Chapter 2: The First Place – Hospital of Echoes
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The old Kurosawa Psychiatric Hospital had been shut down for over two decades. Aika and Ren stood before its rusted gates, the chains torn long ago, weeds overtaking the cracked driveway. The building loomed ahead, tall and skeletal, as if it were breathing.
Aika had her camcorder ready. Ren held his dad's notebook, using the map drawn in its final pages. Aika checked her bag—extra batteries, salt packets, a flashlight, and her folding knife.
Ren glanced at her. "You sure you want to do this?"
Aika gave a half-smile. "You're the one who brought the ghost diary."
Ren looked back at the building. "It's not just ghosts anymore. It's patterns. Symbols. Something more intelligent."
He stepped forward. The hospital groaned in the wind.
The front door creaked open on its own.
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Inside, it smelled of mold and rot. Walls were cracked, wallpaper peeling. Empty beds, scattered wheelchairs, and children's drawings faded into ghostly outlines on the walls.
Every step echoed.
As they moved deeper, their flashlights flickered—twice in sync.
Aika checked her camera. "Battery just dropped to 80%. I just changed it."
They passed by the reception desk, where someone had once scrawled in large, angry letters:
> "THEY NEVER LEFT."
Ren whispered, "Did you hear that?"
From the corridor to their left came a faint wheeze. Wet. Inhuman.
They stood still.
Aika whispered, "It's not wind."
Ren's heart pounded. "Sound recorder—now."
She hit RECORD on her camera mic.
For five full minutes, they waited.
Nothing.
Then, just as they turned to walk away—
"Please... don't leave me."
A whisper, close and pleading.
They both froze.
The voice had come from right between them.
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Aika's breath hitched.
Ren slowly raised his flashlight, pointing it down the hall.
A single wheelchair sat in the center of the corridor now.
It hadn't been there before.
It rolled slightly.
Then stopped.
On its seat was a child's drawing—a man with no face, standing in front of a hospital.
Ren stepped forward to pick it up.
On the back, a single word written in red ink:
> "Hello."
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Ren's fingers trembled as he turned the drawing over again and again. The ink wasn't ink. It was smeared, slightly sticky—something fresher. Aika leaned closer, catching the sharp, metallic scent.
"Ren... that's blood."
He didn't speak. The empty hallway in front of them seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting with every second. He looked at the drawing of the faceless man. Its eyes—no, the absence of eyes—pulled at his memories.
"Don't trust what you see."
His father's warning echoed again.
They continued down the hall, led now by instinct—or something else. The layout of the hospital was familiar to Ren, though he'd never been here. He recognized certain corners. Certain doors.
Aika whispered, "You're walking like you've been here before."
"I think I have."
They turned into a long, dark corridor—Ward C. The old psychiatric lock-up.
A red light blinked faintly above the metal double doors. Still functioning. Somehow.
"Why is there power?" Aika whispered.
Ren didn't answer. He reached out and touched the door.
Click.
The lock released on its own.
Aika flinched. "That wasn't you?"
Ren shook his head.
Inside was a wide ward lined with individual cells. Beds, rusted. Scratched walls. Old restraints still tied to frames.
A single TV sat in the corner on a tall cart.
It turned on.
Static. No power cables.
Ren and Aika froze.
From the static, a voice emerged. Garbled. Distant.
> "Asano... Ren... come home."
Aika grabbed his arm. "Your name."
He couldn't move. His body froze. Inside his chest, a memory pushed forward—an image of himself as a child, standing at a different hospital room door. His father inside. Writing. Whispering.
> "When they come, shut your eyes."
Ren blinked. His knees buckled.
Aika caught him.
"What is it?! Ren?!"
He gasped, "He was here. My dad was here."
The static grew louder—almost painful now.
Suddenly—all the doors in the ward slammed shut at once.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Then silence.
A new sound. The sound of bare feet walking. Slowly. Dragging across tile.
Aika whispered, "We need to move. Now."
But Ren's eyes were locked on one door.
The fifth door on the left. Slightly open.
Inside, a figure was sitting on the bed.
