The air grew thick with the scent of decay, the oppressive weight of the approaching figures pressing down on Mara's chest. Her heart pounded in her ears as she yanked the book from the desk, feeling its edges scrape her palms. The heavy thud of footsteps echoed, each step deliberate, as if the dead were calculating their every movement. It wasn't just hunger driving them anymore. There was something far darker at play.
"Go!" Tom shouted, his voice sharp as he yanked her toward the back of the room, away from the advancing horde. Jack and Ella followed close behind, their eyes wide with panic.
The door they had entered was now blocked by the moving figures, their blank eyes fixated on the group as they moved. It was as if they could feel the presence of the living, recognizing them for something they had once been, something familiar. But the dead were no longer mindless. They had purpose now. And that purpose… felt dangerous.
"Over here!" Jack yelled, pointing to a narrow corridor at the far end of the room. "There's another exit!"
Mara didn't hesitate. She pushed forward, her feet scrambling against the uneven floor. Tom was right behind her, keeping the others moving. The corridor was barely wide enough for them to squeeze through, the walls lined with peeling paint and rusted pipes. It felt like a maze, and with every turn, the whispers grew louder, more insistent. The dead were still following, their footsteps growing louder as the distance between them closed.
"This way," Mara said breathlessly, as she darted through another set of cracked doors. The space beyond was dim, filled with broken office furniture and debris. But it didn't matter. They had to get out.
"You think we're gonna make it to the hospital?" Ella asked, her voice tinged with desperation. "We don't even know where it is."
Mara didn't answer immediately. Her mind was racing, trying to process everything she'd just read. The map, the strange warnings - it all pointed to one thing. Larchwood wasn't just a town. It was something older, something that had existed long before the virus had spread. Something that had always been here.
"I don't know," Mara said finally. "But it's the only lead we have. We have to find out what's in that hospital. If the town does have a mind of its own, if it's keeping the dead here for a reason… maybe we can stop it."
Tom, still gripping his makeshift weapon, glanced nervously over his shoulder. "If the town's alive, then it won't be easy. It won't let us leave. We've seen that before."
Mara nodded, the weight of his words settling in. They hadn't just been trapped by the dead. The town itself had been feeding on them, drawing them back, binding them to its decaying streets. It was as if the very foundation of Larchwood had been built on something unholy, something buried beneath the layers of time.
They rounded a corner, the dark hallway opening up into what looked like an old storage room. But before Mara could move further, a low growl echoed from the shadows. Her breath hitched, and she turned just in time to see one of the dead - Carl, his face gaunt and eyes vacant - lunge forward, arms reaching toward her.
"Get back!" Tom shouted, swinging his weapon in a wide arc. The blunt object made contact with Carl's chest, sending him stumbling back, but it was only a temporary setback. Carl's body shifted with a jerky motion, and then he was up again, unfazed, his mouth twisted in something between a snarl and a grin.
They couldn't fight like this. Not forever. Not against this kind of strength.
"We need to move faster," Mara said, her voice sharp. "Now!"
Jack grabbed her arm, pulling her forward. "We don't have time to wait. We need to get to that hospital before—"
A scream split the air, cutting him off. It was Ella, her voice shrill and panicked.
The group spun around, their eyes widening as a wave of figures poured out from the darkness, emerging from the corridors ahead and behind. They were surrounded.
The dead weren't just following them now. They were closing in. Coordinating.
Mara's mind raced, adrenaline surging through her veins. The whispers had returned, louder than ever, echoing off the walls, crawling into her head with one single, horrifying message:
You cannot escape.
Her fingers clenched around the book, the only thing she could hold on to. The weight of it in her hands seemed to ground her, giving her the strength to think. She didn't know what the book contained beyond what she had already read, but it had to hold the key to surviving this.
"Back to the storage room!" Mara shouted. "We can use the shelves - block the door!"
They scrambled back into the dimly lit room, slamming the door behind them. The group shoved nearby crates and barrels against it, hoping to slow the dead's advance. For a moment, the room fell silent again, save for the frantic breath of each survivor.
Mara leaned against the cold wall, her hand still gripping the book. Her pulse pounded in her ears as she scanned the room.
"What now?" Ella asked, her voice shaky but determined. "Where do we go?"
Mara closed her eyes for a moment, forcing herself to think. The town had always been an eerie place, but now it felt more like a prison, one built on secrets long forgotten. Larchwood wasn't just infected - it was alive in a way that defied reason. It had a history, a purpose, and she had a feeling the dead weren't the only ones trapped here.
She glanced down at the book again. There had to be something more to it.
"The hospital," Mara said, her voice resolute. "We're not leaving until we know what's really happening here."
Tom exchanged a look with Jack, then nodded. "Then we move fast. They're not just following us anymore. They're hunting us."
Mara pushed herself off the wall, the book still tightly clutched in her hand. They weren't just running from the dead. They were running toward something. And the closer they got to the hospital, the closer they would get to the truth.
But what would that truth be?
*THE HOSPITAL THAT SHOULD'NT EXIST*
The hospital was only a few streets away. And time was running out.
Larchwood General stood at the end of a ruined boulevard - tilted, half-swallowed by ivy and fog, like a building trying to disappear into the earth itself.
The hospital wasn't on any map. None of them remembered it ever being there. But there it stood - tall, decaying, and unmistakably waiting. Its glass windows were shattered like screaming mouths, and the emergency sign flickered dimly in the mist, buzzing with a strange static hum.
