Chapter 2: The Man in the Window
The rain had stopped, but the silence that followed was worse.
Helena sat alone in her small apartment above the hospital wing, staring at the crumpled drawing she had taken from Room 313. The house—its windows stretched like narrow, watchful eyes. The ears along the walls... almost felt alive.
Her phone vibrated.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: "They're watching you too now."
She froze. Her heart slammed in her chest. She hadn't told anyone. Not about the whispers. Not about the drawing.
She rushed to the window.
Across the street, under the dim yellow light of a flickering streetlamp, a tall figure stood motionless.
No face. Just darkness beneath a soaked hood.
The figure raised its hand — not to wave, but to point. Directly at her window.
The phone buzzed again.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: "Don't go to sleep."
That night, Helena didn't sleep. Not even for a second.
She read through the old patient files from Room 313. Five different patients over the last ten years. All vanished.
But the weirdest part? Each file had one phrase scribbled in the corner.
"He lives in the house between the walls."
And then she found it — a sixth file, never officially logged. No patient name. No photograph. Just one page. A short confession:
"I thought the house wasn't real. But now I know it's inside the hospital. It moves. And it's waiting."
A loud knock jolted her.
Three knocks.
Exactly like the patient described.
Helena picked up her flashlight and moved toward her apartment door. She didn't see the shadow that slipped across her wall. Or the second one that followed it.
But the figure in the drawing did.
It had changed.
In the crumpled paper still