Chapter 7: "Medical Record Investigation"

Rain pelted the windows of the Shanghai Municipal Archives as Yingchuan hunched over a stack of yellowed documents. His visit to his grandfather the previous night had proven both revealing and disturbing—the catatonic old man had indeed been drawing, creating intricate negative-like images of what appeared to be room E-22 from impossible angles, as if viewed simultaneously from multiple perspectives. In the center of each drawing, a recurring motif: a figure strapped to a chair, surrounded by medical staff with spiral patterns where their faces should be.

Most disturbing was his grandfather's reaction when Yingchuan had shown him the nurse's pin. The old man's body had gone rigid, his right hand seizing the pin with surprising strength before using it to carve a single phrase into his drawing:

"Lin Yuwei knows"

This name had led Yingchuan to the archives first thing in the morning, postponing his return to the institute. If answers existed about what had happened to his grandfather—what had created the connection to the void entities—they would be found in historical records rather than the rapidly deteriorating building itself.

The clerk had been skeptical of his request to access records from Jiangwan Psychiatric Institute, particularly those from 1947-1949, but Yingchuan's press credentials and a fabricated story about a historical photography project had eventually granted him access to the limited surviving documents.

What he found exceeded his darkest expectations.

The first significant discovery was a police report dated June 17, 1947: the investigation of a suicide at Jiangwan Institute. Lin Yuwei, 27, head nurse of the newly established "Special Treatments Division," had been found hanging in a basement storage room by an orderly delivering morning supplies. The report included several black and white photographs of the scene—clinical and detached in their documentation of death.

Yingchuan studied these images with professional detachment, noting discrepancies his photographer's eye couldn't ignore. The body's position seemed wrong for a hanging suicide—the suspension point too low, the neck at an unusual angle. More telling was the lack of lividity consistent with vertical suspension. The blood settling in Lin's body suggested she had been horizontal for some time after death, not hanging as discovered.

The investigating officer had noted similar concerns in his report, questioning whether the scene had been arranged post-mortem. His investigation had been abruptly reassigned three days later, with a final ruling of suicide by a different officer who conducted no additional interviews.

More significantly, the storage room where Lin's body was found was located directly beneath what would later become room E-22.

Yingchuan continued through the documents, discovering fragmented patient records that had escaped proper disposal. Several contained diary entries from the same time period, preserved as evidence of patient mental states during treatment evaluations. Three separate patients had recorded encounters with what they described as a "shadow nurse" who wandered the corridors at night, performing rounds that never ended.

Patient Wu described her: "The shadow nurse checks our rooms after midnight. Her footsteps never make sound. Where her face should be, I see only darkness spinning like water down a drain. The doctors say this is my delusion, but I am not the only one who sees her."

Patient Chen wrote: "Nurse Lin has returned, though they told us she departed. She continues her duties at night, though her movements are wrong—like a puppet with too many joints. The new head nurse, Zhao, speaks with her in the corner of the east wing. I hear their whispers between the walls."

Most disturbing was an entry from Patient Huang, dated one week after Lin's death: "They took another to the special room today. We heard the screaming for hours. Afterward, the shadow nurse appeared, standing at the foot of my bed. She leaned close and whispered that they had opened the door but didn't know how to close it. She said something was coming through from the other side. Something hungry for eyes."

Yingchuan photographed these pages with his phone, hands trembling slightly. The connection between Nurse Lin's death and the beginning of the phenomena was becoming clear. Whatever experiments had been conducted in what would become room E-22 had begun shortly before her death—or perhaps her death had been a direct result of these procedures.

He continued searching, finding a thin folder labeled "Facility Closure Documentation—1949" that contained the official explanation for the institute's abandonment. The stated reason was indeed "facility deterioration and modernization requirements," but internal communications told a different story.

A letter from Dr. Mei Zhang, Department Head, to the Ministry of Health painted an alarming picture:

"Despite multiple requests, I must again emphasize the urgent need for immediate facility closure. The incidents in the east wing have escalated beyond containment. Three staff members have experienced severe psychological breaks after exposure to patients in rooms E-17 through E-22. The phenomenon first documented in subject #22-7-4 has spread to adjacent patients despite isolation protocols.

The architectural degradation cannot be explained by structural factors—the cold spots persist regardless of seasonal temperatures, and the spatial anomalies first noted in my report of August 1947 have expanded. Most concerning, the visual manifestations are no longer confined to photographic documentation but are now being reported by individuals without prior exposure to the affected areas.

Nurse Zhao's continued insistence that the procedures can be refined is dangerous and contrary to all evidence. I formally request her immediate removal from the Special Procedures Division and the transfer of all remaining patients in the east wing to conventional treatment facilities. Subject #22-7-4 should be transferred to long-term isolation care under restricted observation protocols.

If immediate action is not taken, I cannot guarantee the safety of staff or the containment of what we have inadvertently brought through."

