Ghosts don't scare me. Not anymore.

The first time I saw one, I was eight years old. It wasn't some vague shadow in the corner of my eye or a trick of the light. No, he stood at the foot of my bed, as real as my mother's old rocking chair, watching me with hollow eyes. I didn't scream - I couldn't. The air in my lungs had frozen solid.

That night changed me.

Now, decades later, I chase the things that once haunted me. I'm called in when people are too afraid to sleep in their own homes, when strange noises rattle through empty hallways, when the air turns icy in the dead of summer. I carry my equipment - a digital recorder, an EMF reader, a thermal camera - but deep down, I know none of it really matters. You don't catch ghosts with technology. You find them by listening.

Tonight, I'm alone in an abandoned asylum.

The walls are peeling, the air smells of damp rot, and every footstep echoes into the void. The reports were typical - whispers, flickering lights, objects moving on their own. But there was something else, something that set my nerves on edge before I even stepped through the door. The stories spoke of a woman in white, seen wandering the halls, searching for something - or someone.

I click on my recorder.

"If there's anyone here, I just want to talk." My voice is steady, but I can hear my own heartbeat in my ears. "Can you tell me your name?"

Silence.

Then, a whisper. A breath against my ear.

"Leave."

My blood runs cold. I turn, expecting to see a figure behind me, but there's nothing - just the long, empty corridor stretching into darkness.

I've heard threats before. I don't scare easy. But this time, something feels? different.

The temperature drops. My breath fogs the air. The shadows at the end of the hall seem to pulse, growing darker, deeper.

Then I hear it. Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Coming toward me.I lift my camera, but the screen glitches, static crawling across it. My EMF reader spikes wildly in my other hand. I swallow hard.

And then, I see her.

A woman in a tattered white dress, her face obscured by dark, matted hair. Her head tilts as if she's studying me, deciding.

"Who are you?" I whisper.

She doesn't answer. Instead, she takes another step, her bare feet making no sound on the cold tile floor. My instincts scream at me to run, but I hold my ground.

"I can help you," I say, softer now. "Tell me what you need."

The air around me crackles. The lights flicker, and for the briefest moment, I see her face - sunken, hollow, a deep sorrow in her eyes that makes my chest ache.

She lifts a hand, points behind me.

I don't want to turn. Every horror movie I've ever seen tells me not to. But I do.

And that's when I see it.Not just her.

Not just one ghost.

But dozens, emerging from the shadows, silent and watching.

I've hunted ghosts my whole life.

Tonight, they might have come for me.

I stand frozen.

They are everywhere - lining the hall, emerging from the peeling wallpaper like smoke, their forms wavering between solid and spectral. Some are nothing more than vague outlines, shadows stitched together with darkness. Others? others are clear as day, their faces twisted with pain, sorrow, rage.

My breath comes in short, shallow gasps. My fingers tighten around the recorder in my hand, though I know it won't do me any good.

One step back.

They step forward.I am not welcome here.

The woman in white - she's different. She hasn't moved. Her hand is still outstretched, pointing behind me. A silent message. A warning.

The others, though? they are moving. Closing in.

A cold hand brushes my arm. Another grips my wrist - tight, strong, too real. I wrench free, heart slamming against my ribs.

I've hunted ghosts long enough to know the difference between a lost soul and something else. And these? These aren't lost. They want something.

I don't wait to find out what.

I turn and run.

The asylum's halls stretch forever, a twisting labyrinth of decayed rooms and broken doorways. My boots pound against the tile, breath burning my lungs, but I don't stop. Not even when I hear them behind me - shuffling, whispering, moving too fast for the dead.

I don't stop until I reach the old nurses' station, an island of rusted metal and shattered glass. I slam my hands down on the desk, struggling to steady my breath, to think.Why did she point?

What was behind me?

I check my recorder. The screen flickers, glitching. But the sound? the sound is clear. A voice, low and broken.

"Find the box."

My stomach drops.

I glance around. The station is littered with old medical files, overturned chairs, a thick layer of dust coating everything. But then - there, wedged between a rusted filing cabinet and the wall, is a small wooden box.

I hesitate only a second before grabbing it. The moment my fingers close around the lid, a shock of energy pulses through me - cold, electric, angry.

