To everyone else in the hospital, it was just another blackout.
A temporary power failure. Emergency generators humming to life. Nurses moving faster. Doctors were raising their voices slightly but staying calm. Patients complaining. Security reassuring.
Nothing unusual.
Nothing wrong.
The hallway lights flickered once, twice—then steadied into a dull red glow. Emergency lighting. Harmless and normal.
Yet the shadows did not behave normally.
They stretched too long, like there was something abnormal inside the hospital at that moment with them. The shadows shifted when he wasn't looking.
His heart was still pounding from the icy brush against his shoulder. That touch had been brief—almost gentle—but it had carried intention.
He rubbed his fingers together, warming himself. Then he noticed the sound of someone walking towards him but he couldn't see who it was because the lights at the far end were red, then he whispered the name that mattered most.
"Cynthia."
No answer.
The footsteps echoed toward him from his back.
Fast.
He turned around and saw Cynthia… Her face looked pale. The moment she saw him, her composure shattered. She ran straight into him, colliding with his chest so hard it knocked the breath from both of them.
He caught her instinctively.
She held his jacket, gripping tight, her forehead pressing into his shoulder as if she thought something would have happened to him.
"I thought…" Her voice broke. "I thought something happened to you."
Victor wrapped his arms fully around her, holding her closer than he ever had before. Her body trembled against his, not from weakness, but from fear held in for too long.
"I'm here," he said quietly and firmly. "I would never leave you."
She pulled back alittle, just enough to look at him. Her eyes filled—not with tears alone, but with something deeper.
"You can't promise that," she whispered.
Victor's eyes met her gaze. "I can promise I won't leave you," he said. "Not willingly. Not while I'm still alive."
Her lips parted slightly, her emotions could be seen all over her face. For a moment, it felt like they might say everything they had been holding back for years.
Then a sound cut through the moment.
Another footsteps.
Slow.
Victor's hand slid protectively towards Cynthia's back.
"Stay close," he murmured.
They weren't alone.
Ethan Morris, who was a security guard on duty at that moment, near the stairwell, approached them with a flashlight in hand.
He noticed how terrified they were. He introduced himself and tried to ease the tension with an awkward joke.
"Don't worry," he'd said. "The worst thing you'll see tonight is a bad coffee." he joked around but they didn't find it funny.
"You two shouldn't be here," he said, voice tight but steady. "We're clearing this wing."
Victor nodded."I was on my way to the restroom when I got lost."
Ethan swallowed. "Yeah. A lot of people are… misplaced right now."
He was giving them directions to where the restroom was and telling them how to find their way out when all of a sudden they felt a sharp pain at where the mark was on their bodies
Each time something like this occurs the book would flip open too fast and begin to write a story.
That was when a dragging sound came.
A wet dragging sound.
Ethan stiffened.
"What the hell is that?" Cynthia whispered.
There was a sudden Shadowy figure blocking the light down the stairs. Then something crawled into view.
It was shaped like a man.
But assembled wrong.
Limbs were scattered and stitched together in many inappropriate ways. An arm grew from where a leg should be. Fingers twitched along its ribs like insects. Its head hung sideways, mouth pulled into a grin too wide, too knowing.
Blood slicked its skin—but to the cameras, to the rest of the hospital, there was nothing there. Just empty air.
Ethan saw it, but couldn't believe it.
His breath stuttered. "What the hell is that?"
The thing laughed.
A dry, rattling sound, like bones knocking together.
Ethan did not run.
Victor, seeing how Ethan was slowly approaching it, called out to him, "hey man."
Ethan hesitated and said, "Hold on a little, you guys should clear off this area, your not supposed to be here."
"What the hell is he doing?" Cynthia asked Victor.
He raised his flashlight and stepped forward—not bravely, but with someone who doesn't know fear and chose to check it out anyway. The flashlight flickered and went off.
"HEY!" he shouted. "Get back!"
Victor opened his mouth to warn him.
But he was too late.
The creature lunged.
It moved impossibly fast, limbs slapping wetly against the concrete. It grabbed Ethan with mismatched arms and pulled.
Ethan screamed, "help me!!" before his body came apart unnaturally, limbs separating as if they had never belonged together.
Victor quickly reached out for the Vail the priest gave to them, but stumbled with it causing it to fall and broke. "Shit."
Blood stained the stairwell walls.
The flashlight fell, rolling to a stop, its beam flickering.
