The sudden, searing beam of Arjun's phone light, though weak, was a lifeline. The gaunt creature shrieked, a sound like tearing fabric mixed with dry leaves, recoiling back towards the metal table. The spectral forms, translucent and screaming, writhed and vanished into the deeper shadows of the operating theatre, leaving behind only the acrid scent of their fading presence.
Arjun didn't wait. He scrambled backward, then twisted, pulling himself to his feet. His injured arm screamed in protest, but the fear driving him was far stronger than any pain. Clutching his phone, its light dancing erratically, he bolted for the nearest opening – a doorway he hadn't noticed in his earlier terror-stricken confusion.
He burst into a long, dark corridor, indistinguishable from the others, but his mind registered only one command: run. The silence that had once been oppressive was now fractured by the frantic thud of his own footsteps, echoing menacingly behind him. He didn't dare look back. He could feel the cold, heavy presence stirring, gaining on him, a whisper rising like a collective sigh from the very walls.
The hospital seemed to shift around him, a living, breathing labyrinth. Doors he swore he hadn't passed before materialized, and familiar junctions twisted into unfamiliar paths. The phone light flickered constantly, momentarily plunging him into inky blackness that felt like a physical embrace. During these brief moments, he would hear it: the soft, dragging shhhk-shhhk of the gaunt entity, undeniably closer.
He stumbled into what looked like an old, abandoned waiting area. Overturned chairs, skeletal in the dim light, lay scattered like fallen dominoes. A massive, intricately carved wooden desk, caked in dust, dominated one corner. Desperate for a moment to catch his breath, he ducked behind it, crouching low, his phone beam sweeping nervously across the floor.
His eyes fell on something glinting beneath a pile of rubble. He reached out, his trembling fingers closing around a metal object. It was a brass nameplate, tarnished with age, but legible: Dr. Alok Sharma - Head of Experimental Therapeutics. Underneath, a smaller, almost hidden inscription: "RedOne Project - A New Frontier in Life Sustenance."
A cold dread deeper than physical fear washed over him. RedOne Project. The name of his channel, chosen at random. A chilling coincidence. He recalled the local whispers of "strange experiments." Was this it? Was this the truth behind St. Agnes?
The air grew colder, the hum returned, vibrating the floorboards beneath him. The whispers, faint but insistent, began to coalesce. This time, they weren't just random sounds. They were names. Murmured, sorrowful, angry names.
"Ranjini…"
"Kiran…"
"baby boy… no name…"
Arjun pressed himself harder against the desk, his heart hammering. These weren't just spirits; they were the patients. The ones experimented on. The ones whose "life force" was taken. And the gaunt entity... it wasn't just a monster. It was the collector. Or perhaps, it was what happened when a collector had consumed too much.
His phone light began to sputter violently, dimming to a faint glow. He knew the battery was almost dead. He had to keep moving. He had to find a way out. He risked a glance over the top of the desk.
At the far end of the waiting area, silhouetted against a slightly brighter patch of green light that seemed to pulse rhythmically, stood the gaunt creature. Its head was tilted, as if listening. And around it, clearer now, were dozens of the transparent forms, swirling, their indistinct faces turning towards him. They weren't just specters; they were husks, animated by a shared, consuming emptiness.
Arjun knew then, with horrifying certainty: the monster wasn't just chasing him. It was herding him. Herding him towards whatever purpose the RedOne Project demanded.
Chapter Six: The Architect's Harvest
The flickering phone light died completely, plunging Arjun into suffocating darkness once more. But this time, it was different. The darkness wasn't empty. It was filled with the collective hum of the spectral forms, the chilling rustle of their whispers, and the undeniable shhhk-shhhk of the gaunt entity drawing closer. The air crackled with a malevolent energy, and the metallic, cloying scent intensified, making him gag.
He didn't try to reactivate the phone. There was no point. His only chance was to move, to break free from whatever invisible net was tightening around him. He burst from behind the desk, blindly crashing through the chairs, his arms flailing, desperately searching for any opening.
His hand slammed against a cold, slick surface – a wall. He pressed himself against it, shuffling sideways, trying to follow its contour, hoping it would lead him to an exit. The whispers became a roar in his head, a cacophony of pain, fear, and a chilling, ancient hunger.
"Give… sustain… join… us…"
He felt a cold touch on his back, not the skeletal fingers, but something vast and cold, like a wall of ice. It pushed him forward, subtly, inexorably, guiding him deeper. He realized with a terrifying clarity that the hospital wasn't just a place of horror; it was the horror. St. Agnes itself was feeding, directing its prey to the collector, to the mechanism of the "RedOne Project."
He stumbled, falling to his knees. The faint green light, which had been pulsating in the distance, now seemed to draw closer, illuminating a massive, rusted metal door at the end of the corridor. It was unlike any other door he had seen in the hospital, imposing and ominous, with strange, interlocking gears and chains.
The gaunt entity stood before it, waiting. And around it, the spectral forms swirled, their transparency fading, their features becoming more defined, more distinct. Arjun saw doctors, nurses, and most horrifyingly, children – all with hollowed-out, light-absorbing eyes, like the creature that stood sentinel. They were the "us."
"The harvest… begins…" the gaunt creature rasped, its voice no longer a whisper, but a dry, brittle command.
Arjun felt an immense pressure on his body, as if he were being squeezed from all sides. He cried out, a guttural sound choked by the weight. He saw, in his peripheral vision, the ghostly hands of the patients reaching for him, their transparent fingers phasing through his skin, drawing something out of him. It was excruciating, a thousand tiny needles drawing out his very life force, the energy he now realized was their sustenance.
He couldn't move. He was held fast, paralyzed by the overwhelming consumption. He felt his consciousness begin to unravel, threads of his mind detaching, floating away. He saw flashes of his life: his channel, his family, his aspirations – all fading, growing dim.
But then, as his vision blurred and the cold deepened, he saw something else. On the metal door, faintly etched into the rusted surface, were symbols. Not random markings, but a complex diagram, like a blueprint. And at its center, a stark, unsettling image: a heart, outlined in red, with lines radiating outward, connecting to other, smaller hearts, each with a stylized "X" superimposed.
RedOne X.
It wasn't a project name. It was a system. A mechanism. St. Agnes wasn't just haunted; it was a vast, macabre machine designed to draw in life, to fuel something ancient and unspeakable, to awaken a collective of lost souls, or perhaps, a single, monstrous intelligence.
The gaunt creature stepped forward, its skeletal hand reaching for the large, rusted wheel on the metal door. As it began to turn, with a low, grinding groan that vibrated through Arjun's very bones, the spectral forms surged towards him, their collective hunger reaching a fever pitch. He was being drawn, inexorably, towards the ominous doorway. The last thing he saw, before the encroaching shadows claimed his vision entirely, was the massive door slowly, ponderously, beginning to open. A deeper, more ancient darkness lay beyond, and from it, a cold, hungry wind blew, carrying with it the faint, sweet scent of wilting lilies, and the terrifying whisper of a name.
His own.