The whispers grow louder.

I flip the latch.Inside, beneath layers of brittle paper, is an old photograph. A group of nurses, smiling. The woman in white is there, standing in the center. But my eyes go to the man beside her - his face is scratched out, deep gouges in the photo.

A piece of paper falls from the box. A patient record.

Name: Margaret Holloway

Status: Deceased.

Cause of Death: Unresolved.

I don't have time to process what it means.

Because the air shifts.

The whispering stops.

And when I look up?

She is standing right in front of me.

Closer than before. Close enough that I can see the bruises circling her neck, the way her lips are parted like she's trying to speak.I don't run this time.

"?Margaret?" I whisper.

Her head tilts.

I hold up the box. "Is this why you're here?"

Her eyes lower to the photograph. And then? something changes. The air around us softens. The cold grip on my skin releases.

She meets my gaze, and this time, her lips move. The words are faint, barely more than a breath.

"He did this."

The lights flicker violently. The walls groan. And suddenly, the ghosts - the others - are surging forward again, their whispers turning into something sharp.

Margaret screams.

The entire asylum shakes.

I don't have time to think.I grab the box, the photograph, and run like hell.

The shadows chase me, reaching, clawing. The doorway - where's the damn doorway?! My pulse is a drum in my ears as I slam through the exit, stumbling into the night air.

And then - silence.

No whispers. No footsteps.

I turn back. The asylum looms, dark and rotting. But the shadows behind the broken windows are gone.

Only one figure remains.

Margaret.

She stands at the entrance, her form flickering like a dying flame. And for the first time, she looks? at peace.

Then, with a final whisper of wind - she's gone.

I clutch the photograph tighter.I don't know who he was, the man in the picture. But I will find out.

Because Margaret wasn't the only one trapped in that place.

And whatever was in there with her?

It's still waiting.

The ride back to my motel is silent, except for the occasional crackle from my recorder in the passenger seat. I haven't played back the full audio yet - I already know what I'll hear. The voices, the whispers, Margaret's final words.

"He did this."

I keep glancing at the photograph on the seat beside me. Even in the dim glow of my dashboard lights, the deep scratches across the man's face stand out. Someone wanted him erased. Someone wanted to make sure he was forgotten.

But Margaret didn't forget.

And neither will I.I don't sleep that night. Instead, I go through the box, sifting through brittle papers and faded ink, searching for anything that might tell me who the man in the photo was.

Finally, I find it - an old, yellowed personnel file buried beneath the patient records. My fingers tremble as I unfold it.

Dr. Edwin Blackwell.

Chief Psychiatrist, Holloway Asylum.

Dismissed: October 12, 1957.

Reason: Pending Investigation.

My stomach twists.

There's no mention of why he was being investigated. No details. Just a thin, red-stamped word across the last page.

CLOSED.

Not resolved. Not cleared. Just closed.

Buried.But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the final note, scrawled at the bottom of the page.

"Dr. Blackwell deceased - official cause unknown. Body never recovered."

My hands go cold.

I glance at the box, at the scratched-out face in the photograph, at Margaret's hollow eyes.

He wasn't gone.

Not completely.

Something clenches in my gut. I've spent years hunting ghosts, but I've never felt fear like I did inside that asylum. Those spirits weren't just lost. They were trapped. And something - someone - was keeping them there.

I close my eyes, rubbing a hand over my face.

Margaret pointed me to this for a reason.

And I have the sinking feeling that my job isn't over.

Not even close.The next morning, I drive back to the asylum.

I shouldn't. Every instinct tells me to leave it alone. But I've been doing this too long to ignore unfinished business.

The air feels heavier when I step inside. Like the building knows I'm back.

I make my way to the basement.

Every asylum has secrets, and they're always buried deep.

The door at the bottom of the stairwell is rusted shut, but I force it open. The smell hits me first - old dampness, decay, something wrong.

And then I see them.

Rows of rusted bed frames, restraints still attached. Old medical cabinets, their contents long since rotted. And on the far wall -

A name, scratched into the stone.

BLACKWELL.A chill races down my spine. I step closer, running my fingers over the grooves in the stone. This wasn't written in ink. It was carved. By hand.

