This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Verlac_1 on 2024-10-25 23:59:26+00:00.

On a foggy October night, my three friends and I stood outside the abandoned Ashgrove Asylum, its shadow stretching over us like some silent, lurking beast. The building loomed in the darkness, its cracked stone walls swallowed by ivy, windows shattered into sharp, jagged teeth. People called this place cursed.

Legends swirled around Ashgrove, tales passed down for generations about the mysterious disappearance of Nurse Evelyn Crane. She was a kind woman, they said, who cared for the patients as if they were family. But one night, she vanished, leaving only a chilling lullaby that echoed through the halls. It became known as “The Nurse’s Rhyme,” a twisted warning that haunted the memories of the few who dared to enter.

The words of her rhyme were whispered like a ghost story around campfires: “Nurse comes for those who wander… Nurse comes to take you under…” Some said that those who heard it were doomed to wander the asylum’s halls forever, trapped in a trance, just as Nurse Crane was.

We’d laughed it off, all of us, but now as we pushed open the rusty doors, our laughter had faded. We stepped inside, and a biting chill wrapped around us immediately, as if the asylum itself were breathing.

The air was thick with the stench of mold and rot. The silence was so heavy it felt as though the whole building was waiting, listening to us. I could hear our footsteps echo off the cracked tiles, each step a reminder of how alone we were. Or how alone we should have been.

After a few minutes of walking, Ethan’s flashlight flickered and went out. He cursed, shaking it, but it stayed dark. “Batteries were new,” he muttered, his voice thin, almost swallowed by the silence. Just then, I thought I heard something, a faint whisper, so soft it was barely there, floating from the end of the corridor. My heart began to pound as a shiver crawled up my spine. I tried to convince myself it was the wind, but deep down, I knew better. We all did.

We moved deeper into the asylum, the long corridors narrowing around us, and eventually reached what looked like an old operating room. The walls were painted with peeling gray paint, stained with something too dark to be rust. I felt the temperature drop again, as if the room itself were swallowing the warmth. Shadows clung to the walls, thick and unmoving. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something flicker, a dark shape darting along the edges of my vision. I gasped, stepping back, bumping into Jake. “Did you see that?” I whispered, though I could barely breathe.

But no one had seen anything, only me. Still, we all felt it. The weight pressing in on us, like something terrible had just brushed past. The air seemed to thicken, wrapping around us, filling our lungs with an icy dread.

“Let’s go,” Sara whispered, her voice barely audible, and we all nodded, silently grateful for the excuse to leave. But as we turned toward the door, it slammed shut, the sound echoing through the darkened halls like a gunshot. I lunged for the handle, pulling as hard as I could, but it wouldn’t budge. My hands grew cold and clammy, each tug at the door leaving my heart pounding faster. A sudden gust of icy wind tore through the room, and that was when I heard it…an eerie lullaby, so faint and twisted that it sounded like it was coming from the walls themselves.

I turned to look at Jake, and a chill froze me to the bone. His face had gone slack, his eyes empty and unfocused, as though he were staring straight through me. Then his mouth opened, and in a soft, sing-song voice I didn’t recognize, he began to mutter, “Nurse comes for those who wander… Nurse comes to take you under…”

My stomach twisted. I grabbed his arm, trying to shake him, but he just kept muttering, his voice growing softer, his eyes unfocused, fixed on something I couldn’t see. Ethan and I pushed on the door again, slamming our shoulders into it, but it wouldn’t move. The walls seemed to close in, shadows reaching out from the corners, stretching toward us like hands clawing for skin.

And then the footsteps began. Slow, careful footsteps, echoing down the hall. They grew louder, each one more measured, each one more intentional, like something, or someone, was coming for us. And the lullaby… it grew louder, wrapping around us like a suffocating fog. I could feel a cold, lingering presence slide across my skin, the touch of fingers that weren’t there, and a terrible realization settled in my chest, squeezing my heart with icy fingers. We hadn’t found the ghost; the ghost had found us.

I grabbed Sara and Ethan, shouting that we had to go, but they just stared back at me with blank, hollow expressions. Their eyes had that same glassy look Jake’s did, empty, like they weren’t seeing me anymore. Desperate, I shook each of them, screaming their names, but they only muttered softly, voices blending with the twisted lullaby filling the air, “Nurse comes for those who wander… Nurse comes to take you under.” Their gazes drifted past me toward the approaching footsteps.

I backed away, feeling trapped, surrounded by the encroaching darkness and my friends’ haunted faces. I didn’t want to leave them, but the dread was crushing me, pushing me toward the door. I turned and ran, throwing my weight against the door with a final, desperate shove, and somehow, it gave way.

I stumbled into the hallway, glancing back one last time to see the shadows swallowing them, wrapping around my friends like tendrils of smoke. Their faces faded, their eyes lifeless, fixed on something just beyond the darkness. I called out, but they didn’t respond, and the cold crept closer.

And then the door slammed shut, locking them inside.

I ran down the empty corridors, my footsteps echoing, the lullaby following me like a ghostly whisper. I didn’t stop until I was outside, gasping for air, the asylum towering behind me, dark and silent.

They never came out. The last thing I heard, echoing in my mind, was my friend’s voices, barely a whisper in the darkness…” Nurse comes for those who wander…Nurse comes to take you under…”