The old hospital stood at the edge of a forgotten town, its windows dark and its halls echoing with the silence of abandonment. No one knew exactly when it had closed, but rumors whispered that it had been abandoned for decades, left to rot under the weight of its own secrets. The townspeople avoided the place, claiming that strange noises came from within, and that shadows moved where there were none. One autumn evening, a young woman named Elara found herself drawn to the hospital. She was an archivist, researching local history, and she had come across a series of faded records about the building. The files spoke of strange occurrences—patients who never left, doctors who vanished without a trace, and a mysterious wing that no one could find on any map. Intrigued, she decided to visit the place in person. The gates creaked as she pushed them open, the rusted hinges groaning like a warning. Inside, the air was thick with dust and the scent of mildew. The main lobby was empty, save for a single chandelier that hung crookedly from the ceiling, its crystals dull and cracked. A flickering light overhead cast long shadows across the floor, making her feel as though something unseen was watching. She wandered through the corridors, her footsteps muffled by the thick carpet that had once been red but was now a ghost of its former color. The walls were lined with faded photographs of patients, their faces blurred or missing entirely. Some of the doors were sealed with chains, others just slightly ajar, as if someone had tried to leave in a hurry. In the far end of the building, she found a door marked “Restricted.” It was locked, but the handle was warm to the touch. She hesitated, then pushed it open. The room beyond was small and windowless, filled with old medical equipment and a single desk. On the desk lay a journal, its pages yellowed and brittle. She opened it, and the words seemed to pulse faintly in the dim light. The entries were written in a hurried, uneven script. One entry caught her eye: *“They don’t want me to speak of what I saw. But I have to write it down before they take me too. The patients don’t leave. They stay. They change. I think they’re not people anymore.”* Elara’s breath quickened. She turned the page, but the next entry was blank. Then, suddenly, the temperature in the room dropped. Her breath formed clouds in the air, and the journal slipped from her hands, landing with a soft thud on the floor. The lights flickered, and for a moment, she swore she saw a figure standing in the doorway—a tall, thin silhouette, its face obscured. She ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her. The hallway was now darker than before, the shadows stretching unnaturally along the walls. She heard a whisper, low and unintelligible, coming from somewhere deep within the building. She didn’t know if it was her imagination or something else, but she felt certain that she wasn’t alone. As she made her way back toward the entrance, she noticed that the layout of the hospital had changed. The hallways twisted in ways that didn’t make sense, leading her in circles. The door she had entered through was gone, replaced by a different one that led into a stairwell. She climbed up, each step echoing louder than the last. At the top, she found a small room with a single chair and a mirror. In the reflection, she saw a woman sitting behind her, staring back with hollow eyes. Panic surged through her. She turned around, but the room was empty. The mirror showed only her own face, but the woman in the reflection was still there, smiling faintly. She backed away, knocking over a table in the process. The sound echoed through the empty halls, and for a moment, she thought she heard laughter. She finally found the exit, but when she stepped outside, the world looked different. The sky was darker, the trees more twisted, and the town itself seemed unfamiliar. She ran through the streets, calling for help, but no one answered. The buildings were all the same, and the people she passed had no faces. When she finally reached the edge of the town, she collapsed onto the grass, gasping for breath. She had no idea how long she had been inside the hospital, but it felt like hours. As she sat there, she realized something: the journal had disappeared from her bag. And in its place was a single photograph of a woman standing in the hospital’s main lobby, her face eerily similar to her own.