The nightmare had finally taken its toll on Elena. She was burning with fever.

After taking a few pills, she tried to tough it out at the office for half the day, but the fever wouldn’t break. She had no choice but to leave work and go to the hospital, where after hours of waiting, her condition didn’t improve, and the doctor decided to keep her for observation overnight.

Elena had no family in the city and didn’t want to trouble her friends, but Thomas Light found out about her situation and showed up uninvited to take care of her. She was touched by his gesture, but the fever left her groggy, and she barely managed to exchange a few words with him before drifting back into an uneasy sleep.

Her rest was anything but peaceful. Just as she was about to fall into a deep sleep, she felt as though someone had shoved her, making her feel like she was about to fall off the bed. In a half-conscious, half-waking state, she was jolted awake again in the middle of the night, thirsting terribly, her throat feeling like it was on fire. Thomas and the other patients in the observation room were all sound asleep, and she didn’t want to disturb them, so she quietly made her way down the hallway to the water station at the end of the corridor.

The hallway was eerily quiet.

The rooms on both sides were dark, and there wasn’t a single nurse in sight. The emergency department felt more like a graveyard than a hospital. Elena, still a bit dazed, didn’t notice the strange silence at first, but soon she realized something was off. This was not how a hospital should feel.

Her footsteps echoed through the empty corridor, each step ringing in her ears, sending a shiver down her spine. She tried to walk more quietly, but her steps only seemed louder, faster. Gradually, she realized she was not alone.

Something was following her.

Whenever she slowed down, it slowed; whenever she sped up, it kept pace, matching her every move. She felt the presence growing closer, until it was right behind her, breathing cold air against the back of her neck.

She didn’t dare turn around. She had heard that a person’s energy, their “sun energy,” was on the top of their head and shoulders, and if they turned too quickly, that energy would be extinguished, leaving them vulnerable. So she told herself not to look back, even though she could feel something brushing against the back of her neck, accompanied by faint rustling sounds.

I’m not hurting you, stop following me!

She hurried into the water room, filled a cup, and turned to leave, only to almost bump into a woman in white.

The woman was standing so close that their faces nearly touched. Elena froze, dropping the cup in shock. The plastic cup didn’t break, but the sharp clink echoed through the hallway.

“Shh, careful. You’ll wake others,” the woman whispered. Her face was unnervingly calm, with a fresh scar across the bridge of her nose, as though it had been scratched recently.

It was a nurse! Elena breathed a sigh of relief, realizing she had been paranoid. She assumed the footsteps earlier were just the nurse's. "Sorry, I— I tend to get jumpy. Don’t mind me. I’ll head back now."

"Your water spilled. Aren’t you going to fill it again?"

"No, thanks."

"Alright, but next time, be more careful, and don’t go meddling in things that aren’t your concern."

What does that mean? Elena wondered, her mind racing, but she felt too off-balance to dwell on it. All she wanted was to return to her bed and get back to sleep. She quickly walked down the corridor, but the unsettling echo of her footsteps didn’t fade, and a new sense of dread crept up on her.

This isn’t the way back!

It should have only taken a minute to walk from the observation room to the water station, but after walking for what seemed like an eternity, she still hadn’t seen any signs of the main lobby lights.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Panicking, Elena broke her own rule and turned to look behind her. She was stunned to see nothing but darkness. There was no water station, no nurse. Just a deep, suffocating blackness stretching behind her.

She pressed her back against the wall, heart racing, and scanned her surroundings. She was standing in the middle of the hallway, the darkness surrounding her on all sides, and only a faint yellowish light in the distance, like the ghostly flame of a will-o’-the-wisp, beckoning her closer.

Frozen, unable to move, she could hear footsteps again, slowly coming closer.

Thud... thud... thud...

Something was moving toward her from the left, slowly, methodically. She couldn’t see anything but the sound of the footsteps growing nearer, louder. Her breath caught in her throat, but she couldn’t bring herself to run, couldn’t look away.

Thud... thud... thud...

