May These Noises Startle You In Your Sleep Tonight

Kellin held the flashlight up in front of his face and breathed deeply. On exhale, he watched a thick cloud stream away from his mouth and vanish into thin air, all the while keeping the camera aimed as steadily as he could on the sigh.

He laughed weakly and turned the camera on his own face. He couldn’t see what he looked like, but he could picture it all too clearly in his mind’s eye. Everything green with the night vision, his face almost white, eyes bright and shiny and a little wild with the barely-contained fear bursting to get through and show itself. He licked his lips and smiled nervously into the camera.

“See that? That’s my breath. It’s hella cold in here,” he said with another empty laugh.

It was awfully cold. Far colder than it should be; fuck, the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees since he first entered the room ten minutes ago. Kellin had to admit that it had shocked him, the way that suddenly the temperature change made his lungs feel empty and he could see his breath and he was shivering from the cold. Still he was struggling to keep a steady breathing rate. He had to make an enormous effort not to start hyperventilating.

Of course, the cold was not the only reason his body and mind were in overdrive.

There was also the fact that he was wandering around by himself in a haunted sanatorium.

Fuck you, Vic Fuentes, he thought now as he explored the room. You and your great ideas. The entire building was just as creepy as you would expect it to be, if not more, and this particular room was no exception. In the screen of the camera he could perceive the grave writings on the wall, most of which were threats to the reader or references to this place being hell. There were hospital beds everywhere, some folded up and stacked in the corners forlornly, and others still set up in neat rows along the walls, dingy mattresses and all. Kellin fancied he could make out some dark stains on the fabric as he passed.

“Oh, yes, there was malpractice,” the tour guide had said eagerly upon Vic’s fascinated questioning earlier in the evening. “Horrible, horrible. No one died peacefully in this place.”

And, though he was a skeptic and would have denied it earlier, Kellin could feel the truth in that statement. Feel it. Like, in the air. He was personally experiencing the pain and abuse that the patients in this place had suffered every day when they were alive. It was one of the worst things he had ever felt; no, definitely the worst thing. His heart felt like it was breaking in his chest, like its shattered fragments were actually piercing through his lungs and killing his breath and oh god, this was so horrifying there were no words. Was he being attacked? Or was he just absorbing the lingering energy in the room, the remnants of long-ago tragedies?

Kellin refused to dwell on it. He forced thoughts of what dark spirits probably lurked in this room right now from his mind, instead focusing on what he, Vic, and the others came here to do: catch some of the rumored ghosts on camera.

“Come on, dude!” Vic had begged, throwing his arms around the smaller man’s neck from behind and kissing him lightly on the cheek. “It’ll be so great. We’ll be just like Zac and Nick and Aaron.”

“Who?” Kellin had sighed, turning around in his boyfriend’s arms to face him.

“Never mind. Just please come.” Vic gave him a real kiss now, on the lips, and Kellin closed his eyes and felt safe because that’s the way he always felt with Vic. Hell, why not? What could possibly happen, with Vic there?

Little did he know that Vic wouldn’t be there. Not all the time. Not right now. In fact, it had been the traitorous Mexican himself that suggested they all split up and take different wings of the hospital, just to cover more ground.