The story
The early morning hours in that old provincial hospital always breathed a thick air, loaded with the sweet smell of antiseptics and the heavy silence that only the distant hum of the fluorescent lights dared to break. Years ago, during one of those endless shifts, Esteban, a healthcare assistant in charge of the monitoring and ER area, decided he needed to close his eyes for a second. It was past midnight when he slipped into an isolated exam room, where absolute gloom reigned.
He lay down flat on his back on the rigid exam table, looking for a brief breather, calculating a quick ten or fifteen minutes of truce before resuming his rounds. However, the rest was cut short abruptly. Without warning, an invisible, freezing-cold force grabbed him with extreme violence by the lapels of his jacket, yanking him upward until it sat him up by force with a sharp jerk. The shock left him breathless. With his heart hammering against his ribs, he jumped to his feet and went out into the dark hallway. He checked every corner, looked inside the other exam rooms, but the solitude was absolute and no one else was wandering around out there.
Minutes later, it was his turn to relieve his shift partner in the observation area. While he was checking the security camera monitors, a sudden, stifled scream shattered the stillness. Esteban rushed immediately to the very same exam room where he had been assaulted shortly before. Upon entering, he found his colleague with a completely pale face, shaking from head to toe. With a broken voice, his partner confessed something that made his blood run cold: he had just suffered the exact same attack, feeling invisible hands that had lifted him by force in the exact same way.
The terror, however, didn't end that night. Weeks later, around three in the morning, fatigue got the better of Esteban again in the ER area. He fell asleep for barely a few minutes, immediately trapped in a strange and heavy bodily paralysis. He wanted to flee, to run away terrified toward the exit, but his muscles wouldn't respond; his body was made of lead. With his eyes barely open, he managed to make out a silhouette next to the glass door. It was a deeply dark figure with humanoid contours, watching him fixedly and threateningly, getting ready to take the next step and come closer to him.
Plunged into a paralyzing anguish, Esteban began to pray with all his might, clinging mentally to every single prayer he could remember. The silent struggle lasted an eternity until, suddenly, the weight vanished and he regained control of his limbs. He sat there on the exam table, breathing heavily, wondering in the gloom whether what he had just lived through had been a brutal nightmare, an out-of-body experience, or the certainty that something dark was lurking in the hallways of that hospital.
