The story
Early morning in Bogotá always has an icy edge, but on the fourth floor of that hospital, the cold seemed to seep directly from the damp bricks. Camilo was adjusting the sheets on a narrow stretcher, feeling the weight of an endless shift pressing down on his back. Nursing shifts were short-staffed and they simply couldn't keep up that night, forcing the young worker to stay about ten minutes longer in the room, keeping watch over the rest of don Bernardo, an elderly patient with fragile breathing and a lost gaze.
The silence of the ward was barely interrupted by the dying buzz of the fluorescent light tubes and the steady drip of the IV. Camilo was trying to organize the medical supplies to push through the fatigue when an abnormal draft swept through the room. It wasn't just a simple drop in temperature; the air turned heavy, charged with a suffocating stillness that instantly made the hairs on his arms stand on end.
It was right at that moment that it happened: a pitch-black shadow literally crossed right in front of them. It didn't have a defined human outline nor did it follow the logic of the ceiling lights; it was a dense, opaque blotch that slid across the floor and crossed the room from side to side, defying any natural explanation before vanishing into the doorway.
Immediately after the entity passed, don Bernardo let out a blood-curdling scream. It was a powerful wail, loaded with such visceral terror that Camilo's blood froze and his heart did a violent flip inside his chest.
"Take it easy, don Bernardo, calm down!" Camilo pleaded with a broken voice, firmly holding the elderly man's trembling hands, which were pointing in panic toward nothingness. "Take a deep breath, it's over now..."
The old man's eyes were wide and his chest was heaving from the effort. Camilo, swallowing hard and feeling an icy knot in his throat, couldn't help the curiosity mixed with fear and asked him in a whisper:
"Tell me the truth... how long have you been seeing that?"
It took don Bernardo a few seconds to catch his breath, fixing his terrified gaze on the young man before replying:
"Since yesterday... It's been hanging around here since yesterday."
Around one in the morning, the echo of hurried footsteps broke the heaviness of the hallway. An on-duty nurse walked past the room to check the clipboards and, seeing Camilo looking pale and shaking beside the bed, stopped to find out what was happening. Without hesitation, the worker pulled her aside a few feet and recounted in detail what had happened minutes before: the dark figure, the inexplicable passage, and the old man's panic.
Far from showing disbelief or mocking him, the nurse listened with a gloomy serenity that only worsened Camilo's unease. The woman looked toward the end of the lonely corridor and sighed deeply before giving him an answer that sealed the atmosphere of dread.
"That shadow always shows up on this floor when someone is about to die," she explained to him in a very low voice. "It doesn't come to scare, son; it comes to calmly watch who it's going to take."
