The night fell like a blanket soaked in oil,thick, smothering, silent.
Annah lay on the couch, body curled beneath a threadbare throw, every light in her apartment switched off. Shadows draped the walls, clung to the furniture. Her phone buzzed once, twice. She didn't look. She didn't want to hear from Lina. Or Dr. Kariuki. Or the detective with eyes like knives.
The air was dense. Too still.
Then the whisper came.
Not from the room.
From her.
"Annah…"
She sat up slowly, blinking into the dark.
Nothing.
The voice was familiar...so familiar it made her stomach lurch. Lucy.
She rubbed her face with trembling fingers. Lack of sleep. That's all. Just the mind turning on itself. Kariuki had warned her about this. Lack of sleep, anxiety, unresolved trauma. Perfect recipe.
But the whisper came again.
"Come find me."
This time it was louder. Closer. Like breath against her ear.
Annah spun around. The room was empty.
She rose to her feet, barefoot against the cold tiles, and walked to the hallway mirror. She hated it. It had been Lucy's. A gift from their mother before she died. "A girl should always see herself clearly," she used to say.
Annah stared into the glass. The reflection stared back...but something was wrong. Her face was too pale. Her lips, bloodless. Her eyes… they weren't hers.
They belonged to Lucy.
"No," Annah whispered.
The reflection blinked.
She did not.
Annah staggered back, breath shallow.
"You left me," the reflection said.
Annah shook her head. "I tried to save you. I.....I called them. I begged for help."
"They didn't come," Lucy's voice said from the mirror. "And neither did you."
Suddenly the mirror fogged from the inside,like breath on glass. Handprints appeared. Bloody. Dragging downward.
Annah screamed.
She stumbled away, falling hard against the hallway wall. Her shoulder throbbed. She scrambled up and ran to the bathroom, flicking on the light. Cold, white, sterile.
She splashed water on her face, heart galloping.
But when she looked up…
Lucy stood behind her in the mirror. Soaked. Torn. Eyes hollow.
"You watched him," Lucy whispered.
Annah turned, but no one was there.
She faced the mirror again. Nothing.
A sob caught in her throat.
I'm losing it.
She clutched the sink edge, knuckles pale. Her breath came in shallow gasps.
Then came the smell.
Bleach.
Sterile. Clinical. Familiar.
The bathroom was gone.
She was back in the hospital.
But not as she remembered it. The lights above flickered weakly. The halls were warped, longer, pulsing like arteries. The walls bled. Slowly. Thick streaks of crimson.
"Annah."
She turned. Lucy stood at the end of the corridor, barefoot, her nurse uniform shredded.
Annah took a step toward her. "Lucy..... Mm"
But then the hallway lights flickered, and Lucy was gone.
In her place stood Kevin Langat.
His back was to her. He wore hospital scrubs. His shoes squeaked faintly against the tiled floor. He didn't know she was there.
And then, the sound. A muffled voice....Lucy's.....struggling, pleading.
Annah's breath hitched.
Kevin walked into the west wing. The abandoned part. The place no one monitored. The doors slammed shut behind him.
"NO!" Annah screamed, running forward.
The doors were locked.
She banged against them. Screamed. The hallway began to pulse with red light. An alarm blared somewhere in the distance.
Her hands were bleeding. The metal beneath her fists turned slick with it.
Then...*
a whisper in her ear: "He gave me to them."*
She spun.
Lucy again.
But her eyes weren't hollow now. They were furious.
"They took turns. And Kevin held the door."
Annah shook her head violently. "No....no, he was your friend. He was mine..."
Lucy's image fractured. Her skin split at the seams. Her mouth opened too wide, voice deepening into something that wasn't hers.
"He watched."
Annah collapsed to the floor, gasping, sobbing, shaking.
And then.....
Silence.
The hallway disappeared.
She was back in her apartment.
Lying on the cold tiles of her bathroom floor.
Alone.
The mirror was cracked.
There was blood on her palms.
She didn't know if it was real.
She woke hours later on the couch, the world outside grey and indifferent. Her throat felt raw. Her wrists ached. The mirror....was it broken?
She got up. Her feet felt bruised. She padded down the hallway.
Yes. Cracked. A long splinter through the center.
And the words smeared in red.....
"He watched."
She backed away slowly, her mind racing.
Kevin.
He had access to the west wing. As part of the night shift, he helped secure doors. Clean storage rooms. Move patients in palliative care.
He'd been there that night. He told her he'd left early....but that was a lie.
He was there.
He was part of it.
Rage surged through her like acid. Her hands balled into fists.
He let it happen. He stood by. He heard her scream and did nothing.
She went to her closet and pulled out a box she hadn't touched in years.
Lucy's things.
Inside were her old notebooks, her ID badge, and a worn-out nurse's journal. Annah flipped through the pages, tears blurring her vision.
She found it...an entry, scrawled in Lucy's tiny, cramped handwriting.
> Saw Kevin again near the storage room. Told him it wasn't safe, that I'd heard voices inside. He laughed. Said I was imagining things. But he locked the door behind me. I don't think it was a mistake. I don't feel safe anymore.
Annah pressed the journal to her chest.
It wasn't a dream.
It was a memory.
The hallucination hadn't invented the truth. It had revealed it.
Kevin had been the one who sealed Lucy's fate.
And now, he would answer for it.
Annah was furious as she planned her next step on him.
Kevin Langat
I will end you .