Finally, after what felt like an eternity the ward boy returned.
But something was wrong.
His steps faltered as he rounded the corner — not the brisk, confident gait of someone with answers, but a hesitant, lurching pace that betrayed confusion. His face had gone pale, like blood had fled beneath the skin, leaving behind a clammy sheen. His chest rose and fell with uneven, shallow breaths, and the whites of his eyes seemed wider than they should be, like he'd seen something he couldn't quite process.
Mansh knew before he even spoke.
The moment their eyes met — the briefest flicker of recognition across a dimly lit corridor — Mansh felt it in his stomach, that cold sinking weight. The kind that bypassed logic and hit some buried instinct that whispered something's wrong.
The ward boy stopped just short of the desk, swallowing visibly, his hand gripping the edge of the counter for balance.
"He… he's gone," he stammered, voice high and fragile, as though the words might shatter in his throat. "The patient from 969… he's nowhere to be seen!"
Silence dropped over the hallway like a curtain.
For one long, brittle second, no one moved. No one spoke.
The receptionist's fingers paused above her keyboard. A nurse across the corridor looked up from her clipboard. Somewhere down the hall, the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor kept time, oblivious to the shift in atmosphere.
Then the hospital came alive.
A ripple passed through the staff like static — invisible, electric. Chairs scraped the floor. Heels clicked. Voices rose. Radios crackled. The once sterile quiet of routine ruptured into fragmented instructions and overlapping concerns.
"Check the elevators—"
"Call the security desk—"
"—last confirmed sighting was room 969—"
The receptionist grabbed the receiver and punched in an emergency code. The harsh buzz of the intercom sliced through the ambient noise.
"Attention, all staff. Code Yellow. Missing patient. Last seen in room 969. Repeat, patient missing. Initiate search protocol immediately."
The announcement echoed through the hospital corridors, metallic and cold. Overhead, the fluorescent lights buzzed faintly, casting long shadows beneath chairs and gurneys as people sprang into motion.
Mansh just stood there.
Rooted. Still.
The words were there — the facts were now laid bare — and yet his mind resisted them. Missing.Gone.Nowhere to be seen.
'It didn't make sense.'
'Ankhush had been there yesterday. Resting. Weak, but alive. Recovering.'
Mansh's eyes widened, throat tightening.
'His phone was there on the table near him.'
'Why would he leave without it?'
The question struck him with a kind of absurd weight. But that's how panic works — it latches onto the smallest, most meaningless details and holds them up like evidence, like proof that something doesn't add up.
And it didn't.
Nothing added up.
Before he knew it, Mansh was moving.
His legs obeyed a primal impulse long before his thoughts caught up. He turned from the desk and broke into a half-run down the hallway, the chaotic noise behind him fading into a distant blur. His shoes slapped the floor in uneven rhythm as he veered around corners, ducking his head into open rooms, glancing quickly over beds, behind curtains, toward staff lounges and patient restrooms.
He moved with growing desperation, calling out Ankhush's name like a prayer he wasn't sure he believed in anymore.
"Ankhush…"
His voice was soft at first, restrained, as though afraid to shatter the fragile quiet. But with every unanswered call, the volume crept higher. The edge of fear grew sharper.
"Ankhush!"
He pulled open a storage closet — empty.
Peeked into a darkened X-ray room — nothing.
Turned into a long hallway filled with patient rooms and open doors — too many shadows, too much silence.
He passed nurses who glanced at him, some startled, some concerned, but no one stopped him. No one said anything. They were all too busy, too scattered, all reacting to the same storm, caught in the same confusion.
Still, Mansh searched.
He ducked into yet another hallway, this one narrower and dimmer. His lungs burned now. His steps slowed. He pressed a palm against the wall to catch his breath.
And as he paused, head lowered, eyes squeezed shut, a thought sliced through the whirlwind in his mind.
'What if he never left the room on his own?'
His chest clenched.
He opened his eyes and stared down the hallway, unfocused.
'What if he was taken?'
The idea didn't feel foreign — not like it should have. In fact, it fit too easily. Slotted into place like a puzzle piece already waiting.
And in that moment, the shadow returned to his mind.
That cold presence. That silent thing that had watched him. That had appeared in his own room — without warning, without explanation. A thing straight out of the novel they were living through. A thing that shouldn't exist.
Mansh shivered.
He leaned against the wall harder, trying to breathe.
'No.'
The shadow didn't do anything in the novel. It watched. It hovered. It was never a threat — just a constant, chilling reminder that something bigger was at play.
'It didn't take people.'
'Did it?'
His stomach twisted.
Suddenly, his phone vibrated.
The sharp buzz startled him — too loud, too sudden in the dead hush around him.
His hand went to his pocket almost mechanically, like muscle memory kicking in before thought could interfere.
He pulled it out and stared at the screen.
*Unknown Number.*
The words stared back at him, glowing faintly in the low light.
His heart lurched.
That ringing — normally so mundane — now felt sinister. Invasive. Like something reaching across a line it shouldn't have crossed.
His thumb hovered over the green button.
For a moment, he hesitated.
The silence stretched.
His breath fogged slightly in front of him — was the corridor that cold, or was it just him?
Then, slowly, deliberately…
He answered.
****
A/N:My Main character is gone for a long time, it is making me question myself that when will he came back?
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