The Hospital of Shadows

Lily works in a hospital that is usually overcrowded during the day hours. She is a pharmacist and is very proud of her profession. The hospital has been there for almost 4 decades and is very much depended on by the people. The hospital provides doctors for various specialties, which makes it busy for most of the hours. All this makes the work pressure on the employees very intense. But on the other hand, the environment in the pharmacy was friendly and supportive. The team worked as a family, supporting each other and building healthy relationships. Tiffany was Lily's colleague and best friend. They had been working together for only a short time but always had each other's backs and supported each other. As said in the beginning, the hospital was crowded and never quiet during the day. The noise settles down only after 1.30 in the night, after which only emergencies come in. It is then that all the departments do their inventories, data entries, and stock filling. It becomes almost 3 am when the pharmacy staff gets time to rest. During one night shift, Lily was on duty with Rachel. It was sometime past 3am and Rachel was on the phone with her boyfriend and Lily was dusting and cleaning the boxes of medicines at the back end of the pharmacy. She had some music on and was enjoying the song while dusting, when she had a creepy feeling. The backside of the pharmacy was facing the road and had an outlet for outpatient dispensing, which closes after 10pm. She felt a shadowy presence sweep past her. She saw it through the corner of her eyes. However, she ignored it to be some light from a passing vehicle or just her imagination. She went back to work while listening to songs. Everything was fine until she had a conversation with her partner Rachel in the morning. Lily and Rachel were stacking some boxes of medicines in the back side of the pharmacy, when Rachel brought up the topic. Rachel asked Lily whether she believed in supernatural occurrences. While answering that question, Lily asked the reason for such a question. Lily was thrown off guard when she heard Rachel's answer. Rachel replied that, she had some strange feelings when she was at the back side of the pharmacy during night shifts. It seems that she felt the presence of some negative energy. Surprised, Lily shared the experience she had. Both of them were too shocked to speak. The situations they had thought to be their imagination or coincidences were not just their own imaginations. Furthermore, the surprises were not yet over. It was when they talked about this with their other colleagues that they came to know that all of them have had such experiences. Nobody talked about it because they either did not take it seriously, thinking it to be their imagination, or did not want to scare others. Someone said that she had noticed boxes of medicines or IV fluids falling off their racks where they were stacked perfectly in order. On hearing that, many others also claimed to have experienced it, but thought that to be because of the shaking due to heavy vehicles passing. The hospital was beside a bridge, and when heavy vehicles passed through, the ground experienced shaking. One thing was common to all the stories. All the incidents happened between 3 to 4am. One of the colleagues, Betty, was not ready to believe in any of that. She did not believe in supernatural forces and walked off saying that all had gone mad. During the next night shift, Lily and Tiffany started off praying for it to be a peaceful shift. They chose to not talk about anything related to the happenings inside the pharmacy. They finished their work early and decided not to go to the backside without any reason. They made sure that all the boxes and bottles of IV fluids were stacked perfectly and wouldn't fall easily. They were sitting beside the front counters, talking, when suddenly they started hearing bottles of IV fluids falling to the ground. They were scared as hell and got out of the pharmacy in a rush. They sat outside the pharmacy until it was dawn. The next night shift, when Betty was on duty when the topic came in, she said aloud that she did not believe in any of those and challenged that she would believe it if she herself experienced it. Lily and others reprimanded her for saying such things. But Betty would not budge. Lily woke up next day early in the morning with a phone call. It was Betty's partner on duty, and she was crying. She explained everything that happened during the night to Lily. She said that both of them had finished their work and were resting beside the front counter. They were tired and dozed off in their chairs. She suddenly woke up to Betty's scream. Betty had been screaming on the top of her voice and she couldn't calm her. When Betty was back to her senses, she asked what had happened. Betty told her that she was asleep and something woke her up from her sleep. She looked from where the sound came. She said that she had seen some figure without a perfect shape beside her. Betty told her that she couldn't speak or call out for help. And finally when could speak she yelled at the top of her voice. When her partner woke up, Betty was seen staring at space and screaming. As it seems, Betty had really challenged the whatever supernatural thing was present. Betty then had to be taken to the ER with high fever. The news of what happened in the pharmacy spread like fire through the other departments. The staff in other departments also started talking about the strange experiences they had. It seemed that all the departments had felt unnatural things, but no one talked about it to each other. The following night, one of the housekeeping staff on duty fell from the stairs. If it had been 2 months earlier, no one would have doubted anything strange had happened and would have blamed it on a slippery stair spilled with water or detergent. But given the circumstances, and the staff claiming without any doubt that there was no spilled liquid and that she felt as if someone had pushed her from behind besides the area being empty, all this gave chills to all the staff in the hospital. Complaints started piling up on the manager's table, and strange things kept happening. The time between 3 to 4 am became the period when no one left their positions or walked around alone. Everyone checked on each other. As days passed, errors started to occur throughout despite everyone being careful and double-checking their actions. The staff wanted an answer for their complaints. The manager made some calls to inspect the building. It was found that the building was situated on top of a very old graveyard. Well, all hospitals are known to have some sort of paranormal occurrences but in this case, they were not sure if those occurrences were due to the century-old graveyard or some incident in the hospital. The manager then brought in a spiritual cleanser to cleanse the place of all the negative energies. A series of rituals were carried out throughout the hospital. It was only after those rituals were completed, that the staff were able to take night shifts without any worries. But the back side of the pharmacy still remains a place where people fear to go at the peak of the night.