The Black Lung Communion: How a Surgeon’s Journal Sparked a Demonic Outbreak
A True Account from the Sealed St. Hedwig’s Asylum Files (1983)
CHAPTER 1: “THE BREATHING X-RAY”
The air in St. Hedwig’s records room smelled of yellowing paper and regret. It was a scent Dr. Liam Evans had grown accustomed to over twenty years of service, but tonight, it felt different. Thicker. As if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Another hour, he thought, rubbing the ache from his temples. Just finish the backlog and go home. The fluorescent light above him buzzed like a trapped wasp, flickering once as he pulled the next file. Patient #7. Admission date: October 31, 1983. The night the first whispers began.
He almost missed it... a faint, rhythmic scratching from the hall. Not rats. Something… deliberate. Like fingernails on drywall.
“Althea?” he called out, his voice too loud in the silence. “You working late too?”
No answer. Only the hum of the light.
He shrugged it off, sliding the X-ray from its sleeve. The film was cold against his fingers. He held it up to the lightbox, and his breath caught.
“What in God’s name…”
The ribs weren’t broken. They were rearranged. Curved and twisted into sharp, angular symbols that made his eyes water to look at. He fumbled for his glasses, heart hammering.
The door creaked open. Nurse Althea Reed stood there, her usually crisp uniform rumpled, eyes shadowed. “You seen it too, then.”
Liam jumped, nearly dropping the film. “Christ, Althea! Don’t sneak up like that.” He gestured weakly at the lightbox. “What is this? Some kind of prank? Did Miller put you up to this?”
She stepped closer, her movements stiff. “Look at the lower left quadrant. Near the diaphragm.”
He squinted. Between the fifth and sixth rib, the symbols coalesced into something almost legible. A phrase, repeated in a language that felt ancient. Wrong.
“Is that… Latin?” he whispered.
“Enochian,” she corrected, her voice flat. “The language of angels. Or demons. Depends who you ask.”
“That’s impossible. This is a chest X-ray, not a… a medieval manuscript!” His laugh was brittle, nervous. “It must be a double exposure. A filing error.”
“And the breathing?” Althea asked.
The words hung in the air. Liam stared at her. “The what?”
“Put your hand on the lightbox. Right over the image.”
Hesitantly, he did. The glass was warm. And then he felt it—a faint, steady pulse emanating from the film itself. A slow, rhythmic vibration that matched the beat of his own racing heart.
He snatched his hand back. “It’s a trick of the machinery. Vibration from the generator.”
“Generators don’t have heartbeats, Liam.” She pointed a trembling finger. “And they don’t change.”
He followed her gaze. The symbols were shifting. Uncurling like smoke, reforming into new, sharper shapes. A sentence was writing itself onto the patient’s skeleton.
RECITE ME.
“We need to call security,” Liam said, backing away from the lightbox. “This is… this is some kind of contamination. A biohazard.”
“Security already knows,” Althea said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “They’re the ones who brought him in. Found him in the old wing, the one that’s been sealed since the ’50s. He was just.. standing there. Chanting.”
“Chanting what?”
“That.” She nodded at the X-ray. “Over and over. Until his voice gave out.”
A cold dread seeped into Liam’s bones. The old wing. The rumors the staff whispered about after too many drinks. The reason the asylum was scheduled for demolition.
The scratching in the hall returned, louder now. Closer. It wasn’t on the walls. It was inside them.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
“We need to go,” Althea said, her professional calm finally cracking. “Now.”
Liam couldn’t move. His eyes were locked on the X-ray. The phrase had changed again. It was a name now.
LIAM.
The lightbulb above them exploded in a shower of glass and sparks, plunging the room into darkness. The only light came from the lightbox, which now glowed a deep, arterial red. The X-ray was illuminated from within, the symbols burning like embers.
From the hallway, the scratching stopped. Replaced by a wet, guttural sound. The sound of something learning to speak.
ARCHIVAL NOTE: The following is a transcribed excerpt from the personal log of Head Nurse Althea Reed, entered into evidence as Case File #X-9H-1. Recovered from the ruins of St. Hedwig’s Asylum, 1985.
"Dr. Evans resigned the following morning. He was found in his home three days later. The coroner’s report listed the cause of death as ‘acute psychological trauma.’ His personal effects included a single X-ray film. The image was reported to be ‘blank.’ I do not believe it was."
CHAPTER 2: “THE HEART THAT PLAYED MORSE”
The red glow from the lightbox died as suddenly as it had ignited, leaving them in a blackness so complete it felt solid. Liam’s own breathing was the loudest sound in the room-ragged, panicked gulps of air that tasted of ozone and fear.
“The emergency lights,” Althea’s voice cut through the dark, surprisingly steady. “They should have kicked in.”