The document was dated March 1949. According to public records, the facility had been evacuated and closed the following month. Dr. Zhang's name disappeared from medical registries shortly thereafter. Nurse Zhao, however, had continued practicing at Shanghai Medical University Hospital until 1976—the very hospital where Yingchuan's grandfather now resided.

As Yingchuan organized the documents for return, a small newspaper clipping fell from between the pages—a brief obituary dated April 12, 1949:

"Lin Yuwei, 27, formerly of Jiangwan Institute. Beloved daughter and dedicated nurse. Her commitment to advancing medical understanding led to profound breakthroughs. May she find peace in the next life, should rebirth be permitted to one who sacrificed so greatly for knowledge. Private memorial services will be held at the residence of Dr. Mei Zhang."

The date—nearly two years after Lin's reported suicide—made no sense. More troubling was the phrasing about rebirth, echoing the "Never Reincarnate" warning carved into room E-22's door.

Yingchuan photographed this clipping, then froze as he examined the image on his phone screen. Behind the printed text, barely visible in the digital reproduction but invisible to his naked eye, a ghostly figure had manifested—a nurse in 1940s uniform, her face a blurred spiral, standing behind his shoulder as he'd taken the photograph.

He quickly looked around the empty archives room, seeing nothing unusual. But when he raised his phone to take another photograph of the documents, the screen showed what his eyes could not: the nurse standing directly beside the table, her hand resting on a particular folder he hadn't yet examined.

Following this impossible guidance, Yingchuan opened the indicated folder. Inside was a single medical form—a patient transfer request from 1947, authorizing the movement of patient Lin Yuwei from the general women's hospital to Jiangwan Institute's Special Procedures Division. The admitting diagnosis: "persistent visual hallucinations following ocular trauma; claims photographic perception of non-existent dimensions."

Lin Yuwei hadn't been merely a nurse at Jiangwan. She had been a patient first—one who, like his grandfather, could see what others couldn't. One who had apparently died, yet continued to appear both in records and in patient accounts for years afterward.

The nurse's pin in Yingchuan's pocket grew cold against his thigh. When he removed it, the engraving had changed again:

"LIN YUWEI – FIRST SUBJECT, SPECIAL PROCEDURES"

Below this, in smaller characters:

"Hurry, demolition is beginning"

Through the archives' rain-streaked windows, Yingchuan could see construction vehicles in the distance, moving along the road that led to Jiangwan Institute. The demolition wasn't scheduled until tomorrow, but after his discoveries at the institute yesterday, the timeline had clearly accelerated.

On impulse, Yingchuan photographed the patient transfer form. When he examined the image on his phone, Lin Yuwei's spiral face had moved closer to the document, her elongated finger pointing to a specific notation at the bottom of the page:

"Subject exhibits unique ocular properties following industrial chemical exposure. Right eye shows persistent ability to perceive wavelengths outside normal human spectrum. Recommend immediate transfer to Special Procedures for Project Threshold experimentation."

The right eye. Just like the eye through which Yingchuan now perceived the altered world, the eye that had connected with whatever existed behind room E-22's keyhole. Whatever had happened to Lin Yuwei had later been replicated with his grandfather, creating a perceptual gateway that had remained dormant in Yingchuan's genetic line until activated by his photography.

As Yingchuan gathered his materials to leave, the overhead lights in the archives flickered. When they stabilized, he found himself looking at a new shadow on the wall—not his own, but that of a nurse in traditional uniform. The shadow moved independently, gesturing toward the exit, urging haste.

Through his altered right eye, Yingchuan could see more than the shadow. He could see Lin Yuwei herself, standing by the archives door, her uniform pristine despite the decades, her spiral face spinning rapidly as she pointed toward Jiangwan Institute.

Behind her, visible only through his photographer's perception, stood other figures—patients in hospital gowns, their features similarly replaced by spirals of varying sizes. They formed a corridor leading from the archives toward the distant institute, marking a path only he could see.

The message was clear: return to Jiangwan before demolition erased whatever doorway existed between dimensions. Return to complete the exchange begun with Lin Yuwei, continued with his grandfather, and now culminating with him.

Return to discover what truly happened in room E-22, and why some souls were marked to never reincarnate.

As Yingchuan hurried from the archives into the rainy morning, his phone chimed with a message from an unknown number. The screen displayed a single image: a current photograph of Jiangwan Institute with demolition equipment surrounding it. Superimposed over the image were Chinese characters formed from what appeared to be twisting human shadows:

"Photographer, bring us home"

Behind the text, barely discernible, the face of his catatonic grandfather stared out from the screen—younger, aware, his eyes replaced by the same spiral pattern that marked the nurses and patients from the void dimension.

The connection between past and present, between photography and perception, between his bloodline and the entities from beyond, had nearly come full circle. Only the final exposure remained to complete the sequence.

Yingchuan slid behind the wheel of his car, the nurse's pin now burning cold against his skin, guiding him back to where everything had begun—and where everything would finally be revealed.

Back to room E-22, where the first photograph had been taken of what should never have been seen.