To the rest of the hospital?
Nothing happened, cameras only show Ethan vanishing into thin air.
Cynthia screamed as she took countless steps back.
Victor immediately walked up to her, pulling her into his chest, forcing her face against him.
"Don't look," he said in a trembling voice. "Look at me. Stay with me."
She clung to him, sobbing silently, her hands fisting into his shirt.
Behind them, the thing dragged Ethan's corpse aside and started approaching them slowly before it increased its speed.
Victor quickly grab Cynthia by the wrist as they ran with all their might. Following the direction Ethan gave them earlier. They followed it until they were out of the hospital….
Back in Mary's room at the hospital.
In the emergency ward, Michael stood beside Mary's bed.
To the nurses passing by, he was just a worried boyfriend or relative refusing to leave.
To Mary, he was an anchor.
"You stayed," she murmured softly.
Michael smiled faintly. "I always will."
Her lashes fluttered. "Even like this?"
He leaned closer, brushing his thumb gently across her knuckles. "Especially like this."
For a brief moment, the room felt normal.
Then the air shifted.
Two abnormally tall nurses entered—one male, one female. To the cameras, they looked ordinary, calm and professional.
To Michael, something was wrong. He has never seen someone that tall before.
"We're relocating the patient to a different ward," the woman said smoothly.
Michael frowned. "No one told me anything about that yet."
Seeing Mary on the bed, the woman let out a creepy smile.
Mary's fingers tightened suddenly around Michael's wrist. "Don't let them take me," she whispered urgently.
Michael stepped in front of the bed. "She stays."
"Bring me the doctor." he said, facing the female nurse.
The lights flickered.
To the hallway outside, it was just another power fluctuation.
Inside the room, shadows bent.
The female nurse's jaw stretched—just slightly—enough for Michael to notice.
The male nurse rushed him and slammed him against the wall with inhuman force, lifting him above his feet. The female nurse leaned over Mary, whispering in a voice that wasn't hers.
"Exeo nunc. In te maneo." (I depart now. In you, I remain.)
The demon slipped through the illusion and was passing through from the nurses mouth to Mary's mouth
Michael didn't hesitate.
He pulled the vial the priest had given him from his pocket and smashed it against the male nurse's face, forcing him to let go.
The oil ignited with a very bright light, disrupting the transfusion of the demon into Mary's body.
A blinding white burst filled the room.
The nurse screamed as smoke poured from her skin, her form unraveling beneath the glow.
Then Michael stood bravely, pulled out a cross from his pocket and pointed it toward them. "You demons of hell, I command you. You have no power against us. SEE THEE BENEATH GOD!!." he shouted in a loud voice causing the room the shake.
They disappeared immediately after letting out a loud scream.
Mary convulsed—but this time, she fought back.
Her body trembled violently, veins darkening beneath her skin.
"I won't let you," she said with tears coming down her cheeks. "Not again."
Michael grabbed her hand, pressing his forehead to hers, whispering prayers with a broken voice.
"Fight it please," he begged. "Stay with me."
The demon resisted.
But it was weaker now.
The oil burned brighter.
Mary screamed once more before the presence recoiled…
Outside, Victor and Cynthia stumbled into the night air. Drenched in sweat.
It was crowded because of the sudden blackout inside the hospital.
Cynthia collapsed against Victor, shaking.
He held her tightly, his jaw clenched, eyes burning with grief and fury.
"When this is over," she whispered, "we don't have to pretend anymore."
Victor pressed his forehead to hers. "We'll go through this and come out alive."
Across the parking lot, their car alarm suddenly blared.
Victor turned slowly.
Inside the car, the book lay open.
New words bled onto the page.
"ONE HAS TO GO."
The wind rose.
The hospital door burst open.
Michael stumbled out first, half-carrying Mary, his arm locked tightly around her waist. She was conscious now—but barely. Her skin doesn't look too good, her breathing shallow and uneven.
"Victor!" Michael shouted. "We have to—"
Mary suddenly screamed.
Not in pain.
In terror.
Her body went rough.
The book flipped another page on its own.
Victor felt the mark on his wrist burn.
Her head snapped up.
Her eyes met Victor's.
And for a second, they were not Mary's eyes.
She let out a smile that did not belong to her.
Then she spoke.
Not to Michael.
Not to Cynthia.
To Victor.
"You chose her," the voice said gently. "So I chose this."
Mary's hand plunged into Michael's chest.