Shadows of the Asylum

The Haunting

Lily woke with a start, her body stiff, her chest heavy. The darkness around her wasn't just the absence of light-it was suffocating, thick, like the air itself had weight. Her head spun, and for a moment, she couldn't understand where she was. She felt... strange. Cold, almost weightless, but at the same time, bound to the place she was in.

She looked around, trying to steady herself, but everything felt wrong. The walls of the room were cracked and decayed, the ceiling sagging as if it had been abandoned for years. The floor was covered in dust and debris, the remnants of something long forgotten. It was the hospital. The same hospital that had once promised her death, the same place that had claimed Emma and Jake.

But this time, Lily wasn't afraid.

She wasn't alive.

Her breath hitched in her throat as the realization settled over her like a heavy blanket. Her body was still-motionless-but she was aware. Too aware. She could still feel the cold press of the hospital's grip on her, the hunger that had consumed her before now hovering in the air, faint but undeniable.

She could feel it.

Lily stood up, her feet not touching the floor, but she didn't fall. She didn't have to walk to move; she just was. Her surroundings were somehow more vivid than ever, yet utterly distant, like a fading dream she couldn't escape. The hospital had become a twisted reflection of itself, its walls pulsing with a low, rhythmic thrum-a heartbeat, or something like it.

She turned her head toward the door, the heavy wooden frame that once separated the living from the dead.

"I'm dead," Lily thought, her mind struggling to understand the truth of it. She should have been terrified, but the fear that had once gripped her heart was gone, replaced by something else. A kind of emptiness.

The shadows in the hallway beckoned.

Lily floated toward them, drawn by the same force that had pulled her in so many times before. The hunger, the thing that had chased her, had taken everything from her, and now, it was part of her-this place, this broken world. It had claimed her, just as it had claimed the others who had wandered too close.

The hallway stretched out before her, twisted and wrong, a labyrinth of decay. The lights above flickered dimly, casting long, distorted shadows that writhed along the walls, as if alive. The smell of rot and mildew clung to the air, thickening as she moved forward.

Her footsteps were silent, but the floor beneath her seemed to groan in protest, as though the building itself was waking up, remembering what had happened, what was still happening.

Lily paused in the middle of the hallway, staring at the room at the end-the room where she had first encountered the shadows, where she had been dragged in, where she had felt the pull of death. It was there. The door stood ajar, just like it had that fateful night.

But now, it wasn't the room she remembered.

Through the gap in the door, she could see it-them. Figures, twisted and broken, like echoes of the people they once were. Emma and Jake. Their faces were a blur, their bodies distorted, but Lily knew. She could feel them. They were trapped here, just as she was. Their souls, stolen by the hunger, had become part of the hospital, just like hers.

"Emma? Jake?" Lily whispered, though the words barely passed her lips. There was no sound, no response. But she could feel their presence, their suffering.

They were still here.

The door creaked open wider as if inviting her inside. With no choice but to obey the pull of this place, Lily drifted forward, her form passing through the door without resistance. She was a part of the building now, an extension of its curse.

Inside, the air was thick with the sense of something unfinished-something that had been interrupted before it could reach its conclusion. The walls seemed to close in on her, and the coldness of the room wrapped around her like an old, familiar coat.

"Lily... help..."

The voice was weak, distant, but unmistakable. Emma's voice.

Lily's heart-if it still had one-ached with sorrow. Her friend was here, her soul trapped in this place, just like her.

"Emma..." Lily tried to call out, but her voice was lost in the oppressive silence. She floated forward, toward the dark corners of the room, where the voices seemed to be coming from. Her eyes scanned the shadows, searching for a trace of her friends.

And then she saw them.

The figures were hunched in the corner, their forms barely distinguishable from the darkness that surrounded them. Emma and Jake. Their eyes were wide with fear, but they were no longer alive. They were empty, like ghosts whose souls had been hollowed out by the hunger. They turned to look at her, and for a moment, Lily thought they might speak, might reach out.

But then, the room seemed to shift.

The shadows seemed to stir with a life of their own, closing in, surrounding her. The hunger-it wasn't done. It wasn't satisfied. It wanted more. It wanted everything.

"No..." Lily whispered, her voice growing weaker. "No, no, no..."

But there was nothing she could do. She was already part of it-part of the hospital, part of the darkness. She could feel it pulsing through her, sinking into her soul, claiming her as its own.

Emma and Jake were still there, their faces contorted in pain. Their eyes, wide with terror, seemed to beg Lily to save them, to pull them free from the nightmare they were trapped in.

But Lily couldn't. She was no longer alive. She was a spirit bound to the hospital, a wraith wandering the halls, forgotten by the world that had once known her. The hunger had taken her-and now, it was part of her.

And the worst part was... there was no way out.

The darkness closed in, and Lily felt herself being swallowed whole, becoming part of the hospital's eternal hunger.

And in that moment, she understood. The hospital didn't just feed on the living-it fed on everything.

It would never stop.