All Chapters of Whispers Behind the Glass: Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

Dr. Adrien Kael did not believe in accidents. Patterns, yes. Repression, of course. Even coincidence had its place in the tangled webs of trauma. But accidents? They were just cause and effect dressed in chaos. So when a file like Mila Renard landed on his desk-thin, redacted, and humming with contradiction and he didn’t dismiss it as an administrative error. He read between the lines. Again. He closed the folder and leaned back in his chair, letting his eyes drift to the wide window behind his desk. Snow dusted the pine trees in careful strokes, the sky a bruised white. The world looked sterile, like a canvas wiped clean. But Adrien knew better. Underneath every calm surface was rot, waiting for warmth to bloom. He’d made a career of finding that rot. A knock came at his office door, sharp, professional. “Enter.” The door opened to reveal a young nurse, clipboard in hand, her eyes polite but curious. Everyone was curious about his patients. The quiet ones always made the mos

Halden Clinic housed twelve long-term patients that winter. Isolated in a wing shaped like a horseshoe, their rooms opened into a shared common area with cracked leather chairs, a flickering fireplace, and a puzzle table no one touched. Mila had kept her distance. Until now. On the second morning of the storm, the generator buzzed through the walls like a heartbeat, and the air inside felt heavier. Tension had its own temperature. Everyone felt it. Adrien decided to break the routine. He gathered the patients for a “community hour” his idea of bonding under duress. Mila sat near the back, wrapped in a dark sweater that swallowed her hands. She scanned the room, not making eye contact. At least, not intentionally. There was Jonas, a wiry man in his forties with darting eyes and a voice like crushed gravel. He spoke to shadows more than people. Eloise, mid-twenties, mute by choice, with a sketchpad full of disturbing drawings she never let anyone see. Hassan, older, ex-military,

The storm began to retreat . It didn’t stop. But it eased its grip, like a fist slowly unclenching. The howling wind was now a distant moan, and in its place came a silence too deep to trust. Dr. Adrien Kael didn’t sleep that night. He sat at his desk long after the patients had returned to their rooms, staring at the word carved into his door. RUN. Not scratched , carved. With intent. Precision. Adrien was not a man who was scared easily. But something about that word, in this place, in this storm, made his hands shake when he lit his cigarette. He’d known the clinic had secrets. You didn’t work at Halden without brushing against a few ghosts. But this was different. This wasn’t a haunting. It was a warning. And he needed answers. --- The Halden Clinic had an upper floor few remembered and fewer used: the old Locked Ward. Officially decommissioned. Patients were never taken there. The hallway lights had burned out years ago. It had once housed the most severe cases—violen

Adrien stared at the photo for the third time that morning.It wasn’t part of Mila’s file officially, that file barely existed. But this photo... it was unmistakable. Torn down the middle, frayed at the edges, and tucked deep in a folder belonging to another patient.Patient Number 81 – Eloise Harper.The picture was of two girls, side by side, their faces half turned to the camera. One was clearly Eloise, her sunken eyes and anxious smile gave her away.The other… was Mila.Younger. Thinner. But her.No date. No location. No explanation.Adrien flipped the folder shut and leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. The director’s warning from earlier echoed in his mind.“You’re getting too involved, Adrien. This girl is not your responsibility. We both know what happened last time.”But this wasn’t the last time. And Mila wasn’t just another patient.She was the anomaly in a system built on forgetting.---Mila didn’t sleep much that night. The piano session had uneart