The Forgotten Ward

The stench of antiseptic and decay clung to the walls of Willowbrook Sanatorium, its corridors a labyrinth of peeling paint and flickering fluorescent lights. Mia had come to investigate her sister’s disappearance—all clues led to this abandoned psychiatric hospital, where patients vanished without a trace in the 1950s.
Her flashlight beam trembled over rusted bed frames and cracked tiles as she climbed to the fourth floor. The air grew colder, and somewhere, a distant drip echoed like a heartbeat. Then she saw it: a child’s handprint, faint but unmistakable, smudged in what looked like dried blood on a peeling “Restricted Area” sign.
The ward’s double doors creaked open on their own. Inside, metal cots lined the walls, each draped with tattered sheets that stirred as if someone had just moved. Mia’s breath hitched when she noticed a familiar hair clip lying on the nearest bed—her sister’s. As she reached for it, the lights died, plunging her into darkness. A wet, whispering laugh echoed from the shadows, followed by the patter of bare feet.
“Jenna?” Mia called, voice trembling. A faint glow emerged at the end of the ward: a little girl in a soiled nightgown, her back turned, blonde curls matted with grime. “Please,” Mia said, stepping closer, “have you seen—” The girl spun, and Mia froze. Her face was a mass of scars, eyes milky white, mouth stretched into a grin that revealed jagged teeth. “They never leave,” the girl hissed, voice like static. “Not until they take someone new.”
Mia ran, but the hallway twisted, doors multiplying. The clip in her hand began to burn, and when she looked down, the walls were now covered in scribbled names—Jenna Moore, 1998—scratched into the plaster with desperate fury. The girl’s laughter rose behind her, mingling with the distant slam of a padded door. By the time Mia stumbled into the lobby, the front doors were sealed, and the only sound was the faint drip of water… and the whisper of a new name being carved into the wall upstairs.