The doors crashed shut so violently that dust burst from the ceiling like dying breath. Amelia stumbled backward, her palms slamming against cold wood.
"Open! Please—open!"
Her voice echoed, warped, swallowed by the asylum.
Then came the sound.
Not loud.
Not fast.
A slow, wet dragging.
Like skin being pulled across stone.
Amelia's flashlight lay on the floor, its beam flickering weakly. She grabbed it, heart pounding, and pointed it down the corridor. The hall stretched longer than before, walls peeling like diseased flesh. The smell hit her next—metal, medicine, and something sweetly rotten.
The dragging sound grew closer.
She followed the noise without knowing why. Fear and curiosity tangled inside her.
A patient room waited open.
Inside, the temperature dropped instantly.
The bed was perfectly made, untouched by dust. On the walls, fingernail marks circled endlessly, hundreds of them, overlapping in frantic patterns.
Then she heard breathing.
Slow.
Broken.
The light trembled as she raised it.
A man sat in the corner, hospital gown hanging from bones. His hands were folded politely. His head tilted toward her.
But his face—
There were no eyes.
Just smooth skin stretched over empty sockets.
His lips cracked open.
"I never saw tomorrow," he whispered.
Amelia's throat tightened.
She stepped back. The floor creaked.
The eyeless man smiled directly at her.
"You did," he said. "That's why it followed you."
The walls shuddered.
Suddenly his neck snapped sideways, bones cracking like dry twigs.
"RUN."
The lights exploded.
The patient lunged.
Amelia screamed and ran.
The corridor twisted as she sprinted, doors slamming, windows bleeding shadows. Behind her came frantic scraping, breath tearing through darkness.
Something chased her.
Not walking.
Hunting.
And it enjoyed her fear.