Shadows of the Asylum

The First to Fall

The hospital had swallowed them whole, a maze of shadowed hallways and decaying rooms. The four teens-Kara, Ethan, Mia, and Ben-had no idea how deep they had gone, but it no longer mattered. They were lost. The fear they had felt when they first entered had faded into a dull, gnawing terror, the kind that clung to their skin, sinking into their bones. The air was thick, stifling, pressing in on them from all sides. The hospital was alive, and it was hungry.

"Where the hell are we?" Mia's voice cracked as she spun around, shining her flashlight into the darkness. The beam trembled in her hand, illuminating only the endless stretch of broken walls and shattered windows. Every direction they turned seemed to lead them further into the heart of the hospital, yet they never seemed to get anywhere.

"I don't know," Ben said, his voice strained. He tugged at his jacket, trying to ignore the chill in the air. "We should've gone back hours ago."

But they hadn't. They had kept going deeper, driven by a mix of curiosity and dread, the pull of something invisible tugging at them. Every time they tried to leave, the hospital seemed to change. The walls shifted, the doors vanished, and the corridors twisted in unnatural ways, leading them right back to where they had started.

"Guys, this isn't just some creepy old building," Ethan muttered, his eyes scanning the hallway nervously. "Something's wrong here. Something's... alive."

Kara nodded in agreement, her heart racing. She hadn't wanted to believe the stories, the rumors about the hospital being haunted, but now, standing in its heart, she could feel it. The malevolent presence. The weight of something ancient and dark pressing in on them.

"Let's just find an exit," she suggested, though her voice wavered. "We need to get out of here before-"

A sudden noise broke her words-a scream.

It came from down the hall, sharp and filled with terror. Kara's stomach twisted. The group turned in unison, but the hallway before them was empty. The scream had echoed from somewhere deep inside the hospital, but there was no one there.

"I-I heard it," Mia gasped, her eyes wide with fear. "It was... it was Ben. It sounded like Ben."

But Ben was right there beside her, his face pale, his eyes wide with confusion. "What are you talking about? I didn't scream."

The sound came again, distant but unmistakable. Another scream. A gut-wrenching, blood-curdling wail of pain.

"Ben...?" Ethan whispered, his voice a mixture of dread and disbelief. The group moved toward the sound, their footsteps quickening as their hearts raced. The hospital seemed to stretch on forever, the walls closing in, but they couldn't stop now. They had to find the source of the scream.

They turned a corner, and the darkness swallowed them whole. The hallway narrowed, the flickering lights casting long, twisted shadows that seemed to reach for them. At the end of the hall, a door stood ajar, the only source of light in the suffocating gloom. It seemed like a beacon-too bright, too inviting.

Without thinking, the teens rushed toward it.

And then, they saw him.

Ben lay sprawled on the floor, his body twisted at an unnatural angle. His eyes were wide open, his mouth frozen in a silent scream. His skin was pale, his lips blue, and his breath-if he was even breathing-came in shallow, ragged gasps. But there was no blood, no sign of any wound. It was as if his very life had been stolen from him.

"Ben!" Kara cried, rushing to his side, but as she reached out, a cold chill shot through her fingers. It felt as though the very air around him was... wrong. He didn't feel like a person anymore. He didn't feel alive.

Mia dropped to her knees beside him, her hands trembling as she checked for a pulse, but there was nothing. Ben was gone. His body lay cold and lifeless on the floor, but there was no obvious cause for his death. No marks. No wounds.

"Wh-what happened to him?" Mia choked out, her voice breaking as she looked up at the others. "He was just... here..."

Kara's mind raced, her thoughts jumbled. "This isn't possible. We were all just together. He... he couldn't have..."

"He didn't scream," Ethan whispered, his face pale with disbelief. "It wasn't him. He didn't scream."

The hospital felt colder now, as though the very walls were mourning Ben's loss, embracing his death. The group stood there, frozen in shock, the reality of what they were witnessing settling in like an anchor to their souls.

"How did this happen?" Kara asked, her voice barely above a whisper. There was no explanation. Nothing in their minds made sense. Ben was just... gone. But the thing that terrified them even more was that they couldn't figure out how.

There was no sign of violence. No struggle. No blood. Nothing.

But the smell was there. It was faint but unmistakable-a rotting, decaying stench that clung to the air. It was the smell of something older, something that had been dead for a long time. The smell of death itself.

"What did we do?" Mia whispered, looking around as if the walls themselves would answer. "How did he-why did he...?"

Ethan stepped back, shaking his head. "This place... it's doing something to us. It's taking us... one by one."

Kara turned to the others, her face pale, her eyes wide with fear. "We need to get out of here. Now. We can't stay here."

But as the group turned to leave, the hallway seemed to stretch longer than it had been before, the door that had once been ajar now completely shut. There was no escape. There was no way out. The hospital had changed again, and they were trapped.

Behind them, the body of Ben remained, lifeless, but somehow more... wrong. And as they turned to face forward, they knew. They didn't know how he had died-but they knew that whatever had killed him wasn't done. Not by a long shot.

And as they moved forward, deeper into the cursed building, the echoes of Ben's last scream haunted them, a reminder that in this place, no one was safe.