“Nothing’s working,” Liam whispered, fumbling for the desk phone. The plastic receiver was dead and cold in his hand. “Line’s out. My cell has no signal.”
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
The sound was no longer in the walls. It was in the ventilation shaft above their heads. Something heavy and slow was dragging itself through the ducts.
“We can’t stay here,” Althea said, her hand finding his arm in the dark, her grip tight. “The old wing. That’s where they found him. That’s where this started. We need to seal it. Officially. Now.”
“Seal it? With what? We’re doctors, not...ghost hunters!” His voice cracked. The rational part of his mind, the part that had gotten him through medical school and two decades of psychiatric practice, was screaming that this was mass hysteria, a shared hallucination. But the animal part, the part that knew the smell of infection and death, knew better. This was real.
“With these,” she said, and he felt the cold weight of keys pressed into his palm. “The master keys. Miller’s. I took them from his office after he… changed.”
“Changed how?” Liam asked, dread coiling in his gut.
A thud from the ceiling made them both jump. A fine dust of plaster snowed down on them.
“Later,” she said, pulling him toward the door. “Move.”
The hallway outside was a tunnel of shadows. The usual night-lights were dead, but a faint, sickly green luminescence emanated from the patient room at the very end—Room 304. The scratching was coming from there now. It was a metallic, rhythmic scraping. Scrape. Clang. Scrape. Clang.
They moved quickly, their footsteps muffled by the worn linoleum. Liam’s heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. As they passed the nurses' station, a sound made him freeze. A steady, mechanical beeping. One of the portable heart monitors was on, its screen a vibrant green in the gloom. It was sitting on the countertop, unattached to any patient.
“What’s it doing on?” he murmured, stepping closer.
The rhythm was off. Not the steady beep… beep… beep of a normal sinus rhythm. This was staccato, purposeful. A long beep, two short, another long.
“It’s Morse code,” Althea said, her face pale in the screen’s glow.
“Don’t be absurd,” Liam said, but the protest was weak. He listened, his medical mind automatically translating the pulses.
*L --- O --- N --- G*
Long.
The machine fell silent for a beat. Then it started again, faster, more urgent.
*D --- E --- A --- D*
Long dead.
“It’s just a glitch,” Liam insisted, his voice trembling. “A power surge. A short circuit.”
Scrape. Clang. SCRAPE.
The noise from Room 304 was louder, more aggressive. The door shuddered in its frame.
“It’s not a glitch,” Althea said, her eyes wide with a terrified realization. “It’s a heartbeat. And it’s playing a dirge.”
She grabbed his arm again, yanking him away from the desk. “We don’t have time for this!”
They ran. The green glow from Room 304 pulsed like a diseased heart, beckoning them. As they passed the room, Liam couldn’t help but glance through the small wire-reinforced window in the door.
The room was empty. No bed, no chair. Just a single, ancient ECT machine pushed against the far wall. Its electrodes were on the floor, scraping back and forth against the metal leg of the machine. Scrape. Clang. Scrape.
But there was no one there to move them.
The electrodes dragged themselves across the floor, etching something into the linoleum. A single, looping symbol that matched the one on the X-ray.
The heart monitor at the nurses' station began to blare a flatline, the sound impossibly loud in the silent hall. The screech seemed to shake the very foundations of the building.
Then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped.
A new sound took its place. A wet, rhythmic thumping coming from behind the door of Room 304. The sound of a meat mallet hitting a side of beef.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“It’s learning,” Althea breathed, her face ashen. “It started with writing. Now it’s trying to make a heart.”
She pulled him down the hall toward the heavy iron door that led to the old wing. The master key felt like a lead weight in Liam’s hand.
The thumping followed them, echoing down the corridor, keeping perfect time with the frantic beating in his own chest.
ARCHIVAL NOTE:
Entry from the security log of Officer J. Miller, dated 11/05/1983, entered into evidence as Case File #X-9H-2. Recovered from the asylum's incinerator room, partially burned.
Nurses Reed and Evans reported 'auditory disturbances' on the third floor. Investigation found no source. Dr. Evans was highly agitated, insisting the building was 'alive.' Recommended psychological evaluation for both staff members. The old wing remains sealed. No further action required."
The final sentence is written in a different, shakier handwriting: "It got into the logs. It reads them. It knows I lied."
To Be Continued...
Stay Tuned For Season 2.. Out Soon!
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Tales That Breathe at Night
I write what lingers in the dark—true horrors veiled in fiction, fiction rooted in truth. Some tales are whispered in graveyards, others buried in silence. If it gave someone nightmares, I’ll write it. Some stories remember you, too.
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This feels like a perfect blend of found-footage horror and psychological thriller. Can’t wait to see what happens in Season 2! 👻📖