Chapter 467
The humid air of Kerala hung heavy as Arun approached the abandoned asylum. Its decaying facade, a monument to suffering, loomed against the twilight sky.
Locals spoke of it in hushed tones, of tortured souls forever trapped within its crumbling walls. Arun, a ghost hunter hardened by years of chasing the spectral, felt a prickle of unease, a sensation he usually suppressed, crawl up his spine.
This place felt different, malignant. He checked his equipment, the familiar weight grounding him.
His EMF meter, a device he considered his most loyal, sat calmly, its readings near zero, which he always thought was more unnerving than being near extremely high readings. He pushed open the rusted iron gate, the screech a long, drawn-out lament that echoed into the silence.
He had seen some bad things, been in bad places, and felt fear, he could recall. But that feeling was a far off and a distant memory, not this.
This was the cold. The main entrance, once grand, now sagged like a broken jaw.
Vines, thick and snakelike, clawed their way up the columns, as if attempting to consume the building whole. He stepped inside, the air instantly growing colder and heavier, smelling of mildew and something akin to decay and something he knew, deep down, that the word "wrong," could only possibly come close to describing.
He drew a sharp breath. His flashlight beam danced across the dust-laden floor.
Shattered tiles crunched under his boots. A layer of grime coated every surface, undisturbed for decades, at the very least.
The silence was oppressive, broken only by the occasional creak of the old structure settling, every sound like an accusatory whisper from an unseen observer, he hoped just the structure settling, but of course knew, that was a lie. The very floor he stood upon felt, weak.
He looked down for a brief moment, something just seemed off. He started his recording equipment, his camera pointed down at a wide shot of the reception area.
"Recording on. It's... unnerving to be in here, more so than other locations," Arun's voice was unnaturally low as if the environment itself demanded respect. The feeling was heavy in the air.
A feeling he knew very well. Fear, cold, and a deep feeling of not wanting to be here.
The only comfort he had were these recordings. For what it's worth.
"As you can tell by the microphone, not getting the, well, not a usual welcoming by whatever... is here. All good," Arun finished that sentence with more hope than faith, the recording equipment never giving anyone, any true sense of relief.
"I always talk to myself now, it's always about me, now," Arun quietly to himself. He shook it off, he'll analyze this part of him later.
If he makes it out, he chuckled quietly. He wouldn't.
He moved further into the asylum. Each hallway was a labyrinth of darkened rooms, their doorways like empty eyes staring into his soul, every doorway feeling as if, and looked like, and smelled like the absolute worst kind of void he could fathom.
The peeling paint curled away from the walls, like decaying flesh from bone. He walked through one hall, it felt never-ending, only about five rooms.
He went back from which he came from to take the right direction from which he felt. Something wanted to see if he would go for its trap.
No. Not today, he told the wall and whispered a no to himself.
In a patient room, he saw a rusty metal bed frame standing in the corner, a single, ripped mattress lay nearby on the floor, with springs sticking out. The air grew sharply colder.
His EMF meter showed a minor spike, then a sudden drop, as though something just flicked something off, not the usual increase in readings then fade. His heart picked up its pace, the blood felt thin.
He decided, with reluctance, to leave. "Let's leave this place, as tempting as you may be," he muttered towards it, his breath puffing out little wisps, now becoming quite visible in this area.
The medical ward was the most disturbing. Smashed vials and rusty surgical instruments were scattered on the floor.
One old operating table stood there with all its tools laying where they were last, perfectly laid as though someone just set them down and simply walked off, without a thought, and all for him. He thought of just that.
What was for him, was what wasn't his to see or interact with. The air here, a suffocating dread.
Something moved behind the operating table, not quickly or a very fast motion, very slow. Something white.
He squinted. Just dust, it seemed, moving in slow time, a perfect image of its, if something was really here.
The feeling didn't let up. The hair on his arms stood up on end.