The steps stopped right in front of her. There was nothing there, no one in sight, but she could feel the presence of something standing just beyond her reach, like a shadow hovering inches from her face. Suddenly, a cold hand grabbed her ankle.

Elena gasped, her body jolting into motion as she ran toward the light at the end of the hallway, not thinking about the dangers ahead. She just wanted to escape, to flee from whatever was trailing her, but the darkness seemed endless. Her panicked breath and the echo of the footsteps were the only things she could hear, getting closer and closer.

After what felt like an eternity, she stumbled into a room with the words “Intensive Care Unit” written in blood-red letters on the door.

She rushed in and stopped in front of an empty bed. The patient was gone, and the name tag above the bed read “Ethan Graves”—the only survivor of the bloody massacre, the biological son of Lucas Graves.

Elena froze. She had remembered that Ethan Graves had been treated here, but she didn’t understand how she had ended up in this room. What was her connection to this place? And why was the patient, who should have still been unconscious, nowhere to be found?

Suddenly, the door creaked open behind her.

The sound was deafening in the silence of the room, and Elena whipped around, but there was no one there. The door closed softly behind her, and the footsteps began again, growing louder, closer.

She couldn’t escape. There was nowhere left to run.

Two figures appeared in front of her, blocking her path. They were standing unnaturally close, twisted in a strange, almost impossible way. As they turned to face her, Elena’s heart dropped.

One of them had no pupils, a pale, gaunt face, and a small, frail body—Ethan Graves. His expression was blank, mechanical, as he sliced through someone’s neck with a scalpel. The person was kneeling in front of him, their neck already nearly severed, but their face was twisted backward, grotesquely facing Elena.

It was the nurse from the water station!

Elena’s blood ran cold. The decapitated head stared at her, its eyes wide with a strange sense of satisfaction, as though it were enjoying the terror it caused.

Before Elena could react, the ghostly figure behind her shoved her forward, sending her crashing into the nurse’s body. The blood spurted from the wound, splashing her face.

Elena turned away, but the severed head twisted, following her, as if pulled by an invisible hand. “Mind your own business!” it hissed.

Elena’s mind reeled. She couldn’t make sense of it. Ethan Graves picked up the head and gently cradled it in his arms, his face contorting into a smile—unnatural, eerie, and malicious, but slowly changing into the face of Lucas Graves.

“Mind your own business!” the head repeated, laughing loudly, its voice echoing throughout the room.

“Elena! Wake up. Elena, wake up!” A familiar voice pulled her back to reality. Thomas Light’s face appeared in front of her, his concerned expression dissolving the haunting vision.

“Did I scream?” she asked weakly, her throat still burning with fear. "I hope I didn’t wake anyone."

"No, thank God. You’re not like some women who scream for no reason. Look," Thomas pointed to the adjacent bed, "she’s still fast asleep."

“I had another nightmare.”

“I know. This is all my fault. I should’ve stayed awake. If I had, I would’ve woken you if you were uncomfortable. You didn’t need to be this scared. You’re drenched in sweat.” He gently touched her forehead. “But at least the fever’s broken.”

Elena wiped her face and looked at her hands—there was no blood, just dampness. It had all been a nightmare, but her throat still burned, the terror lingering.

"I need some water."

"Alright, I’ll get some."

As Thomas Light left the room to fetch water, Elena turned over and sighed. The torment seemed endless, like a nightmare she couldn’t escape. Had she encountered something, or was she just a target? Why did they keep telling her not to meddle? Was it connected to the case involving Lucas Graves?

Just as she was pondering, she saw the ghostly figure of the nurse from her nightmare quietly enter the observation room. She stood behind Elena, smiling malevolently, before placing a bottle of pills on the bedside table and slipping out without a sound.

Elena froze, her hair standing on end. She spun around quickly to see Thomas returning with the water.

“Did anyone come in?” she asked.

"At this hour? Who would come?" Thomas asked nonchalantly, but his eyes flickered, hinting that he had seen something—maybe the nurse’s fleeting shadow—but he didn’t want to scare her further.