The town of Black Hollow was quiet at night, wrapped in a thick, creeping fog that swallowed the streets whole. No one dared to wander after sundown—except for Daniel.
He had always been drawn to the unknown, a skeptic who laughed at ghost stories. That night, armed with nothing but a flashlight, he decided to explore the abandoned Fairview Asylum. The building had been rotting for decades, its walls covered in vines, its windows shattered like jagged teeth.
As he stepped inside, the air turned heavy, thick with the scent of mildew and something metallic—something like blood. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the distant drip of water and the scurrying of unseen vermin.
Daniel swept his flashlight across the crumbling hallway. Old wheelchairs sat abandoned, their wheels rusted. Doors hung from their hinges, revealing empty rooms filled with rotting mattresses and shattered glass. He smirked.
"Ghosts… right."
Then, he heard it.
A whisper. Soft, unintelligible. It slithered through the air, curling around his ears like a breath against his skin. His heart pounded, but he forced himself to move forward.
The sound came from Room 206. The door was slightly ajar.
Daniel pushed it open.
Inside, the room was in better condition than the others. A single bed stood in the center, sheets perfectly tucked. A wooden chair faced the window, as if someone had been sitting there, staring into the night.
Then, the chair creaked.
Daniel froze.
A figure sat there, its back to him. It was hunched, shrouded in tattered hospital clothes. Its head twitched.
The whispering grew louder.
Daniel took a step back, but the figure snapped its head toward him.
The face—if it could be called that—was a nightmare. Hollow sockets where eyes should be. A mouth stretched too wide, filled with jagged teeth. Its skin was paper-thin, clinging to bone like a decayed corpse.
And it was smiling.
Daniel turned to run, but the door slammed shut.
The whispers became laughter.
The last thing he saw before the light flickered out was the figure rising from the chair, its skeletal fingers reaching for him.
Then, there was only darkness.
Comments