The Elder’s Echo
The sterile white of Patient X’s room felt suffocating. Even with the low-wattage night-lights humming, shadows clung to the corners like damp linen. Dr. Maya Lane stood just inside the doorway, a chill that had nothing to do with the clinic’s regulated temperature prickling her skin. In the bed, Patient X, a weathered man with eyes that had seen too much, thrashed against the restraints. His groans were guttural, torn from a place deep within his sleep.
“No… no, you don’t get it…” he mumbled, his voice raspy, a dry leaf skittering across pavement. His breath hitched, a ragged sound that echoed the distant, mournful sigh of the wind outside.
Nurse Tomas, his stoic face etched with a weariness that seemed to precede him, stood a few feet away, his gaze fixed on the patient. He held a small, smooth stone in his palm, turning it over and over, a silent, ingrained ritual.
“He’s having one of the episodes, Doctor,” Tomas said, his voice low, almost a murmur. “Worse than usual.”
Maya nodded, her eyes scanning the room. The air felt thick, charged. She’d felt it before, this… pressure, this sense of something watching, something hungry, but tonight it was more pronounced. It clung to the edges of her vision, a subtle distortion in the otherwise crisp lines of the room. A faint, metallic tang, like old blood, seemed to hang in the air.
Suddenly, a flicker. Near the foot of the bed, a shape coalesced. It was indistinct, a shimmering outline of a man in uniform, translucent and wavering like heat haze. Maya blinked, her heart giving a sharp, unwelcome lurch. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving only the stark white of the wall behind.
“Did you…?” she started, her voice catching.
Tomas shook his head, his eyes still on the patient. “See what, Doctor?”
Before Maya could formulate another question, a wave of cold swept through the room, so intense it stole the breath from her lungs. It was accompanied by a faint, almost imperceptible rustling, like dry paper being shuffled by unseen hands. Elliot Rhodes, who had been leaning against the doorframe, his camera bag slung over his shoulder, shifted, his brow furrowed. He raised a hand, as if to brush away an invisible cobweb.
“Getting some weird readings,” Elliot murmured, his voice tight. He tapped a small device clipped to his belt. “Thermal’s fluctuating like crazy in here.”
Maya’s gaze swept back to Patient X. He was quiet now, his breathing shallower. But then, his lips parted again.
“Sergeant Miller…” he whispered, the name barely audible.
As the name left his lips, Maya’s eyes were drawn to the window. The frosted glass, usually a uniform milky white, now bore a faint etching. It was a complex, swirling symbol, delicate as a spider’s web, glowing with a faint, internal luminescence. It pulsed with a slow, rhythmic beat, mirroring the erratic pulse of the patient’s vital signs displayed on the monitor.
Maya felt a dizzying sensation, as if the floor beneath her had tilted. She looked at Tomas, who was now standing closer to the window, his gaze fixed on the newly formed sigil. His knuckles were white where he gripped the stone. Was he seeing it too?
Then, a new anomaly. Behind Tomas, for a fleeting second, Maya saw it again. Not a soldier this time, but a different shape, a cloaked figure, impossibly tall and thin, its features obscured by shadow. It stood directly behind Tomas, as if observing him, a silent, predatory sentinel. Maya squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. The figure was gone. Tomas was alone, his back to the window, the stone still turning in his hand.
A shiver traced its way down Maya’s spine. The air was colder now, a pervasive dampness that seeped into her bones. She felt a prickle of unease, a profound disorientation. Was she seeing things? Was the stress finally getting to her? But the sigil on the window remained, a tangible, inexplicable mark of the patient's tormented dream. The whispered name seemed to hang in the air, an unanswered question, a harbinger of something vast and unseen stirring in the depths of the clinic.