Amelia didn't scream.
Her body locked, every muscle stiff with terror. Slowly, painfully slowly, she turned.
Nothing stood behind her.
Just empty air and drifting dust.
But the cold remained.
It clung to her spine like invisible fingers.
She forced herself forward, heart hammering, boots crunching across broken glass and dried leaves. The asylum smelled wrong—old medicine, metal, and something sweet underneath, like decay pretending to be alive.
She found the reception desk.
A logbook lay open.
Names filled every page.
But the dates… they never changed.
October 14th.
Over and over.
Decades of entries, same day, same time.
Amelia swallowed.
Someone had written recently at the bottom:
She has arrived.
The pen dropped from her hand.
Behind the desk stood a tall mirror, cracked through the center. Amelia stepped closer, shining her phone light.
Her reflection appeared…
Then delayed.
She blinked.
Her reflection didn't.
It smiled.
Not her smile.
The glass rippled like water, and a man's face surfaced behind her own—sunken eyes, skin grey, mouth stitched with black thread.
Amelia staggered back.
The mirror whispered.
"He never left."
The room darkened.
Lights burst on in the hallway beyond—flickering violently. From the corridor came dragging sounds, like bones being pulled across stone.
Amelia backed toward the wall.
The dragging grew closer.
Closer.
Then a figure emerged from the darkness—wearing an old hospital uniform, head tilted sideways, neck bent wrong.
Its feet didn't touch the floor.
Its mouth opened.
And hundreds of voices poured out together:
"Stay."
The doors slammed shut around her.
And Amelia realized the asylum hadn't invited her.
It had claimed her.