The fog didn’t roll into the valley; it crawled. It had a weight to it, smelling of wet copper and stagnant water. Elias Thorne extinguished his cigarette against the heel of his boot, watching the embers die in the mud. Before him stood the gates of St. Jude’s.
The ironwork was intricate, a chaotic weave of thorns and lilies, but as Elias stepped closer, he realized the “thorns” were carved to look like human teeth. He checked his pocket watch. 3:00 AM. The hour of the wolf.
His flashlight cut a lonely path through the dark. He wasn’t supposed to be here. No one was. According to the city archives, St. Jude’s had been burned to the ground sixty years ago after a “structural accident.” Yet, here it was—five stories of jagged stone and rot, standing defiant against the forest.
“Clara?” he called out, his voice swallowed by the damp stone.
He was looking for Clara Vance, a girl with a penchant for urban exploration and a father with enough money to buy a detective’s soul. He found her camera first, lying in the dirt just past the threshold. The lens was shattered, and the strap was coated in a thick, translucent slime that vibrated faintly under his touch.
As Elias pushed the heavy front doors open, the building groaned. It wasn’t the groan of settling wood; it sounded like a heavy, rhythmic inhale. The air inside was warm—uncomfortably so—and thick with the scent of antiseptic and old blood.
He looked at the floor. In the dust, there were no footprints. Instead, there were long, dragging trails, as if something without legs had been pulled toward the basement.
“Help… him…”
The whisper didn’t come from the hallway. It came from the walls. Elias pressed his ear to the peeling wallpaper and heard it: the frantic, muffled beating of a thousand hearts buried deep within the masonry.
