MidnightScreams

Full Story:

The chill seeped into my bones, a damp, clinging cold that no amount of layered clothing could dispel. Cold, like the stories whispered about Blackwood Penitentiary. Cold, like the touch of a ghost. I?d chased whispers my whole life, echoes of tragedies imprinted on the fabric of reality. Blackwood, they said, was a symphony of suffering.

My name is Elias Thorne, and I'm a paranormal investigator. Not the flashy, ghost-hunting TV personality type. I prefer the quiet approach, the slow burn. I listen. I observe. I try to understand. My melancholia, a constant companion, lends itself to the work. I understand the weight of sorrow, the lingering sting of loss. It makes me?empathetic, I suppose. Or perhaps it just makes me a magnet for the lost.

Blackwood was a relic of a darker time. Granite walls, iron bars, and the ever-present stench of despair clinging to the very air. It had been closed for decades, its inmates long transferred or, more likely, deceased within its grim confines. Now, it stood empty, a monument to misery.

I?d come alone, as I always did. My introverted nature preferred solitude. Ghosts, unlike the living, didn?t demand small talk. My gear was simple: EMF reader, audio recorder, thermal imager, and my trusty, if somewhat battered, notebook. I wasn?t here to bust ghosts; I was here to listen to them.

The main cell block was cavernous, the silence broken only by the drip of unseen water. My footsteps echoed unnaturally loud, each one a hammer blow against the stillness. The air was thick, heavy, pressing down on me. I felt a prickling at the back of my neck, the hairs on my arms standing on end. A classic sign, but I?d learned long ago not to rely on the obvious.

I started in the warden?s office. Dust lay thick on the desk, undisturbed for years. A half-written letter sat in a cracked inkwell, the words blurred by time and damp. I felt a pang of sadness. A life interrupted, a story unfinished. I ran my fingers over the cold wood of the desk, trying to connect with the energy, the imprint of the past.

The EMF reader flickered, a slight jump. Nothing significant, but enough to pique my interest. I moved through the office, noting the layout, the placement of the furniture. Everything spoke of order, control, and a desperate attempt to maintain some semblance of humanity within these stone walls.

As I moved deeper into the prison, the atmosphere grew heavier. The silence became more profound, more oppressive. It was a silence that screamed. I felt the weight of countless eyes on me, unseen presences lurking in the shadows.

In the solitary confinement wing, the air was frigid. These cells were smaller, darker, more isolated. Here, despair had truly taken root. I could feel it, a palpable presence that clung to the walls, the floor, the very air itself.

I spent hours in that wing, listening, recording, observing. The EMF reader spiked occasionally, but the audio recorder remained stubbornly silent. The thermal imager picked up nothing but the coldness of the stone. Yet, I knew they were there. I could feel them.

It wasn?t a visual thing, not a sudden apparition or a floating figure. It was something deeper, something more unsettling. It was a feeling, a sense of being watched, of being surrounded by unseen eyes. It was the whispers.

They started subtly, a faint rustling at the edge of hearing. At first, I dismissed them as my imagination, the product of the oppressive atmosphere. But they grew louder, more distinct. Words, phrases, snippets of conversations, all jumbled together, all laced with pain.

?No?please??

?They?re coming??

?Help me??

The whispers swirled around me, a cacophony of suffering. I tried to focus on one voice, one story, but they were too many, too intertwined. It was like trying to catch individual raindrops in a storm.

I felt overwhelmed, my melancholia deepening into something darker, something akin to despair. I understood their pain. I felt it as if it were my own. It was a dangerous thing, this empathy. It could drown you if you weren?t careful.

I moved from cell to cell, the whispers growing louder, more insistent. They were in my head now, not just in the air. I could feel their emotions, their fear, their anger, their regret. It was a torrent of human suffering, and I was caught in the middle of it.

In one cell, I found a small, wooden carving hidden beneath a loose floorboard. It was a bird, its wings outstretched, its tiny head bowed. I picked it up, feeling a wave of sadness wash over me. Someone had made this, a small act of defiance, a tiny spark of hope in the face of overwhelming despair.


As I held the carving, the whispers intensified. They were no longer just words; they were images, flashes of memory. I saw a man being beaten, a woman weeping, a child crying. I saw the brutal reality of life in Blackwood Penitentiary.

I closed my eyes, trying to block out the images, the whispers, the pain. But it was no use. They were inside me now, a part of me. I was no longer just an observer; I was a participant.

I stumbled out of the cell, my heart pounding, my breath ragged. I needed to get out of there, before the whispers consumed me completely.

I made my way back to the warden?s office, the whispers chasing me, echoing in my mind. I grabbed my gear, my hands shaking. I wanted to leave, to escape the oppressive atmosphere, the weight of the past.

But as I reached the door, I stopped. I looked back at the prison, at the dark, silent cells. The whispers were still there, swirling around me, but they were different now. They weren?t just cries of pain; they were pleas for help.

I couldn?t leave them. I couldn?t abandon them to their suffering. I knew I couldn?t save them, not really. But I could listen. I could acknowledge their pain. I could let them know that they weren?t forgotten.

I turned back to the prison, my melancholia replaced by a sense of grim determination. I was Elias Thorne, a paranormal investigator. And I was here to listen to the whispers in the wall.

I spent the rest of the night in Blackwood, moving from cell to cell, listening to the stories of the lost souls. I didn?t find any easy answers, no dramatic confrontations with ghostly apparitions. What I found was something far more unsettling: the echo of human suffering, the lingering stain of despair.

As dawn approached, I left Blackwood Penitentiary, the whispers still echoing in my mind. I knew I would never forget them. They were a part of me now, a constant reminder of the darkness that lurks beneath the surface of the world.

I drove away, the prison receding in my rearview mirror. The sun was rising, casting long shadows across the landscape. The world was waking up, but the whispers remained, a constant hum beneath the surface of reality. They were the whispers of the past, and they would never be truly silent.