THE HOSPITAL OF UNKNITTING
2 Short Seasons of Short Stories....
Season 1
CHAPTER 1: THE ADMISSION INTERVIEW
The fluorescent lights buzzed like angry wasps as Dr. Eleanor Lorne gripped the clipboard. Patient #4479's intake form kept rewriting itself...the ink bubbling up into fresh words before her eyes.
"Name?" she asked, forcing her voice steady.
The man strapped to the gurney smiled. Not with his mouth...his teeth did it for him, shifting like typewriter keys to form new configurations. "Today? Daniel Walker. Yesterday?" His tongue unfurled like parchment, revealing burned-in letters: DR. RAYNES, MD. "Tomorrow?" His jaw unhinged with a wet pop. "Maybe you."
Behind the one-way glass, Nurse Patel's coffee cup shattered.
"His shadow.." she choked out.
Dr. Lorne turned. The patient's shadow wasn't mimicking his movements. It was writing on the wall in elegant cursive:
"The third floor knows what you did."
Then the lights failed.
When they flickered back on, Patient #4479's restraints hung empty. The gurney sheets were soaked in a substance too dark to be blood. And the clipboard now read:
ADMITTER: DR. ELEANOR RAYNES
CHAPTER 2: THE IV DRIP
The saline bag pulsed like a dying heart. Nurse Patel leaned closer, her breath fogging the plastic. The liquid inside wasn't clear—it had turned a fleshy pink, swirling with thin, hair-like strands.
"Why is it pink?" she whispered.
Dr. Lorne adjusted the drip with trembling hands. "That's not the IV. That's him."
As they watched, the fibrous strands swam toward the tube, arranging themselves into words against the plastic:
"LET ME IN"
Then:
"TOO LATE"
The IV stand twisted suddenly, the metal screeching as it bent into a perfect spiral. From Patient #4479's room down the hall, something began scratching..not at the door, but at the inside of the walls.
Nurse Patel's pager buzzed. The screen displayed:
CODE BLACK: MORGUE
When she looked up, the pink fluid had reached the tube's midpoint. The strands now spelled:
"I PREFER WOMEN'S SKIN"
CHAPTER 3: THE UNSPOOLING
Supply Room B reeked of copper and something sweet..like overripe fruit left in the sun. Orderly Jenkins' uniform lay in a neat heap by the door. His skin was folded on Shelf 3B, pressed as flat as a hospital gown, the face arranged in a peaceful smile.
The security footage showed him entering alone at 3:33 AM.
"Watch his hands," whispered the night security guard, fast-forwarding.
On screen, Jenkins began plucking at his own wrist like a loose thread. His index finger hooked under the skin and pulled.
The peeling took 13 minutes.
When it was done, the footage showed him folding his epidermis carefully, whispering to the empty room:
"Almost time to wear someone better."
Then he walked..skeletal muscles glistening..into the morgue freezer.
The timestamp froze at 3:33 AM.
It still read that way 7 hours later.
CHAPTER 4: THE THIRD FLOOR
The elevator doors slid open to reveal:
Walls papered with patient intake forms..every name "Daniel Walker"
A nurse's station manned by something wearing Orderly Jenkins' skin..badly, like an ill-fitting suit
The air thick with the scent of burning hair
From the PA system, a warped voice announced:
"CODE BLUE: DR. LORNE. CODE BLUE: DR. LORNE."
Except—Dr. Lorne was standing right there.
And the voice was hers.
CHAPTER 5: THE MORGUE'S SECRET SURGEON
The morgue freezer exhaled a breath of rotting lilies when Dr. Lorne pried it open. Inside:
Eight surgical tables, arranged in a perfect circle
Every surface glistening with a substance too thick to be frost
Patient #4479 sitting upright on Table 3, his chest cavity unzipped
His head rotated 180 degrees. The face wasn't his anymore..it was Orderly Jenkins', stretched taut over the skull like ill-fitting latex.
"We've been waiting, Dr. Raynes," it said in Jenkins' voice.
Lorne's pager buzzed. The screen displayed:
YOUR SKIN IS READY FOR REMOVAL
From the shadows between tables, scalpels began floating toward her.
CHAPTER 6: THE NIGHT SHIFT'S FEAST
Nurse Patel found the break room refrigerator packed with:
Lunchboxes labeled with staff names
Contents still breathing
Her own tupperware pulsating rhythmically
The microwave clock flashed 3:33 AM as the appliance turned itself on. Inside, something in a nurse's uniform was spinning slowly on the turntable.
It waved at her.
The staff bulletin board now displayed a single memo:
"TODAY'S SPECIAL: YOU"
CHAPTER 7: THE THIRD FLOOR REVELATION
The elevator opened directly into:
An exact replica of Dr. Lorne's childhood bedroom
Walls papered with photos of her at different ages...except all the faces were Patient #4479's
A medical chart on the bed:
DIAGNOSIS: HOMESICKNESS
TREATMENT: NEW SKIN
From the closet, something whispered:
"You left the door open, Ellie. Now we all get to go home."
Season Finale
CHAPTER 8: THE FINAL PROCEDURE
The operating light flickered over Dr. Lorne's restrained body. Around her stood:
Nurse Patel, her mouth sewn into a perfect smile
Orderly Jenkins, wearing Dr. Raynes' face like a loose mask
Patient #4479...now a pulsating mass of stolen identities
The anesthesia machine wheezed:
"BREATHE DEEP, DOCTOR. WE'LL MAKE YOU BETTER."
As the mask descended, Lorne saw:
The hospital walls peeling away like old bandages
The sky outside wasn't sky...it was flesh
A thousand scalpels hovering where the moon should be
The last thing she heard before the anesthetic took hold:
"WELCOME TO THE THIRD FLOOR, DR. RAYNES.
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Would you clock in for the night shift? Comment ‘QUITTING’ or ‘CURIOUS’.... FOLLOW for Season 2 where the hospital spreads. Subscribe...or find your name on tomorrow's patient roster
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© Tales That Breathe At Night | "Where Legends Twist Into Nightmares"
"This tale is spun from threads of global whispers...half-heard warnings, fractured folklore, and the chilling ‘what if’ that lingers after midnight. While shadows of real accounts may flicker through these pages, every character, curse, and creeping horror is a work of original dark encounters with a touch of fiction and any resemblance to actual events, Name, Place, things....past or present...is purely accidental and Co-incidental, a trick of the light, or proof that truth often imitates the uncanny. Names, places, and unsettling occurrences are conjured from the void...not the record. Proceed with curiosity (and maybe a nightlight).
Share the terror, but credit the architect. Unauthorized reproductions will find their own stories… rewritten.
Readers beware: The best horrors are the ones you almost believe."
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About the Creator
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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Comments (2)
A lot of the things you write about, I've never read in any other horror stories or seen in movies before, and I love that!
nice