Room 303

The clock above the nurses’ station blinked 3:13 AM.

Nurse Eliza hated the night shift, especially on stormy nights. The fluorescent lights buzzed, casting an eerie hum through the nearly empty halls of Hollowbrook Memorial Hospital. Most patients were asleep, and only the occasional beep of a heart monitor broke the silence.

But tonight, something felt... wrong.

As Eliza turned a corner on the third floor, her tablet buzzed. A new patient alert:

Room 313 – Patient: Unknown – Status: Critical.

She frowned. Room 313 had been sealed for years. After the fire in 1998 that killed a patient and a nurse, the hospital had shut the room down. The rumors claimed strange things happened there — whispers behind walls, objects moving on their own, and worse. Everyone avoided it.

Yet here it was, on her screen.

Eliza tapped the tablet. “Must be a glitch,” she muttered, turning to walk away.

Then the overhead speaker crackled:

“Code Blue – Room 313.”

Her breath caught.

“No one is supposed to be in there,” she whispered, heart racing.

Against her better judgment, she grabbed a defibrillator and headed toward the room. The hallway lights flickered as thunder rumbled outside. As she approached 313, the air grew cold. The door, once boarded shut, now stood slightly ajar.

She pushed it open.

The room was dark, save for the faint glow of a monitor showing a flatline. A figure lay on the bed, covered in a white sheet. Eliza stepped forward, her shoes echoing on the tile.

“Hello?” she called out. “Can you hear me?”

Suddenly, the monitor beeped once. Then again. A heartbeat.

She dropped to her knees, pressing the defibrillator pads to the figure's chest. “Stay with me,” she said, charging it up.

The body beneath the sheet convulsed — and then sat upright.

The sheet slid off.

Eliza screamed.

It was the face of Nurse Karen, the woman who had died in the 1998 fire. Her skin was scorched, her eyes hollow, and yet... she smiled.

“You finally came,” Karen rasped. “We’ve been waiting.”

Eliza stumbled back, hitting the wall. The door slammed shut behind her. Lights burst, plunging the room into darkness.

A chorus of whispers rose around her.

She wasn’t alone.

Hands reached out from the shadows — burned, broken hands. Faces emerged: patients who had perished in the fire, staff who had vanished without explanation. All of them stared at her with lifeless eyes.

“You belong to us now,” Karen whispered.

The next morning, Room 313 was empty.

No patient. No nurse. Just Eliza’s ID badge on the floor... and a note on the monitor, written in blood:

“Shift complete.”