SAINT AGNES WINTER

St. Agnes Hospital closed in 1994 after the state investigation.

The official story was black mold and asbestos.

The unofficial story is why no one ever demolished the building.

The city sold it cheap in 2023 to a group of urban explorers turned “extreme haunted attraction” developers. They wanted to turn the abandoned wards into the ultimate Halloween experience. They even kept the original name on the marquee:

ST. AGNES WINTER – OPEN 24 HOURS.

They thought it sounded creepy.

Five of them moved in during September to renovate:

Jonah, the money guy

Riley, the designer

Sam, the tech who wired motion sensors and fog machines

Dani, the medic (always practical)

and Cass, the one who filmed everything for the YouTube channel.

Week one was normal. Broken gurneys, rusted IV poles, patient files swollen with thirty years of rainwater. They laughed about the children’s ward murals (faded clowns with eyes scratched out) and set up base camp in the old ER.

Week two, the batteries started dying. Every night. Even the ones still in their plastic wrap.

Week three, Cass noticed something in the raw footage.

In the background of a shot filmed in Room 312, there’s a little girl in a hospital gown sitting on an empty bed.

The room had been empty when they shot it.

Cass zooms in. The girl has no face. Just smooth skin where features should be.

They all watch the clip at 2 a.m. and decide it’s a hoax, someone messing with them. They lock the doors anyway.

That same night, Dani finds a Five Wishes advance directive tucked into a chart labeled “Patient Unknown – Bed 3.”

It’s filled out in childlike handwriting.

Wish 1: “I want the nice lady with the red hair to be my voice.” (Dani has red hair.)

Wish 2: “No machines after the lights go out.”

Wish 3: “I want to keep my blanket.”

Wish 4: “Play with me when everyone else is asleep.”

Wish 5: “Tell my mommy I’m still waiting in the winter bed.”

At the bottom, someone has added in fresh blue ink:

Tonight is the night the lights go out.

They try to leave.

Every exit is bricked up from the inside. Clean, new brick that wasn’t there yesterday.

The power dies at 3:07 a.m. Emergency lighting flickers on (sick yellow) and the PA system crackles to life with a child’s voice, calm and polite:

“Visiting hours are over. Please return to your assigned beds.”

The motion sensors Sam installed start triggering in sequence.

Pediatrics → Maternity → Morgue → Pediatrics again.

Like something small is running the halls, checking every room.

Jonah is first. They find him in the chapel, sitting upright in a pew, mouth open, eyes rolled white. A child’s handprint (perfect, gray, wet) is pressed over his face like a mask.

Riley lasts longest. She barricades herself in the pharmacy and live-streams until her phone battery hits 1%.

Viewers watch as the door behind her slowly opens by itself. A little girl in a gown walks in, dragging an adult-sized blanket stitched together from dozens of smaller ones (all printed with cartoon penguins).

Riley whispers, “I’m not your mommy.”

The girl tilts her head. “You’re warm,” she says. “The winter bed is cold.”

The stream cuts to black.

By dawn, St. Agnes is quiet again.

The brick walls are gone. The front doors hang open like nothing happened.

The only thing left inside is a new Five Wishes booklet on the nurses’ station counter.

It’s already filled out in five different handwritings.

Wish 5 now reads:

“We played hide-and-seek.

They lost.

We’re ready for new friends.

Opening night is October 31st.

Bring a blanket.

It gets cold in the winter beds.”

The marquee outside flickers once, even though the building has no power.

ST. AGNES WINTER – SOLD OUT