"I don't like this," Jack muttered. "It wasn't there yesterday."
"It wasn't there ever," Ella said, clutching Mara's arm. "I grew up here. That hospital never existed."
Mara stared at the rust-stained entrance, her knuckles white around the book. The town will always remain. That phrase haunted her now, stitched into her thoughts like a sickness. If the town was alive, maybe it could grow things… like buildings. Or people.
"Whatever this place is," she said, voice low, "it's not just a hospital. It's the town's mind. Or its memory."
Tom took a breath and stepped forward. "Then we're walking into its brain."
They passed the threshold, and the world changed.
The temperature dropped ten degrees instantly. Inside, the hospital reeked of mildew and metal and… something sweeter, rotting beneath it all. The waiting room was pristine, eerily untouched - chairs in perfect rows, magazines from a decade ago still neatly stacked. But the floor beneath the welcome mat was smeared with dried blood in the shape of a perfect circle.
Then the lights overhead blinked on. One by one. Click. Click. Click.
A voice buzzed over the speaker system, warbled and glitching:
"Now taking patients for eternal admission. Please proceed to triage."
Ella flinched. "Tell me I imagined that."
"Nope," Jack said, already gripping his crowbar.
Mara stepped forward, flipping the book open. The pages were changing. The words were… rewriting themselves.
She stopped, heart hammering.
The newest entry read:
"The four will enter.
One will bleed.
One will forget.
One will open the door.
And one will never leave."
They all stared at her.
"Nope," Jack repeated, backing toward the exit.
The door slammed shut behind them with a metallic screech. Locked.
Mara didn't move. The hospital knew they were there. It had written it before they even arrived.
Tom's voice was quiet. "So which of us is the one who never leaves?"
The hallway stretched ahead, impossibly long, filled with empty gurneys and flickering signs.
From deeper inside came the unmistakable sound of something dragging across linoleum.
Something heavy.
Something wet.
"Stick together," Mara whispered.
They moved forward, the hospital absorbing them into its gut.
As they walked, the walls changed.
Photos hung on them now. Old, cracked pictures of patients.
Except - these weren't strangers.
It was them.
Mara's breath hitched. Her photo was labeled:
Patient #13 – Still Asleep.
Jack's read: Patient #14 – Trying to Wake.
Ella: Patient #15 – Nearly Broken.
Tom: Patient #16 – Knows Too Much.
"What the hell is this?" Jack hissed.
Mara stepped closer to the frames. She touched hers. It was warm. Like skin.
Behind them, the dragging grew louder.
Then a voice spoke - not through the intercom, but from right behind them. Low, wet, smiling:
"You were never survivors."
They turned.
And saw what had been hunting them.
Not a zombie.
Not a person.
Something in-between.
It wore a doctor's coat, soaked in blood, and its face was covered in gauze. Its limbs were too long, bent the wrong way, and from behind its mask came the sound of breathing - deep, deliberate.
It pointed a long, skeletal finger toward them.
"Back to bed," it rasped.
And the hospital doors vanished.
Only the corridors remained. Endless. Shifting.
And the book in Mara's hands began to write again. On its own.
She didn't turn the page.
Because she was terrified that if she did…
it would already know how she would die.
The corridors were wrong.
They turned when no one moved, extended into impossible spirals, and sometimes - just for a breathless second - they breathed.
Mara gripped the book tighter. Its pages were ice-cold now, but when she held it against her chest, she swore she felt a heartbeat. Not hers.
Behind them, the Doctor moved slow, but they knew better than to underestimate it. It didn't run because it didn't have to.
It knew where they'd end up.
It had the map.
And the hospital was folding around them like a fist.
"This place isn't real," Ella whispered, voice hollow. "It's thinking. It's choosing where we go."
Jack wiped sweat from his brow. "It's like a dream."
"No," Mara said. "A coma."
They stopped.
"What?" Tom asked.
Mara opened the book to the most recent page. Her own hand wasn't moving. But the ink was:
"Mara will begin to remember soon.
She's not the only one waking up.
Some of them were never meant to."
The words bled into the paper like veins.
"I think…" she said slowly, "we're inside something's mind. A collective one. Maybe the virus didn't kill people. Maybe it linked them."
Jack frowned. "Like a shared dream?"
"Like a mass hallucination. But physical. A hive-memory. The town is a body. The hospital is the brain. And we're stuck in it."
The lights above flickered violently - disagreeing.
Then… a voice.
But not over the speaker this time.
It came from the walls.
From inside their own heads.
"You've been admitted. You cannot leave until your treatment is complete."
Then the doors ahead slammed open.
What lay beyond wasn't a hallway.
It was an operating theatre - but twisted, spiraling downward like a drain into darkness. Blood pooled in the center of the floor, forming words:
DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST PROCEDURE?
Mara staggered back, but her foot landed on something slick. She looked down.
A photo.
Of herself, strapped to a hospital bed.
Her mouth sewn shut.
Her eyes screaming.
The others found photos too. One by one. All of them. Documented. Broken.
"These aren't memories," Tom whispered. "They're plans."
Mara stepped into the theatre, breath held. "No. They're warnings."
Because deep down, she was starting to remember the truth.
They had been here before.
All of them.
Larchwood wasn't where they had run to.
It was where they had come from.
And they were never supposed to wake up.