The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting a sterile glow over the empty hospital hallway. The air is thick with the scent of antiseptic and something else—something metallic. Blood.

Nurse Elena Graves stands frozen at the nurse’s station, her fingers trembling over the call button. Her shift started like any other, but now—now, something is wrong. The hospital is too quiet. The usual beeping monitors and distant voices are absent. The only sound is the slow creak of a wheelchair moving down the hall… but no one is in it.

She reaches for the phone, but the line is dead. Her radio crackles with static. Then, through the garbled noise, a whisper seeps through:

“Don’t let them see you.”

She turned slowly, scanning the dimly lit hallway. The wheelchair that had creaked moments ago now sat perfectly still in the center of the corridor, as if it had never moved at all.

A flicker of movement.

Down the hall, past the darkened patient rooms, a figure stood just beyond the reach of the flickering emergency lights. Their hospital gown hung loose around their thin frame, their bare feet pressed against the cold tile. The patient’s head tilted slightly, as though listening—listening to her.

Elena swallowed, forcing herself to speak. “Sir? Are you—”

The lights cut out.

Total darkness.

The air turned thick, suffocating in its silence. Then, the sound of bare feet slapping against the floor. Fast. Running. Toward her.

Elena stumbled back, heart hammering against her ribs. She fumbled for the penlight clipped to her scrub pocket, her fingers clumsy with fear. The moment she clicked it on, the beam of light sliced through the dark—

The hallway was empty.

No running footsteps. No patient.

Just the wheelchair, now overturned on its side.

Elena’s chest rose and fell in quick, shallow breaths. She took a shaky step forward, then froze.

A whisper, impossibly close to her ear.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

A cold hand brushed against the back of her neck.

She spun around—

And screamed.