The story
The cold breeze of the sabana bogotana plateau descended heavily upon the roofs of the military dispensary, a sterile refuge where silence was usually the only company for the soldiers on guard duty. It was just another night between the winter of 2015 and 2016. The fluorescent lights hummed persistently, casting long shadows against the white-tiled walls that perpetually smelled of iodine and bottled-up fear. A fever outbreak had kept the troops on edge, forcing the men to seek relief in the medical area.
In the middle of that oppressive atmosphere, two young recruits were resting on makeshift stretchers while waiting for the medication to kick in. A third comrade, in charge of nighttime logistics, walked between the beds handing out the prescribed pills. Fatigue weighed heavily on everyone's eyelids, turning the vigil into an exercise of physical and mental endurance.
Suddenly, the soldier lying closest to the central hallway felt an ice-cold prickle on the back of his neck. The air in the room seemed to grow thick, almost unbreathable. With his eyes fixed on the floor, he clearly distinguished the heavy tapping of standard-issue black leather boots. Someone was walking with a firm step right beside him, stopping mere inches from his cot. Convinced that the round sergeant had come to check on the condition of the sick, the young man kept quiet out of respect, waiting for an order that never came.
The hours dragged by with a desperate slowness. As the early morning advanced, the atmosphere charged with a palpable tension. In the dark background, precisely in the restricted area where medications and syringes were kept, strange creaks began to be heard. Someone—or something—seemed to be urgently handling the glass bottles, moving boxes and metal trays with a methodical and stealthy tapping. The soldiers exchanged looks loaded with mute panic, clinging to their blankets while the sound of bottles clinking against each other echoed through the empty dispensary.
It wasn't until the first light of dawn, when the grayish glow began to filter through the barred windows, that the mystery took on an even more terrifying dimension. The soldier who had felt the nighttime presence approached his comrades with a haggard face and pale skin. With a trembling voice, he confessed what he had kept quiet all night so as not to unleash panic: when he saw the boots pass by him, he had looked up and verified, with horror, that there was no one there. He was completely alone.
That episode was not an isolated case. Through the institution's hallways circulated the dark legend that the old military hospital was irremediably cursed. That site housed echoes of wandering souls who, incapable of leaving service, continued patrolling the shadows, reminding the living that death, in that barracks, never rested.
