The Night That Never Ends*

## Chapter 1: The Phone

The living room clock marked 23:47 when Molly Mason's cell phone began to vibrate. The screen illuminated her tired face, revealing the name she expected to see for months: Ayman.

Molly grabbed the device so hard that her fingers closed. Three months ago without news, his foster brother Ayman al-Saraawi had simply disappeared during his investigation into the mysterious cases of disappearances in southern Levaosnia.

"Ayman? Thank God! Where are you?" Her voice was embargoed.

On the other side, just breathing breathing and what seemed to be hasty steps.

"Molly ... Molly, listen to me." Ayman's voice was almost unrecognizable, taken by despair. "I don't have much time."

The sound of something metallic echoed over the phone, followed by a muffled moan. Molly felt her contouring stomach.

"I'm at Ravencroft Hospital. That abandoned, near the mountains in the south." He spoke in interspersed whispers. "Molly, what they are doing here ... you wouldn't believe if I told you."

"Who? Ayman, what's going on?" Molly was already standing, looking frantically for her keys.

"The doctors ... scientists ... they never left when the hospital closed." Ayman's voice trembled. "They kidnap people. Experiences. They turn people into ... things."

A distant noise made Ayman pause. Molly could hear her heart hammering over the phone.

"They are eating people, Molly. Ritual cannibalism. They say it's for the 'perfection of salvation'." Ayman's voice failed. "And the creatures they created ... Carnivorous aberrations. And there are more ... something supernatural. Some patients have become something like ... ghosts."

"Ayman, it makes no sense. You're sure -"

"Listening!" An rough whisper interrupted her. "They want to dominate the world. Turning all hospitals in it. A regime where no one dies of disease because it becomes ... something else. Something immortal but monstrous."

Molly was already at the door of her apartment, wearing the coat.

"They have been doing this for nine years, Molly. I doculted everything I could. You need to finish what I started." Ayman took a deep breath. "Bring your camera. The professional. Record everything. The world needs to know."

A distant crash and voices. The fear in Ayman's breathing was palpable.

"They're looking for me. I can't talk anymore."

"Ayman, where are you exactly? How do you find you?"

"East Wing, Third Floor, Sector of Children's Psychiatry. There is a room with a bear painted at the door. I'm hiding on the -"

The connection fell.

Molly was still for a moment, the phone still pressed against the ear. His brain struggled to process what he had just heard. The hands shake.

Breathing deep, she went to her office, opened the closet and took the professional DSLR camera. Checked the memory card, the battery - completely charged. As an investigative journalist, he always kept his equipment ready.

While gathering the equipment, Ayman's words echoed in his mind. Cannibalism. Experiments. Monsters. Ghosts. World domination. I sounded like delirium ... but Ayman has always been the most rational of both. The most skeptical. Which investigated facts, not fantasies.

*There must be something real happening there*, thought Molly. *Maybe not supernatural, but something terrible enough to leave my brother in that state.*

Fifteen minutes later, Molly drove her old Honda along the empty road that was south. The camera on the passenger seat. A powerful flashlight. Extra batteries. A Swiss knife - the only "weapon" he owned. And a small first aid kit.

The rain began to fall when she spotted the rusty sign on the secondary road: "Ravencroft State Hospital - 3 km."

The asphalt gave way to a soaked dirt road. The headlights of the car cut the darkness, occasionally revealing the twisted branches of the trees that looked like skeletal fingers trying to reach it.

In a distance, the imposing Gothic building of Ravencroft Hospital began to materialize in the rainy night. A monstrous Victorian structure that, even abandoned decades ago, still emanated an oppressive presence. The broken windows like empty eyes watching their approach.

Molly stopped the car about two hundred meters from the main gate. Letting him closer could alert anyone in the building. He turned on the camera, checked the night filming settings, and tied it firmly on his support.

"I'm recording this on the night of October 17," she whispered to the camera. "My brother Ayman Al-Saraawi is under arrest inside Ravencroft Hospital. He says doctors and scientists are conducting illegal experiments with humans, including ... cannibalism."

She paused, feeling ridiculous to say that aloud. But he continued, "I'll get in and document what to find. If something happens to me, this video should reach the authorities."

Breathing deep, Molly turned off the engine, took the flashlight and went out for the rain. The cold air and moisture immediately penetrated their clothes. The mud sucked its boots every step toward the rusty gates of what was already considered one of the most advanced psychiatric hospitals in the country.

A lightning cut the sky, momentarily illuminating the Ravencroft facade. Molly froze. For a moment he could have seen a pale figure watching her from one of the third floor windows.

* East Wing, Third Floor, Children's Psychiatry Sector.* Ayman's instructions echoed in his mind.

She adjusted the camera's strap, took a deep breath and pushed the gate, which opened with a boring grinding.

*I'm going, Ayman.*

What Molly didn't realize was the clinical look that followed her through carefully hidden security cameras on the abandoned ground. In the improvised monitoring center three floors below the hospital, a man in labels smiled as he watched her cross the threshold.

"Dr. Vorstaan," he called his superior. "It seems that we received one more guy for the Lazarus protocol."

The older man slowly approached the monitor, his cold eyes analyzing the figure of Molly.

"Perfect," Dr. Vorstaan whispered, distracting the scar that divided his face in a distracted manner. "Let her in. Let's see how far she can go."

Completely oblivious to the fact that he had just entered exactly where they wanted, Molly advanced through the hospital ground, determined to find his brother and expose Ravencroft's horrors to the world.

But the real horrors were just beginning to unfold.