A long-haired woman in a hospital gown.
She turned her head slowly toward him, though her face remained hidden by shadow.
Ren took a step closer.
"Don't," Aika warned.
The figure stood up—too tall, too thin—its limbs hanging as though not fully connected.
Aika grabbed Ren and ran. He stumbled after her, heart pounding like a drum in his ears.
Behind them, footsteps echoed—then stopped.
A second later, the corridor was silent again.
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They didn't stop running until they burst out through the back door of the hospital, stumbling into sunlight. Aika was pale, sweat dripping down her face. Ren fell to his knees, shaking.
She collapsed beside him.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then Ren finally whispered, "I remembered something."
Aika turned, eyes still wide.
He looked at her. "This wasn't his first case. The hospital... it was personal. I saw him. In a cell. Writing. Before he disappeared."
"You saw him now?"
He nodded. "No. I saw him then. Like a memory... that didn't belong to me."
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They sat in the overgrown courtyard behind the hospital, backs against the rusted fence, struggling to breathe. The hospital loomed like a shadow behind them, still, but not silent. From somewhere deep inside, they could still hear it:
Dragging feet. A soft voice. Static.
Aika held Ren's hand tighter than she realized. "We have to leave. Now."
Ren didn't respond. His eyes were locked on something he hadn't noticed before.
A stone plaque half-buried in the grass.
He brushed the moss off. The letters were eroded, but visible:
> Kurosawa Psychiatric – East Wing Memorial Unit
"For those lost within."
Beneath it, barely scratched into the stone:
> Asano – 1995
His breath caught. "That's... my father's name."
Aika leaned forward, stunned. "Your father had a room here. Maybe... maybe he died here?"
"No," Ren whispered. "I saw him. He was alive... writing. And he looked older than in the photos. Not like he vanished thirty years ago—like he's still inside."
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They returned inside—this time, heading for the East Wing, as labeled by a crumbling sign above a locked fire door. Ren led, trembling but certain. As if he wasn't following the map anymore, but a pull. A signal.
The door opened with a groan of metal.
Inside, darkness swallowed them.
They passed decaying lockers, overturned gurneys, rusted surgical trays. The walls here were different. Covered in handprints. Small. Large. Some high up, as if crawling the ceiling.
Aika stopped. "Ren... look at this."
On the far wall was a crude mural—scratched in blood and charcoal.
It showed a tall, faceless man surrounded by children. The children had hollow eyes. The faceless man's hands were outstretched, touching their heads.
Ren's breathing turned shallow. His chest tightened.
He stepped forward—compelled.
The wall seemed to bend, ever so slightly.
Suddenly—FLASH.
The light from Aika's camera exploded in white.
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The vision struck hard.
He was back. A child, in a hallway. The lights flickered above. Nurses screamed in the distance.
His father stood in front of a hospital door. Face blurred. Voice distant.
> "Don't look. No matter what happens, Ren—don't open your eyes."
Ren blinked—
And the faceless man was right in front of him.
Hands rising.
No eyes. No mouth. Only a wide, endless void where a face should be.
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Back in reality, Ren screamed.
Aika grabbed him, shaking him. "REN! OPEN YOUR EYES!"
He gasped, eyes snapping open. The wall was blank. The mural gone. But a symbol had burned itself onto his mind:
> A box. A spiral. An eye inside it—closed.
Ren staggered back, shivering.
"That thing..." he whispered. "It wasn't a ghost. It was watching. It knew I was seeing it. It WANTED me to see."
---
They fled again.
As they left the East Wing, the static returned, louder than before. They passed the nurse station—and for a brief moment, the TV screen turned on again.
But this time, no static.
A video. Black and white.
Ren's father.
Alive.
Speaking to the camera.
> "If you're seeing this... I failed. I opened the wrong door. I let it out. My memories aren't mine anymore. Neither are yours, Ren."
"Run. Never come back to this place."
"They watch through the walls. They remember for you."
"And once you remember... you can't leave."
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Silence.
Then the screen cracked.
A whisper:
> "You remembered."
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Ren and Aika ran until the hospital disappeared behind trees and shadows.
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