The Asylum's Last Grasp

For decades, on the outskirts of town, there stood Ravenswood Asylum, a mysterious and ominous institution that sparked rumors of insanity. Casting lengthy shadows that seemed to conceal the secrets of the tortured spirits inside, its towering, gloomy walls dominated the neighboring woodland. Under their breath, the townsfolk would periodically recount the terrifying screams that resounded from the institution throughout the night, terrifying anybody unlucky enough to get a glimpse of them.

In the institution, the inmates endured daily routines enforced by a staff that was often as emotionless and distant as the stone walls that encased them. The facility was run by the ruthless and merciless chief psychiatrist, Dr. Henry Caldwell. His patients drew terror from him on par with that which they felt from their own personal demons and dreams.

A patient was admitted to Ravenswood on one very stormy night. A young lady named Eliza Harper had her psyche wrecked by unseen horrors. It was as if an eerie presence had followed her inside the institution. The other patients, who were already delicate, started acting even more erratically, and their cries and screams resounded more in the dimly lit halls.

Unusual was Eliza. In her description, the walls seemed to move and breathe when no one was looking, and she said that they murmured to her in the middle of the night. While the nurses wrote off her hallucinations as mental illness, the other patients listened intently, their expressions increasingly terrified. Everyone had felt the walls closing in on them, but no one dared to speak out about it.

The mood around Ravenswood became more and more strained as time went on. It seemed as if the icy, unyielding walls had a pulse of their own. Unfazed by the growing anxiety, Dr. Caldwell wrote it off as a case of mass panic. But the uneasy sense that something was really wrong was too much for even him to ignore.

A strong storm cut electricity to the facility one night, plunging the residents into total darkness. The patients’ screams intensified as the structure moan and creak due to the wind’s intensity. An eerie, old incantation spoken by Eliza pierced through the hallways, her voice rising above the din.

The walls spoke back.

The walls started to shift slowly, almost unnoticeably at first. There was an ear-piercing screech as the massive stones moved and ground against one another. Patients’ shouts combined into a terrifying symphony of anguish as they frantically reacted upon comprehending what was occurring. Once wide-open areas became stiflingly cramped as hallways and rooms contracted.

It was already too late for Dr. Caldwell to mobilize the staff to evacuate the patients; he was in a state of disbelief. A persistent closing in of the walls occurred as if propelled by an invisible hand. As the areas they inhabited shrank, patients and employees alike felt more confined. Cracking bones and frantic, muted cries permeated the air as if the institution was hell-bent on devouring them all.

As time ran out, Dr. Caldwell stood in the faint light of his office, staring down at Eliza. The terror that had been in her eyes had transformed into a terrifying serenity. “They were always alive,” she muttered, her voice scarcely heard among the deafening din of havoc. “The walls were always watching, waiting for the right moment.”

The last image that Dr. Caldwell saw was the encroaching walls of his office, the stone surfaces like live flesh in their ripples. His last, fruitless outcry for mercy echoed with the others.

Ravenswood Asylum had fallen into a haunting stillness by sunrise. Once the storm had gone, the building’s now-empty shell was bathed in the first rays of sunshine. With their hidden need quenched, the immobile walls remained still. Within, the stifling stillness of a location that had at last taken its rightful place — no trace of the patients or employees who had before occupied its corridors — remained.

Everyone in town was on high alert, so they were very careful as they made their way to the institution. The doors were locked, and the windows were obscure and difficult to open. Within, none dared to step. Ivy creeping up its walls, nature gradually reclaimed Ravenswood, washing away the remaining remnants of its terrible last night.

The institution was turned into a ghost story, a cautionary tale that the townsfolk murmured about. They spoke of the spirits confined behind the walls, whose very beings were inextricably connected to the stone that had provided them with sanctuary in the past. Not all jails have bars, and some walls are better left alone, so they recognized certain locations are better left undisturbed.