Chapter 1: The Day Shift's First Whisper

The over head lights of Salt Lake Regional Medical Hospital hummed their monotonous song, a stark contrast to the nervous thrumming beneath My ribs. The air, thick with the sterile scent of disinfectant and something else… something older, like dust and forgotten regrets, clung to her skin. This was it. Her first night shift. The old wing, a labyrinth of dimly lit corridors and rooms that felt too large, too quiet, was her domain for the next eight hours. I would tell Myself, just… keep quickly walking.” I adjusted My housekeeping uniform, I had always been drawn to the quiet hum of hospitals, the ordered chaos, the sense of purpose. But Salt Lake Regional Hospital was different. It wasn't just old; it felt steeped in history, each scuff mark on the linoleum, each chipped paint fleck, a testament to countless lives that had passed through its doors. I was daily assigned to clean different floors wards and departments...I would even clean the morgue( one day someones did attached arm landed on My foot ....that was the day I quit literally running out of the building after I clicked out and handed in My badge)

The hours slowly and painfully ticked by, marked by the infrequent chime of the call bell and the soft rustle of sheets. I found myself listening to the building, to the creaks and groans that were undoubtedly just the ancient structure settling. Or so I told myself. Then, as I was having lunch in the housekeeping break room it happened..

It wasn't a sound, not really. It was more like a breath, a sigh that seemed to curl around her ear, impossibly close. And then, a whisper, so soft it could have been the wind slipping through a cracked window, but there were no cracked windows. It was a single, drawn-out syllable, a sound that scraped against My spine hearing, chilling me to the bone. It sounded like a name. My name. I froze, her pen hovering over the chart. My heart hammered against My ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. I spun around, my eyes scanning the empty corridor. Nothing. Just the dull glow of the emergency lights and the endless stretch of polished linoleum. The hum of the fluorescents seemed to grow louder, more insistent, as if trying to drown out the silence that had descended.I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. It had to be her imagination, a trick of the light, the fatigue. But the chill that had settled deep within her, a cold that had nothing to do with the temperature, told her otherwise. The day shift at Salt Lake Regional Hospital had just begun.