Allergic to death

Dr. Maya kamini didn’t believe in ghosts. But the way the patient in Room 409 died—it haunted her.

A late October chill hung in the air, creeping into the fluorescent-lit corridors of St. Vincent’s Medical. The hospital never truly slept, but tonight, it seemed unusually still. Maya stood at the nurses’ station, flipping through the final case of her shift—"Leonardo Griggs", age 47, admitted for anaphylaxis after an unknown allergic reaction.

“He should’ve made it,” she murmured.

The nurse beside her, Caroline, hesitated. “His vitals stabilized last night. Breathing normal. Vitals solid. Then…” She shook her head. “He just flatlined.”

“No cause of death,” Maya muttered, tapping the report. “No new allergens. Monitors clean. No meds administered in the last six hours.”

“Maybe his system just collapsed.”

“No,” Maya said softly. “That’s not how bodies work.”

---
Griggs' chart was pristine until last night—just another patient with a mysterious food allergy. He’d walked in on his own two feet. No prior hospitalizations, no known allergies, no family history.

He’d only eaten a sandwich. No shellfish. No nuts. No dairy. It was like the air itself had killed him.

And then came the whisper.

Maya paused mid-step as she passed Room 409. The door was cracked open. Darkness spilled from within like ink. For a moment, she thought she heard something—dry, rattling breathing. Then a voice.

“Not allergic…”

Her spine stiffened.

She pushed open the door.

Nothing.

The room was empty. Stripped. Leonardo Griggs' bed had already been wheeled out. The machines unplugged. A strange sterile silence sat in the air.

And yet the whisper had been clear.

---

The next day, she couldn’t shake the unease. She pulled Griggs’ medical records again.

Something was off.

The sandwich.

It hadn’t been from the cafeteria. A friend had dropped it off. But no visitor logs existed. No signature. No security footage.

She called the listed emergency contact.

“Leonard doesn’t have friends,” the woman said flatly. “Not since his breakdown. He’s been isolated for years.”

“Breakdown?”

“He thought people were poisoning him,” she said with a bitter laugh. “Said he was allergic to the world.”

Maya’s skin prickled.

“Did he ever say who was doing it?”

“He never gave names. Just said someone from his past had ‘returned’ to finish what they started.”

---

That night, Room 409 was occupied again.

Different patient. Same presentation.

A young woman named "Ella Carver", 33, admitted for suspected peanut exposure. Yet her allergy tests were negative. She showed no signs of rash, no airway constriction. Only sudden breathlessness and panic.

Maya stood by her bed.

“Ella,” she said gently. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Ella stared at the ceiling, eyes wide. “I didn’t eat peanuts.”

“We believe you.”

“It wasn’t food,” she whispered. “It was… something else.”

“What do you mean?”

Ella turned to her, voice trembling. “It touched me. Something invisible. It crawled inside.”

---

Maya barely slept. Her dreams were filled with silent rooms and whispering voices. At 3:19 a.m., she returned to the hospital.

Ella was dead.

Collapsed twenty minutes after midnight. No alarms, no signs. Just… gone.

The report read: suspected anaphylaxis. Cause unclear.

Same as Griggs.

Same room. Same sequence.

She requested the toxicology report. It came back clean.

So did the air test.

No pathogens. No allergens. No toxins.

---

Maya reviewed the security feed again.

From midnight to 3 a.m., the hallway outside Room 409 glitched. Just static. Repeatedly. It felt like something was there—and the cameras refused to see it.

She zoomed in on a single frame at 1:42 a.m.

Motion blur. Almost a shape. Tall. Lean. Head tilted. Unidentifiable. Gone the next second.

---

She stopped sleeping. Ate sparingly. Her eyes grew red from screen glare and sleepless paranoia. But the questions multiplied.

Two healthy people dead within twenty-four hours in the same room. Both suffocating without cause. Both terrified before the end.

Her supervisor advised her to take time off.

“I’m not crazy,” she insisted.

“I didn’t say you were,” he replied. “But you’re exhausted. Let pathology handle this.”

But Maya couldn’t let it go.

She walked the ICU halls every night. Past 409. She started hearing things.

Breathing. Clicking. Whispers like dry leaves.

Allergic… to being alive…"

---

Day five. A new patient was admitted to 409. Against her protest.

His name was "Dr. Kevin Marrow", 62, retired allergist, admitted for chest pains. When Maya read the name, her stomach twisted.

Kevin had been the director of a controversial clinical trial fifteen years ago—testing extreme desensitization therapy on patients with phobias and allergies. One subject had died.

Leonard Griggs.

The trial had been buried. Settled privately. No charges. But she remembered now—Griggs had been a med student. The program ruined his life. The trauma followed him.

And now Marrow was in the same room where Griggs died.

She rushed to his bedside.

“Dr. Marrow, you have to request a transfer. Now.”

He blinked, groggy. “Why?”

“Room 409 is—unsafe.”

“I’m fine,” he grunted. “And I’m not afraid of ghosts.”

“I’m not talking about ghosts.”

He laughed. “You believe Griggs cursed me from the grave?”

“No,” she said. “But I think something followed him here.”

---

She stayed outside the room all night.

At 2:03 a.m., the light under the door flickered.

The monitor beeped. Flatline.

She ran in.

Dr. Marrow gasped on the floor, eyes wide, fingers scratching at his throat.

No swelling. No rash. No obstruction.

She tried CPR.

And then she saw it.

A faint shimmer in the air above him, like heat distortion. Almost human-shaped. Watching.

Breathing.

She froze.

It moved toward her.

She couldn’t breathe.

Her lungs tightened like a fist. Her limbs tingled. Her throat closed.

She reached for her EpiPen—but she hadn’t eaten anything. No allergens. No trigger.

She's experiencing symptoms that feel like an allergic reaction—her throat is closing, she can't breathe, and she's in a panic. Her instinct, as a doctor, is to reach for her EpiPen, the emergency treatment for anaphylaxis (severe allergic reaction).

—but she hadn’t eaten anything. No allergens. No trigger.

This is the moment she realizes something else is causing her symptoms—not food, not medication, not anything explainable.

The “reaction” is psychosomatic or induced by fear, possibly connected to the supernatural entity that's lingering around her.
It wasn’t a reaction.

It was fear.

And then it left.

Vanished like mist.

Her lungs opened. Air rushed in.

She collapsed, gasping.

---

Dr. Marrow was gone.

The death report read: “Acute idiopathic anaphylaxis. Cause unknown.”

Maya filed her own report.

Not to the hospital.

To herself.

She titled it: “Case Study 409: Psychogenic Mortality & Environmental Manifestations.”

She locked it in her desk.

No one would believe it. Not yet.

But she knew the truth now.

Some people aren’t allergic to food or animals or dust.

Some are allergic to the past.

Some are allergic to guilt.

And something—something unseen—was feeding on it.

---

And it was still hungry.

---