CHAPTER 1- ADMISSION
The building loomed like a carcass on the hill, its windows black and hollow, its bones picked clean by decades of rain and neglect.
St. Dympna Hospital had been closed since 1987, when the last of the psychiatric patients were transferred to the new facility across town. The town council had promised to tear it down, but year after year it remained — rotting, breathing in the wind, whispering in the dark.
Evelyn Carr stared up at it from the gate, flashlight trembling in her hand. The November air smelled of metal and wet leaves. Behind her, the forest pressed close — silent, as if holding its breath.
"Only one night," she muttered. "Get the footage. Get paid. Go home."
She'd been hired by a paranormal YouTube channel — the kind that promised the truth behind the veil and delivered shaky footage of dust motes. Evelyn didn't believe in demons or hauntings. But she believed in rent, and her landlord didn't take disbelief as payment.
The iron gate groaned as she pushed through. Inside, the path to the hospital was choked with weeds, the pavement fractured and lifted by roots. Her flashlight's beam caught the main entrance — a pair of heavy glass doors, one cracked, the other smeared with something brown.
She pressed her hand against it. Sticky. Dried.
Not paint.
Inside, the air was different — thick and sour, with the faint undertone of rot that clings to things that should have stayed buried.
Her camera whirred to life. "Day one," she whispered into the lens. "Exploring St. Dympna Hospital. No power. No signal. Just me."
Something scraped in the distance. Metal against stone.
Evelyn froze, light sweeping across the hall.
Old wheelchairs. A gurney turned on its side.
Nothing moved.
And yet… the air vibrated. Like a voice whispering beneath her thoughts.
Leave.
The word was not sound but pressure — an intrusion inside her skull.
Evelyn shook her head, forcing a laugh. "Wind. Just wind."
But the temperature dropped. Her breath fogged. The camera flickered.
At the end of the corridor, a figure stood in the dark.
Tall. Wrong. Like it had forgotten how to be human.
And when the light hit its face —
there was no face at all.