Chapter 1
Evelyn Drake, a young investigative journalist with a penchant for uncovering the macabre, arrives at the deserted Ashwood Asylum, her car’s headlights slicing through the thick, oppressive fog that clings to the surrounding woods. Driven by persistent rumours of mysterious disappearances and whispers of supernatural occurrences, Evelyn’s curiosity is fuelled by both professional ambition and a personal need to confront the darkness that has haunted her since childhood.
Established in the late 1800s, Ashwood Asylum once symbolised hope and progress in mental health treatment, its towering stone façade and ornate iron gates reflecting the optimism of an era eager to understand the human mind. Yet, beneath its noble intentions festered a history steeped in suffering. As decades passed, the asylum grew infamous for grim practices—unethical treatments, patient neglect, and whispered tales of experiments hidden from public eyes. Now, closed for over fifty years, it stands as a decaying monument to forgotten souls, its walls suffocated by ivy and the weight of untold stories.
Evelyn parks her battered car on the cracked, weed-choked driveway, the engine’s dying hum swallowed by an eerie silence. The air is thick with the scent of mould and rust, mingling with the faint, metallic tang of something older—something wrong. She steps out, pulling her coat tighter against the cold that seems to seep from the very ground. Her flashlight flickers to life, casting narrow beams across the towering gates, their iron bars corroded with time. With a hesitant push, the gates groan open, the sound echoing like a distant cry lost in the mist.
Each step she takes towards the asylum’s entrance feels heavier, the crunch of gravel beneath her boots the only sound, save for the occasional rustle of unseen creatures hidden in the overgrown hedges. The front doors, once grand and welcoming, hang ajar, their wood warped and splintered. She hesitates, her breath visible in the cold air, then steps inside, the beam of her flashlight slicing through layers of dust and darkness.
The interior is a cavern of decay. Peeling wallpaper reveals cracked plaster beneath, and the faint outlines of murals that once depicted scenes of serenity now distorted into grotesque shapes by time and neglect. Broken wheelchairs and rusted gurneys lie abandoned in corners, their wheels frozen in eternal stillness. Evelyn’s footsteps echo ominously as she navigates the corridor, her light catching fragments of the past—discarded patient bracelets, faded photographs, medical files scattered like forgotten memories.
Unbeknownst to her, she is not alone. In the suffocating darkness beyond her flashlight’s reach, something watches. The Warden, an entity born from the asylum’s worst experiments on children, stirs. It is not merely a ghost, but a soul warped into something horrible from pain, its story the one of the worst made in the Asylum. Invisible yet palpable, it observes her with malevolent curiosity, its presence a cold breath against the back of her neck, a shadow that moves when no light shifts. Evelyn’s arrival has awakened more than just memories within these walls—it has disturbed a force that craves for the truth to be heard, for secrets to be uncovered.
