, and the CCTV feed — and 8 of the 19 anomalies are invisible on anything but the cameras. A warning that fires at the window is a second opinion that does not care which channel the thing was hiding on.
It does not tell you which anomaly, so it does not replace the check — you still have to look, photograph or pull up the feed to know what you are refusing. What it replaces is the worst case: admitting one because it never occurred to you to check at all. On the shifts where he happens to be in the office, that is a real safety net during the same window Barney is running his own visits and competing for your attention.
Which makes the mistake people actually make worth repeating: he stares at the cameras the way Staring at Cameras does, and he is small and odd-looking. Taser him on that basis and you have paid −15 sanity to remove your own early-warning system.
Everything below is the character record: appearance, story role, what he or she knows, and where the open questions still sit — kept separate from the walkthrough above.
| Species | Small black rat — white snout, buckteeth, curled pink tail |
|---|---|
| Role in the story | Holds the single most important piece of evidence in the game |
| Animal Corp link | Through his twin sister Rattina, who worked for them |
| Is he an anomaly? | No — the constant eye contact is a red herring, not a tell |
Ratthew is a small black anthropomorphic rat — white snout, two prominent buckteeth, a long curled pink tail, and ears that read more like a rabbit's than a typical rat's. He's paranoid and cautious from his very first visit, initially refusing to give his name at all ("being small has its advantages").
One detail the community had to learn the hard way: Ratthew maintains constant eye contactwith the player — the exact behavior that reads as a dead giveaway anomaly tell on every other patient. For him specifically, it's just how he is. Confirmed normal, no matter how unsettling it looks.
Across several visits, Ratthew reveals he chewed up classified experiment reports in Ron from Accounting's office — on purpose, and without regret. He warns the player to trust no one in this hospital, and admits it hurts that everyone treats him like an anomaly when he isn't one.
On his final visit, he says he's uncovered a government secret and is being hunted for it. He mentions his twin sister Rattina— "the smart one in the family" — who worked at the Animal Corporation before she vanished. Then he hands the player a key, and disappears for good.
Ratthew's key opens a hidden safe behind the cat poster in Room 5. Inside: a photo of Rattina, a suitcase stamped TOP SECRET, and a note reading "The experiment was a success. The shadow now sees everything."
This is the single most concrete piece of evidence in the entire game — everything else (Ron's comments, Dr. Harlow's briefcase, Liz's arrival) is circumstantial by comparison. The community reads the note as the origin story of the Stalker enemy, though the game itself never confirms it directly.
Ratthew has no link of his own. He is in the story because of someone else's job, which is a different kind of involvement from the people who took the Corporation's money — and it is why his storyline reads as a search rather than a confession.
| Character | Link | What the game actually shows |
|---|---|---|
| 🐈 Liz | Worked for the Corporation | Worked for Animal Corp's news channel and was fired for telling the truth about the infection. |
| 🐁 Rattina | Worked for the Corporation | Worked for the Corporation, then vanished before the game begins. Her photo is filed in the Room 5 safe. |
| 🐭 Ratthew ← this page | Connected by family | No link of his own — his twin sister Rattina is the connection, and finding her is what his whole storyline is about. |
| 🦌 Dr. Harlow | Carries Corporation material | Carries a black suitcase stamped TOP SECRET in red — the same object that turns up in the Room 5 safe. |
| 🐰 Barney | No documented link | Nothing ties him to the Corporation. What he proves is separate and arguably worse: the screening scanner reads him green across all five visits. |
| 🦆 Officer Duckman | No documented link | The only character doing ordinary work for an ordinary reason. He is not investigating the Corporation — he is looking for one specific criminal. |
One object shows up three separate times, and it is the same object each time: a black suitcase stamped TOP SECRET in red. It is never opened on screen.
Three carriers, no contents. Treat any account of what is inside as invention — the game has not shown it, and neither have we.
Sorted by what each of them does with what they have, the cast falls into four positions — and Ratthew is in the one labelled knows and tells you. Only Liz does the same. Both of the characters who tell you things are outsiders to the hospital itself — nobody on staff volunteers anything.
| Character | What they know | What they do with it |
|---|---|---|
| 🐈 Liz Knows and tells you | That the infection is real, and that Animal Corp buried the story. | Tells you, and hands you a camera so you can gather the proof she was fired for trying to publish. |
| 🐭 Ratthew Knows and tells you | That a government is hunting him for what he uncovered, and that his sister disappeared into the same organisation. | Warns you to trust nobody in the building, then leaves you the key rather than the answer. |
| 🐁 Rattina Knew, and is gone | Unknown — whatever it was, it was worth disappearing over. | Nothing. She is gone before the game starts, and the only thing she leaves is a photograph in someone else's safe. |
| 🦌 Dr. Harlow Knows and does not say | Unclear, and that is the point. He carries Corporation material and has been seen outside the hospital talking to an animal in a hazmat suit. | Runs your tutorial, grades your shifts, and explains none of it. |
| 🐰 Barney Knows and does not say | What he is. He is the only character who knows he is an anomaly and behaves accordingly. | Asks you for coffee, a scalpel, and finally to hide him — never once explaining why any of it is necessary. |
| 🦆 Officer Duckman Does not know | Less than you do, by the time he arrives. He has a photograph and a name. | Asks his questions and acts on your answer — which is why the choice lands on you rather than him. |
The twin sister he never stops looking for — everything we know about her.
Read About Rattina →He gives it to you himself. Ratthew visits roughly five times across a run, starting around Shifts 2–4, and hands over the key plus a note during his final goodbye. There is nothing to find or buy — you just have to let his visits play out and not taser him for staring at the camera.
No. Despite staring at the cameras, Ratthew is explicitly not an anomaly. He's a paranoid but friendly informant who visits across multiple shifts and even warns you in red text when an anomaly approaches check-in while he's in the office.
The safe hidden behind the cat poster in Room 5. Inside are a photo of his twin sister Rattina, a TOP SECRET briefcase, and a note about a successful experiment — 'Shadow can see everything now.'
He first appears around Shifts 2–4 and returns across roughly five visits, revealing more of his story each time before disappearing for good.
He maintains constant eye contact with the player — normally a strong anomaly tell in this game — but it's confirmed to be a normal quirk specific to him, not a sign he's corrupted.
He chews up classified experiment reports out of Ron's office, and his missing twin sister Rattina worked directly for the Animal Corporation before she vanished.
Storyline verified against community data. Last checked: August 31, 2026.