A noise behind me - soft, like the scrape of fabric against the floor.

I turn too fast, my flashlight flickering.

The darkness shifts.

And then -

A voice. Deep, rasping.

Not a whisper.

A laugh.

Low. Slow.

Waiting.

My blood turns to ice.

I'm not alone down here.And whoever's with me?

They've been waiting for a long, long time.

The laugh crawls through the darkness like a living thing, curling around my ribs, sinking into my bones.

I don't move.

I don't breathe.

Something is down here.

Something that isn't like Margaret.

I tighten my grip on my flashlight and sweep it across the basement. The beam cuts through thick dust and rusted equipment, but the shadows seem wrong - too deep, too solid, as if they're watching me back.

Then - movement.

A flicker in the farthest corner of the room.My pulse slams against my ribs as I take a cautious step forward. The name BLACKWELL is still carved into the stone, but now, right beneath it, something else is appearing - slowly, deliberately.

I watch in horror as invisible fingers carve fresh letters into the stone, deep and jagged:

STILL HERE.

The room turns freezing.

The shadows pulse.

And then - he steps forward.

Dr. Edwin Blackwell.

Or at least? what's left of him.

His form flickers, half-decayed, half-there, as if reality itself is trying to erase him. His face is a nightmare of sunken hollows and peeling flesh, his eyes black pits that seem to stretch forever. And yet - he smiles.

"I've been waiting for you," he rasps.My breath catches.

I know what I'm dealing with now. This isn't just a spirit.

This is something worse.

Something that never left because it didn't have to.

"What did you do?" My voice is steadier than I feel.

Blackwell tilts his head, his decayed lips twisting into something that might have once been amusement. "I did my job," he murmurs. "I helped my patients."

The air grows thick, pressing against my chest like invisible hands.Margaret's bruises flash through my mind. The shadows. The trapped spirits.

"You tortured them," I spit. "You killed them."

His expression doesn't change, but the shadows around him pulse. "Science requires sacrifice."

I don't realize I'm backing away until my shoulder hits the rusted bedframe behind me.

Blackwell steps forward. "I kept them here, you know. Even after they died. I couldn't let them leave."

My stomach turns.

He bound them here.

Some spirits stay because they have unfinished business. Others stay because they're held. Trapped by something stronger, something darker.

Something like him.

I tighten my grip on the recorder still in my pocket. I don't know if it will help, but I hit the record button anyway.

"How?" I ask. "How did you keep them here?"His grin widens.

And that's when I hear it.

A sound beneath my feet.

A deep, wet thud.

I freeze. Slowly, I lower my flashlight to the floor.

The dirt beneath my boots isn't just dirt.

It's disturbed.Uneven.

Like something is buried beneath it.

Realization slams into me like a freight train.

Bodies.

They never recovered his body because it wasn't missing.

It was here the whole time.

And not just his.

All of them.

Margaret. The others.Blackwell starts laughing again, but this time, the sound rises - too loud, too sharp, wrong.

The basement shakes.

The darkness swarms.

The spirits that were once trapped here are awakening.

And they are furious.

A sharp, piercing wail erupts through the room, and suddenly Blackwell is no longer smiling.

I turn just in time to see her - Margaret, standing at the far end of the basement, her once-hollow eyes blazing with something new.

She is not alone.

Dozens of spirits rise from the floor, from the walls, from the earth itself.

And they are coming for him.

Blackwell screams.

The shadows shatter.I don't wait to see what happens next.

I run.

Through the shaking halls, up the rusted stairs, my lungs burning, the walls cracking apart around me. The air is thick with screaming - Blackwell's, the spirits', the very building's as the past tears itself free.

I reach the door just as the entire asylum seems to breathe in.

And then -

Silence.I stumble into the night air, gasping, heart hammering.

When I turn back, the asylum stands just as it always has - dark, broken, abandoned.

But it feels different.

Lighter.

Empty.

Blackwell is gone.

And for the first time in decades - so are they.

I clutch the recorder in my hand, the faint static still crackling through the speaker. I don't know if I got proof. I don't even know if I want it.

But I do know one thing.

Margaret got her justice.

And me?

I have a feeling this won't be the last time something follows me home.