Whispers in the Ward

 Chapter 1: The New Patient

I wasn’t supposed to be here.

When I signed up for this job, posing as a patient at St. Edwina's Asylum, I thought it would be a routine case. A missing person, a few days of investigating, and then I'd go back to my normal life. But as the door of my private room closed behind me, I realized that I might have walked into a nightmare.

The asylum was supposed to be a sanctuary for the mentally ill, a place where they could receive care. But walking through its towering gates, I felt a chill run down my spine. The architecture was grand—too grand. The halls felt like mausoleums, long and echoing, and the stone walls pressed in on me as if they knew secrets I wasn’t yet ready to hear.

The staff was cordial. They called me by my new name, a simple alias that barely scratched the surface of my real identity. Nurse Green, a cold, calculating woman, led me to my room. She was the first to smile at me, though it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Welcome to St. Edwina's,” she said, her voice flat.

I didn’t trust her.

Chapter 2: The Disappearances

I’m not crazy. That’s what I keep telling myself. I didn’t come here to get caught in some delusion. But strange things have been happening since I arrived.

The first night, I woke up to the sound of footsteps outside my door. Soft and quick, almost like someone was running—no, not running, sneaking. I peered through the small crack in my door, but no one was there. I told myself it was nothing, a trick of my mind.

Then, the next day, I met Eleanor. She was a fellow patient, her eyes wide and anxious. She told me that patients had been disappearing. “No one believes us,” she whispered urgently, looking over her shoulder as if the walls themselves had ears.

"Disappearing?" I asked, struggling to maintain my composure. "Where are they going?"

Eleanor’s gaze darted nervously. "You don’t ask questions here. That’s how they get you."

Her words sent a shiver through me. Who was "they"?

Chapter 3: The Staff’s Response

I confronted Dr. Howell, the head physician, that afternoon. He was a tall, imposing figure, with a permanent frown and a thin smile that never reached his eyes. "There are no disappearances," he said, his voice too calm. "Patients come and go, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes as part of our medical protocol. You’re imagining things."

But his response didn’t sit right. There was something in the way he said it, as if he was trying to convince me, or himself, that everything was fine.

That night, Eleanor was gone. Her bed was empty, the sheets neatly tucked in as if she had never been there. Panic rose in my throat. I went to the staff, but Nurse Green only shrugged. "She must have left," she said. "Patients sometimes check out early."

But I knew Eleanor. She wouldn’t have left without telling me. Something was wrong.

Chapter 4: The Hidden Room

I started my own investigation. I snuck into the staff quarters, pretending to be a lost patient who didn’t know the rules. I found a locked door at the end of a long, narrow corridor, hidden behind a shelf of medical books. A door no one had mentioned.

I knew I shouldn’t have gone in, but curiosity drove me.

Inside was a small, sterile room, filled with monitors and wires. My breath caught in my throat. It looked like a control room, one meant to keep an eye on the patients. But it wasn’t just cameras that were hooked up to these monitors—it was patients themselves.

I recognized the faces on the screens. There was Eleanor, still, her eyes wide with fear. She wasn’t gone; she was here, under observation.

I backed out of the room quickly, my heart hammering in my chest. Was I next? What were they doing to her? And who was “they”.

Chapter 5: Mental Manipulation

The days blurred together. I couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. I found myself drifting in and out of strange dreams, unable to tell if I was asleep or awake. I began hearing voices, whispers that seemed to echo from the walls. Sometimes, the staff looked at me with pity. Sometimes with something darker, something that made my blood run cold.

I tried to confront Dr. Howell again, but he only laughed. "You need rest, Mr. Greene. You're imagining conspiracies. You're just like the others."

He was right. Wasn’t I? Maybe I was just like them—losing my mind in this place. Maybe I was the one who needed to be locked up.

But then, the dreams started getting worse. I saw Eleanor again, standing in front of a mirror, her reflection twisting into something grotesque. She reached out to me, her mouth moving, but no sound came out.

"Help me," she mouthed silently.

I woke up with a start. Something was terribly wrong.

Chapter 6: The Truth Beneath the Surface

I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get out. I had to find the truth.

I snuck back into the control room. This time, the monitors weren’t showing patients. They were showing me. The cameras were following my every move, every thought. My heart pounded in my chest as I realized what had been happening all along.

They were manipulating us. They weren’t just treating us; they were controlling us, erasing our memories, making us forget what was real.

But I wasn’t going to forget anymore. I found the files, the ones the staff had been hiding. And there, in plain text, were the details of a twisted experiment—a way to erase memories, to control minds. The disappearances weren’t patients leaving—they were subjects being taken. Erased. Removed.

The asylum wasn’t a place for healing. It was a place for experimentation.

Chapter 7: A Forgotten Name

I tried to leave. I ran through the halls, my feet echoing against the cold floors. But the doors were locked. The windows were barred. The walls, closing in on me, seemed to whisper my name.

My name? Was that my name? Or was I someone else? Was I ever even supposed to be here?

I don’t know if I’m real anymore. I don’t know if I ever was.

But one thing is clear. I’m not the only one.

The asylum has many names—St. Edwina's, the place where the broken come to heal. But beneath the surface, it’s something far worse. A place where the lost never leave, where the mind is twisted, where reality and memory are nothing but a game.

And now, I’m one of them.