This feeling, deep down he knew it, he's never leaving here, alive at least. He saw the writing on the wall, black scrawl in some faded ink or dark blood on a specific wall, a sentence in Malayalam that he, unfortunately, could translate.
He quickly took a picture of it, using the recording camera. He would not translate it here, it didn't matter at this point.
"There is always something dark," he said with some exhaustion in his voice, the feelings of anxiety, of never escaping these damned locations was setting in now. Not in a burst but like a water rising slowly.
As he progressed deeper, he encountered the solitary confinement area. The small, dark cells, devoid of light, felt like burial chambers, more so than others, the dread had reached the absolute peak now.
One door, still intact but badly rusted and discolored, looked ever so slightly open. Just barely open, and looked to be slowly, very slowly moving inwards, the inside only black.
No matter the direction his flashlight or equipment pointed. He stepped closer to it.
He was unable to contain himself from taking another step forward. He stopped. Something.
He closed his eyes for just a brief moment. Then slowly opened them, still facing the doorway to the abyss.
He sighed and turned away, as he did. He heard a whisper from deep down the hallway from behind him, an actual voice this time, but still distant.
It was just clear enough. And something in him clicked.
His rational brain turned off. And instinct took control.
"Not this again, another trap," Arun told his back, he then kept walking towards the unknown black. A voice now was clear.
"Please help me…" It said very clearly, close, from inside the doorway. He pushed the door inward, his camera, now loose and in one hand still pointing forward, just barley kept pointing.
And it worked. And the equipment worked as it should.
For those viewing back home. He pushed in more, he then stopped right at the doorway.
The recording camera captured the void just perfectly, how every little dark corner, and even if he angled up or down to his feet. Everything, in the space, was an all consuming and perfect pitch black.
His heart beat fast but somehow calm. A contradiction.
He then took a step forward and a feeling as though being swallowed. The recording then turned very glitchy with white static flashes.
The recording equipment struggled, as it seemed. The visuals turned to a fast, nearly unperceivable slideshow of different images, old and decayed patient faces, distorted body parts with old bloodstains, and symbols of some kind.
An overload of information was given to the microphone as it made loud sounds, feedback, scratching, voices crying for help and agony. A clear distinct yell with no voice.
The camera and its visual feed then dropped onto the floor. He had dropped it, and in doing so, was still recording but just at the floor, in darkness with his feet slowly walking away from where the doorway stood.
With that clear yell still echoing deep within the confines of that dark space, a sad last whimper from him. Days turned into weeks, then months.
The authorities eventually came. But he was nowhere to be seen.
There was a detailed recording left behind. It did, surprisingly, sync up correctly for anyone viewing at home, from the various cloud services.
Everything had a perfect and smooth flow, minus the static, glitchy mess towards the end. The recording was played in an office by an investigator for the case.
After viewing it all the way through, it left a bad taste in the investigator's mouth. As if someone just ate something terribly and unholy, the investigator went silent.
They found his flashlight near the single solitary door that opened to nothing but a pitch-black wall with no entrance. There were marks on the metal door, from the inside.
They then looked at the wall on the opposite side of that room and on that wall was a mirror, where you could slightly, very slightly see the investigators faint reflection from where he stood in the small room. As he stood there, he heard his recording camera on the ground say, "Please help me," and slowly started moving backwards in small, jerking motions to be as close as it could, near that single doorway to the abyss.
The recording camera kept glitching, and then, it too, turned completely silent, before any help, was, or ever could arrive. The case remains unsolved, a chilling reminder of the darkness that lurks within the abandoned asylum.
A darkness that seemed to take something from our world, and forever consume it. Not letting it leave or even be seen from our eyes ever again.
Trapped in that pitch black, forever, only screaming for help when nobody would ever, ever, find you there, in that place. And as one can say, "that pitch black is his whole world, now,".
And nothing, will ever help him leave, because it seems, nothing could ever want to.