1906 [h.s.]

three

I removed my hand from the handle as fast as if it had burnt me and turned around, backing away against it.

There was someone, standing in the shadows, his features half hidden by the darkness. He was quite tall, and couldn't have been much older than me. His dark hair was a bit long and falling over his eyes in a scattered manner. He leaned against the musky wall, not caring that it would've ruined his pale shirt, and pushed a strand of hair out of his eyes, a somehow amused look in them. In the faint moonlight, his somewhat enticing beauty seemed almost ghostly, otherworldly.

A feeling of worry bubbled up in my chest. "Who are you?" I asked with a shaky voice.

"I'm Harry" was his simple reply.

"Harry who? I don't know any Harry in my town."

"Harry Styles" he softly breathed out, his deep voice still reaching my ears in the eerie silence of the building.

"Why shouldn't I open this door?" I asked him, pointing at the door behind me, without turning around.

"They do things in there." He licked his lips, his intense stare not leaving me.

"What kind of things?" I questioned him further, backing away until my back hit the door. There was something of quite wrong with that man, but I just couldn't understand what. Maybe it was the way his white shirt matched his pale skin, almost translucent looking in the peculiar light, or the way he carried himself around in such a place, as if it was his home.

"With electricity. Something a young girl like you shouldn't want to see."

"This place has been abandoned for over a hundred years, there's nothing" I reasoned out loud.

He gave me a little smile, as if he knew something I didn't know, before replying. "I think that's relative."

"What do you mean?"

"What are you doing in the Male Ward?" He questioned, moving a few steps closer.

"I asked first" I replied, my heart beating faster the closer he got. I wondered if he could hear it in the silence.

"You already asked many things."

"What are you doing here?" I fired back.

"I'm waiting."

"For what?" I asked, fearing the response.

"Damfino. Now it's your turn, I believe" he replied, glancing outside for a fast second, before focusing his dark gaze on me once again.

"Finding a way out."

"That room has no windows or other doors."

"How would you know?"

"I just do."

The spectral dialogue left a cold feeling inside my chest, that treaded down my spine as the sound of his last words reverberated within the corridors. Everything in that situation made me feel as if I'd just fallen victim of a weird dream, or as if I'd lost my mind somewhere into the asylum. In a desperate attempt of separating what was real from what was not, I turned on the flashlight of my phone and pointed it at him.

A flash of green was seen right before he turned his head shutting his eyes, a bothered look on his face.

"Bloody hell" he hissed, turning his shoulders to me to hide from the light.

I pointed it down, and he looked at me again. "What is that?" He asked.

"Just my phone" I replied turning off the flashlight, that had blinded the both of us in the darkness of the night.

He raised an eyebrow. "A telephone? That's not what they looked like when I was admitted."

I held my breath at his words, and retreated back once again hitting the door hard, the metallic clash so loud.

I had never believed in the supernatural, hell, just the thought seemed to me as tremendously ridiculous, but there was no other possible explanation. For the first time in my life, I considered that maybe there was another force ruling the Nature, instead of only the power of reason, its existence certified by the man in front of me. How could I know, with no doubt, that the man in front of me truly was there, and wasn't just the product of my susceptible imagination?

"Are you real?" The words left my mouth feebly, meeting no reply. "Are you?" I asked louder.

"Come" he said, holding out a hand to me.

I didn't take it, on the contrary, I pressed myself against the door even more.

"I'm not gonna hurt you. Come" he said again gently.

Was I dead, or was I dreaming? As a part of my mind prepared itself to say goodbye to life, I stepped closer, my heart thumping in my chest, but I gave his hand a wary look, deciding not to take it. I didn't want to risk him stopping me if I'd had to run away. I realised that he was wearing a thin white button-up shirt, of a not-so-contemporary shape. His trousers were dark, and I couldn't distinguish them.

He directed me out of the corridor, into the one we were in before, and stopped right in front of one of the big windows, turning to me, just a few centimetres away from me.

"I am real" he said, taking advantage of the slightly brighter light to look at me.

My eyes met his. There was something of indescribable in his angelic features, hit by the blue light of the night creating shadows that accentuated his cheekbones and his sharp jawline. For a second, I doubted the purity of his looks, and wondered if he was a creature sent by the devil to destroy me, or an angel from the heavens come to show me the light; that alluring his looks were.

But his features were clearer in the light coming from the window that was enlightening the somewhat soft look in his pale irises, showing me that the man in front of me, despite how weird it was for him to be there, was no angel and no demon, for he was, in fact, just a man.

"I wonder what unfathomable twist of fate would've had me spending eternity in such a way, what sins would've I committed" he whispered between us.

"I don't understand. How's this possible? You're here, but you shouldn't be here" I replied, confusion in my voice.

"Life can't always be explained" he said quietly in reply.

"It can, in the 21st century."

The look of amusement he had when I first saw him returned. "But pet, we aren't in the 21st century here."