The story
The night in the capital of Meta wrapped the departmental hospital in a thick, almost heavy silence, broken only by the distant hum of medical equipment. Esteban adjusted his dark jacket and walked with a firm step down the hallways of the oncology unit. That area, wrapped up in a remodeling project, smelled of fresh cement, dust, and an ancient loneliness that seemed to cling to the skin. It was no secret among the security staff that the hallways kept secrets; during the early morning hours, the echoes of nonexistent footsteps, the subtle creaking of doors, and the capricious flickering of the lights were part of a ghostly routine they had all almost gotten used to.
However, what happened on that shift went way beyond any usual scare. Hours earlier, the staff had left a large oxygen cylinder in the middle of the main hallway, slightly blocking the way because of the construction work. Esteban was doing his routine rounds when a sharp whistle, a metallic hiss that violently cut through the air, made him stop dead in his tracks. When he shined his flashlight toward the end of the hall, he noticed that the heavy metal tank was spewing gas at full pressure. A dense white fog began to blur his visibility, while the cylinder valve seemed to empty itself in a completely incomprehensible act, since the area was completely empty and locked up with a key.
Bewilderment took over Esteban, who stepped back a couple of times, feeling how the coldness of the oxygen contrasted with the cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. The next day, with doubt eating away at his thoughts, he decided to look for his night-shift partner to check the closed-circuit camera footage. What the monitor revealed left both men plunged into deep astonishment. The screen showed the empty hallway with crystal clarity. Suddenly, the small valve of the oxygen cylinder started turning all by itself, as if an invisible, freezing hand was firmly operating it, releasing the gas without a single human being anywhere near.
Trying to find a logical reason, the guard looked for mechanical explanations, pressure failures, or thermal expansion. But no technical theory managed to fit with the precision of the movement captured on the tape. In that hospital in Villavicencio, where life and death dance a silent battle every day, Esteban understood that some invisible presences don't need to touch the living to remind them that they are never truly alone in the dark.
