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PROLOGUE

Elias

I didn’t believe in ghosts.

Not at first.

The asylum was supposed to be just another haunted building, another location on my endless hunt for truth.

I’d exposed so many false claims—charlatans, creaky old houses with faulty wiring, overactive imaginations.

This place was no different.

Or so I thought.

But the moment I stepped inside, I felt it.

A heaviness.

The kind that wraps around your chest, squeezes until every breath feels wrong.

The air was cold, colder than it should’ve been, and there was this... hum, like the walls themselves were alive, breathing along with me.

It was unsettling, but I pushed the feeling aside.

Just my nerves.

Just the weight of the stories I’d read, the things I’d heard.

Then came the whispers.

At first, I thought it was the wind, moving through the shattered windows and long, empty halls.

But no, they were too deliberate.

Too real.

They echoed in my ears, soft, sultry, like they were trying to pull me deeper into the darkness.

I shrugged my jacket tighter around me, my camera heavy in my hands as I moved forward.

I wasn’t scared.

Not then.

But I should’ve been.

And then, I saw her.

She stood at the end of the hallway, half in shadow, her figure pale and shimmery like she wasn’t really there.

Her eyes met mine, and a chill ran down my spine.

But it wasn’t fear that gripped me.

It was something else.

Something... darker.

My body reacted before my brain could process what was happening.

She didn’t move, but I felt her all around me.

Her presence was electric, crawling under my skin, and there was this heat—an unnatural heat that made my blood rush in ways it shouldn’t.

I tried to blink, to clear the image, but she didn’t fade.

She was real, standing there, waiting for me.

My feet dragged me forward, slow, cautious.

Every instinct screamed at me to turn back, but I couldn’t.

There was something about her—something I needed.

My hands trembled as I reached for her, the space between us charged with something I didn’t understand.

She smiled.

And then she was gone.

Nina

He’s here.

I’ve waited for so long.

Watched them come and go, the ones before him—men who thought they could handle what this place held.

Fools.

They were weak, breaking under my touch too easily.

Their fear was intoxicating, but their screams bored me after a while.

But this one… he’s different.

I can feel it in the way he looks at me.

The hunger in his eyes.

He’s not just afraid.

He’s intrigued.

Drawn to me in a way that feels deliciously dangerous.

I can work with that.

He thinks he’s in control.

They always do at first.

But I see through him.

I see the cracks, the weaknesses.

The desire.

He may not know it yet, but he’s already mine.

I move through the halls, watching him fumble with his equipment, trying to record me.

As if he could capture something so powerful, so beyond his understanding.

It makes me smile.

Poor, sweet man.

He has no idea what’s coming.

I could make it quick.

I could make him scream, make him beg, the way the others did.

 But no. I want more from him.

I want to feel him surrender.

I want to taste his torment, watch it grow inside him until he’s begging for release.

Until he’s nothing more than a shell, broken and hollow, filled only with me.

And then I’ll take him.

Elias

I should’ve left that night.

I should’ve turned and never looked back.

But something about her... something about the way she looked at me...

It pulled me in.

I didn’t sleep.

Couldn’t.

I stayed in that old office, my equipment spread out before me, reviewing footage, listening to audio files.

My mind wouldn’t stop spinning.

Every shadow in the corners of the room seemed to hold her shape.

Every flicker of light was her eyes, watching, waiting.

And then she came to me.

I didn’t see her walk in, didn’t hear the door creak open.

One moment I was alone, and the next she was there, standing in front of me, her body glowing faintly in the dark.