St. Jude's Mercy Hospital loomed under a stormy sky, its entrance a gaping maw that screamed into the night. The red and white lights of the ambulances cut through the rain-soaked darkness, casting frantic shadows across the hospital's grim facade. For Nurse Elise, the blaring sirens weren't a warning but a pulse, the relentless heartbeat of her exhausting shift. Weariness clung to her like a shadow, making the cold linoleum floors seem almost inviting.
They brought in the latest arrival, a John Doe from a highway car crash. The air around him was thick with the smell of blood and rain, mixed with the sharp metallic tang of twisted steel. He was strapped down, not for his injuries, but to contain the violent seizures wracking his body.
"Status epilepticus," the paramedic shouted, urgency in his voice. "No ID. GCS of 7."
Elise moved mechanically, her hands rehearsed in the delicate dance of triage. IV lines, vitals, the hushed urgency of the trauma team. Yet, her attention snagged on the man's eyes. They were open, rolled back so only the veiny whites showed. As they transferred him to a hospital bed, his head lolled toward her, and the seizure halted for a chilling moment. His pupils swam into view, black and empty. His cracked, bloody lips parted.
A sound emerged, not a groan of pain, but a dry, rustling whisper, like pages turning in an ancient book.
"Floor… seven…"
The doctor, a young resident named Evans, didn't hear it. "Let's get him to the ICU. Now."
Elise hesitated. "Did he just say…?"
"He's not saying anything coherent, Elise. Come on."
The seventh floor of St. Jude's was closed. For years. A failed asbestos cleanup and budget cuts had left it derelict, a tomb sealed off with heavy chains and a fading 'CONDEMNED' sign. Everyone knew the stories, of course. The old pediatric ward. The rumors of a smallpox quarantine went wrong in the 50s. Hospital lore, something to laugh about over coffee.
But the man had said it. Floor seven.
The night deepened, the frantic energy of the ER giving way to the low hum of the intensive care unit. John Doe lay in room 312, sedated into a fragile peace. Elise tried to dismiss the incident, blaming exhaustion. But the whisper lingered, a burr on her consciousness.
Her rounds were a silent journey through dimly lit corridors. The only sounds were the life support symphony: the rhythmic hiss-sigh of ventilators, the steady beep-beep-beep of heart monitors tracing green lines in the dark. It was a lullaby she knew by heart.
Until it wasn't.
The code blue alarm shattered the silence. Room 312. John Doe.
She was the first there. The room was ice-cold. The monitor showed a flat, unwavering green line. But the patient wasn't still. He was arched off the bed, his back bent at an impossible angle, tendons in his neck standing out like cables. His eyes were wide open, fixed on the ceiling.
And he was whispering. A low, continuous stream, the same rustling, papery sound.
"Seventh floor… room 714… it's waiting…"
The crash team flooded in, pushing her aside. They worked with brutal efficiency—defibrillator paddles, epinephrine, shouted commands. But with every jolt of electricity, the man's body would jolt and his whisper would grow louder, more insistent, a horrific counterpoint to their efforts.
"Don't let it sleep… it's so hungry…"
Dr. Evans's face was pale under the bright lights. "Call it."
The flatline tone continued its monotonous dirge. Time of death, 2:17 AM.
As the team began to disperse, the silence they left behind was heavier than before. Elise stood alone by the now-still body, her own heart pounding in her chest. She reached out, against her better judgment, and gently closed the man's eyelids.
His hand shot up, cold as marble, and clamped around her wrist. His eyes flew open. They were no longer vacant. They were full of a terrible, knowing terror.
"It heard you," he rasped, his breath a foul winter wind. "It knows you're here."
His grip went slack. He was truly gone.
Shaking, Elise stumbled back into the hall. The ICU was quiet again, but the silence was different now. It was a listening silence. The gentle hiss of the ventilators seemed to form words. The beep of the heart monitors sounded like faint, frantic footsteps from somewhere above.
She couldn't stay. She told the charge nurse she was feeling ill, her voice a thin, reedy thing she barely recognized. The elevator was out of service. Of course it was. The stairs, then.
The door to the fifth-floor stairwell groaned shut behind her, sealing her in concrete and silence. The air was stale and thick with dust. She started down, her sneakers squeaking on the steps.
Squeak. Squeak.
She stopped. Listened.
Another set of footsteps echoed from somewhere above. Not below. Above.
Slow, dragging steps. Heavy. A sound like something being pulled.
Scrape. Drag. Scrape. Drag.
Her blood turned to ice. The seventh floor. The door to the seventh-floor landing was just above her, chained and padlocked. The 'CONDEMNED' sign hung crookedly.
The dragging sound stopped right on the other side of that door.
Elise held her breath, pressing herself against the cold wall. She could see a sliver of darkness through the gap in the doorframe.
Something shifted in the darkness. A deeper blackness. Then, an eye pressed against the crack. It wasn't human. The pupil was a jagged, vertical slit, clouded with a milky film. It swiveled, searching.
It saw her.
A low, wet inhalation came from the other side of the door, a sound of profound hunger. The chains on the door rattled, not with force, but with a gentle, testing pressure.
Clink. Clink.
Elise ran. She fell down the last flight of stairs, tumbling into the main lobby, her composure shattered. The security guard looked up, startled.
"The seventh floor!" she gasped, pointing a trembling finger upward. "There's something up there!"
The guard, an older man named Walter, gave her a pitying smile. "The seventh floor's been shut longer than you've been alive, kid. It's just the pipes. They make all sorts of noises."
He didn't believe her. No one would.
The next night, Elise called in sick. She lay in her dark apartment, jumping at every creak of the floorboards. She couldn't shake the feeling of that cold hand on her wrist, the image of that terrible eye.
Around 2:17 AM, her phone buzzed. A text from Rachel, a fellow nurse on the night shift.
Hey, weird question. Admitted a guy tonight, found wandering the parking lot. Keeps whispering about 'the nurse on the 3rd floor who smells like fear.' You know anything about that?
Elise's breath caught in her throat. She didn't respond.
Another text came through a moment later.
Wait, he's saying something else… 'Tell her it found the stairs.'
As she read the words, a sound drifted from the hallway outside her apartment door. A soft, familiar sound she knew better than her own heartbeat.
The gentle, rhythmic hiss-sigh of a ventilator.
It was followed by a slow, dragging scrape.
Scrape. Drag. Scrape. Drag.
It stopped right outside her door. The peephole went dark, as if something had blotted out the light from the other side.
From the hallway, a dry, rustling whisper seeped through the keyhole.
"Room 714… has a view…"