The Old Hospital
The darkness was alive.
Brynn felt it pressing against her skin, cold and damp, like the breath of something ancient. She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. She couldn’t see Kael, though she felt his fingers intertwined with hers, warm and steady.
The door had closed behind them. She couldn’t hear it, couldn’t feel it. There was only the dark, the cold, and the whispers.
Welcome home.
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. From the walls, the floor, the air itself. Brynn shivered.
“What now?” she whispered.
“Keep moving,” Kael said. His voice was low, steady. “There should be stairs. The door led to a stairwell. We need to go down.”
“Down?”
“The old hospital levels are below the basement. Three floors, according to the building records.”
“How do you know?”
“I found blueprints in the city archives. The original building had four floors below ground. The top two were sealed off when they converted to apartments. The bottom two were buried.”
“Buried?”
“Filled with rubble. Or bodies. The records don’t say.”
They moved forward, their feet shuffling on what felt like stone. The air grew colder, damper. The whispers multiplied—not just one voice now, but dozens, overlapping, murmuring, calling.
Brynn.
Brynn, we’ve been waiting.
Brynn, your sister is here.
She clenched her jaw. “Ignore them,” Kael said. “They feed on fear. Don’t give them what they want.”
“How do you know so much?”
“Because I’ve been down here before.”
She stopped. “You’ve been down here? You’ve been in the old hospital?”
“A few times. Never past the first level.”
“Why not?”
“Because the whispers get stronger the deeper you go. The first level is just memories. The second level is voices. The third level is something else.”
“What’s on the third level?”
He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know. I’ve never made it that far.”
They found the stairs.
They were narrow, steep, made of metal that groaned beneath their weight. The darkness seemed to thicken as they descended, pressing against them like water.
The whispers grew louder.
Come down.
Come to us.
We have your sister.
Brynn tightened her grip on Kael’s hand. “How do you know they’re telling the truth?”
“I don’t.”
“What if she’s not here?”
“Then we keep looking.”
The first level was a hallway.
The walls were gray, stained with water, covered in peeling paint. Doors lined both sides, their numbers faded, their handles rusted. Some were open, some closed. The air smelled like rot and medicine.
“This was the patient wing,” Kael said. “The videos I found said they kept the worst cases down here.”
“Worst cases?”
“Violent. Unpredictable. The ones they couldn’t cure.”
“They didn’t cure anyone. They just hid them.”
“Same thing.”
Brynn walked to the first door. The number was 107. She pushed it open.
Inside, a small room. A bed with a thin mattress. A sink. A chair. And on the wall, carved into the plaster, words.
They took my voice.
She touched the carving. The letters were deep, rough, desperate.
I screamed for days. No one came.
“What happened to them?” she whispered.
Kael stood in the doorway. “They became the whispers.”
They moved down the hallway.
Room after room. Carving after carving. Confessions of pain, of fear, of longing. Some were simple—help me, let me out, I’m sorry. Others were longer, rambling, the words of minds that had shattered.
They put needles in my arms. They put electricity in my head. They said it would make me better. It made me empty.
Brynn felt tears on her cheeks. She hadn’t noticed she was crying.
“Keep moving,” Kael said.
“We can’t just leave them.”
“They’re gone, Brynn. The people who wrote those words died decades ago. What’s left is just… echo.”
They reached the end of the hallway.
A stairwell. Leading down.
The whispers were louder now, more insistent.
Brynn.
Brynn, we’re so close.
Brynn, your sister is just below.
She looked at Kael. “Are you coming?”
“I said I would.”
They descended.
The second level was different.
No hallway. No doors. Just a large, open room filled with hospital beds. Rows and rows of them, their sheets gray with dust, their frames rusted. Shadows moved between the beds—shapes that weren’t quite solid, faces that weren’t quite visible.
“Don’t look at them,” Kael said.
“I can’t help it.”
“Close your eyes.”
She did.
The whispers changed.
Open your eyes, Brynn.
Look at us.
See what they did to us.
She opened her eyes.
The shapes were clearer now. People. Patients. They stood between the beds, their bodies gaunt, their faces hollow. Some were missing limbs. Some were missing eyes. Some were just outlines, shadows without substance.
One stepped forward. A woman. Young, with dark hair and pale skin.
Do you know me? she asked.
Brynn shook her head.
I was your sister’s roommate. In the facility. Before she disappeared.
“My sister was never in a facility.”
She was. After she vanished, they found her. They put her here. The Colfax wasn’t just apartments. It was a hospital for the lost. And your sister was lost.
“Where is she?”
The woman pointed to the stairwell.
Below. She’s been waiting for you.