The air in Noor General Hospital grew heavier with each passing day. What was once a place of healing now whispered with unease. Patients spoke of nightmares. Staff reported fleeting shadows at the edge of their vision. Machines malfunctioned without reason. The atmosphere was no longer just clinical—it was haunted.
Zahra felt it the most.
She had grown used to seeing Dr. Arif's spirit. His presence was calm, rational, and kind. But this… this was something else. A chill that gripped her bones. A voice that echoed in the silence. A hunger.
It started in the surgical wing.
One night, Zahra was doing rounds when she passed Ward 3B—the post-surgery recovery unit. A weak groan echoed from inside. She paused.
That ward had been sealed for renovation after the lightning strike. No one should've been in there.
Cautiously, she opened the door.
The room was dark. Only the emergency light flickered on the far wall.
"Hello?" she called softly.
There was a bed in the corner. And on it… a woman.
Her face was turned toward the window, hidden by long black hair. A hospital gown clung to her frame. She sat motionless.
"Are you alright?"
Zahra stepped closer.
Then the woman turned.
Her face was burned—half of it melted like wax, the eye above it dull and gray. The other half was beautiful. Elegant. A cruel contrast.
Zahra gasped and stepped back, heart pounding.
The woman smiled—a terrifying, slow curl of her lips.
"You shouldn't be here," she whispered.
Zahra backed away, her voice trembling. "Who… who are you?"
"I was the first," she hissed. "The first to fall."
Then she vanished.
Zahra ran.
Her breath short, chest heaving, she fled down the corridor.
In the stairwell, she collapsed to the ground. Tears welled in her eyes. Her hands shook.
Then a cool voice called, "Zahra!"
She looked up.
Dr. Arif stood above her, worry etched into his translucent face.
"I saw her," she gasped. "She's real."
He knelt beside her, his voice low. "Tell me everything."
When she finished, he was silent for a long moment.
"I think I know who she is," he said finally.
Her name was Dr. Areeba Faisal.
She had worked at Noor General Hospital twenty years ago. A brilliant neurosurgeon. Young. Ambitious. But there had been… rumors.
She was obsessed with saving patients on the brink of death. Not just medically—spiritually. She believed the soul could be controlled, pulled back into the body with the right rituals, the right conditions.
One night, during a full moon, a fire broke out in the hospital's old surgical wing.
Dr. Areeba was inside.
Her last patient—an eight-year-old girl—died during the procedure.
Areeba burned to death beside her.
But some said she never left.
"She was the one who opened the door between the worlds," Arif whispered.
"And now that door is still open."
In the following days, the hospital descended into chaos.
Three patients died mysteriously in one night—each just minutes after being declared stable.
CCTV footage revealed no intruders.
But Zahra saw the pattern.
Each patient had spoken of "the woman in the mirror" before dying.
And each time, the ECG monitor flatlined precisely at 3:33 a.m.
The Witching Hour.
Zahra and Arif began investigating.
They reviewed old files. Found archived reports.
There was one common thread—Room 12A.
It had once been Areeba's private office.
Now, it was used for storing unused hospital equipment.
One night, Zahra unlocked the door.
The room was untouched by time. Dust covered the desk. Old papers lay scattered. A nameplate still sat at the edge of the desk: Dr. Areeba Faisal—Chief of Neurosurgery.
A diary lay open.
Zahra picked it up and began to read.
August 14, 2005
"The boundary is thinner here. Between death and life. I can feel it.
Today I brought back a man whose brain had no activity for six full minutes.
No one believes it was anything but a miracle. But I know the truth. I spoke to his soul. I called it back."
September 4, 2005
"The child didn't return. I tried. I followed the same ritual.
Why didn't she come back?
What did I miss?"
September 5, 2005
"She screamed. I heard her screaming in the fire.
Her soul wouldn't leave.
And neither will mine.
I will not be forgotten."
Zahra's hands trembled.
"She bound herself to the hospital," Arif said. "Her obsession… her failure… it cursed this place."
That night, Zahra had a dream.
She was in an old operating room. The walls were burning. The air was thick with smoke. On the table lay the child—motionless.
And standing over her, scalpel in hand, was Areeba.
Her burned face glowed in the firelight.
"She will live," she said. "I will fix it."
Zahra shouted, "You're hurting her!"
But Areeba didn't stop.
The child screamed.
Zahra woke up screaming too.
In the days that followed, Zahra stopped sleeping.
Arif stayed by her side. His presence was the only thing that calmed her.
They began helping patients together—Zahra in body, Arif in spirit.
They discovered something strange.
Every time Arif touched a patient's soul, even for a moment, their healing accelerated. The doctors couldn't explain it. But Zahra could feel it.
He was becoming more than a ghost.
He was becoming a healer of souls.
But the more he helped… the weaker he became.
"Your energy," Zahra whispered one day, "it's fading."
He nodded. "I'm tied to my body. And that connection… is dying."
"Then what happens to you?"
"I vanish," he said softly. "Forever."
Zahra couldn't accept that.
Not now.
Not after everything.
"I'll find a way," she said fiercely. "To bring you back. You deserve to live."
"You really believe that?"
She looked at him—his soft smile, the sorrow in his eyes.
"Yes. And not just for the hospital. For me."
Silence hung between them.
Then he said gently, "You're the only one who's ever truly seen me."
Her heart beat faster. "Then let me keep seeing you."
But Areeba wasn't finished.
The nightmares spread.
A child in pediatrics went missing—for two hours—and was found inside an unused surgery room, sitting silently, humming an old lullaby.
An old man in cardiology refused to sleep, muttering, "She waits in the dark. She's not done yet."
The hospital board threatened to shut the ICU.
People were dying.
And Zahra knew the final confrontation was near.
They had to end it.
Break the curse.
But how do you fight a ghost… with another ghost?