Dr. Jonathan Mercer had not slept properly in days. The head of internal medicine at St. Catherine’s Medical Center, he had been battling a quiet storm that few outside his staff even suspected — a bizarre and unexplained surge in unusual pregnancies that had drawn growing concern within the hospital’s walls. The weekend stretched into an uneasy blur of unanswered questions, as Mercer struggled to reconcile the clinical logic he lived by with the nagging sense that something beyond science was at work.
When Monday morning finally arrived, Mercer entered his office before sunrise. A paper cup of coffee trembled slightly in his grip, the weight of fatigue and apprehension pressing heavily on him. On his desk sat a small hospital security camera, one that had been discreetly set up to monitor Room 312B — the room where patient Michael Reeves had lain motionless for weeks, connected to machines that hummed with steady, predictable rhythm.
Mercer opened his laptop, connected the device, and clicked play. At first, the footage appeared routine — sterile walls, blinking monitors, the faint mechanical pulse of life support. Then, near midnight, the air in the recording seemed to shift.
From the corner of the screen, a shape began to emerge. Cloaked in shadow, the figure glided into view — not walking, but moving with a disquieting, fluid grace. Mercer leaned in, heart pounding, as the figure approached Michael’s bed and began murmuring softly in an unfamiliar language. No alarm sounded, no movement registered on the monitors — except for the flicker of light across the machines, as though something unseen had brushed through them.
The encounter lasted minutes, though it felt like hours. Then the figure retreated silently, leaving the room as if it had never been there. The machines steadied. Michael lay as before — unchanged, unaware, untouched.
Mercer froze. Every rational explanation he knew dissolved beneath the weight of what he had witnessed. And yet, he knew he could not ignore it.