The North Wing's Silent Lullaby

Florence Frightengale

Welcome, dear listeners, to another shadow-draped episode of the Frightengale Files. I’m Florence Frightengale, and as always, I’m joined by the ever-dramatic Dr. Elijah Blackwood. Elijah, are you ready to step back into the North Wing, or shall I fetch you a lantern and a fainting couch?

Unknown Speaker

Oh, Florence, please. I’ve braved the trenches and the operating theatre—what’s a haunted hospital wing to a man who’s stitched up his own hand? But, er, if you do have a spare lantern, I wouldn’t say no. The North Wing’s darkness is... well, it’s a special sort, isn’t it?

Florence Frightengale

It is indeed. Tonight, we’re unraveling the mysteries sealed within the North Wing—where forgotten staff, spectral patients, and unspeakable experiments converge. If you thought the Gray Lift was unsettling, wait until you hear what’s been humming behind these locked doors.

Unknown Speaker

And if you’re new to our little gathering, don’t worry. We’ll catch you up. But for those who’ve been with us since the bell tolls and the bloodletting choir—well, you know the hospital never truly lets go, does it?

Florence Frightengale

Let’s begin with the letter, shall we? A patient request for psychiatric admission, dated 1972, but postmarked last week. I found it in the hospital’s dead letter box—quite literally, I suspect.

Unknown Speaker

The North Wing’s been sealed for over fifty years. No one will say why. Officially, it was a staff-led quarantine, but the records are... evasive. I’ve asked, believe me. All I ever got was averted eyes and muttered prayers.

Florence Frightengale

Inside the file, there’s nothing but a single line: “We were safer locked in.” Not exactly reassuring, is it?

Unknown Speaker

No, it’s not. It’s the sort of thing that makes you want to turn around and walk the other way. But, as you know, we never do.

Florence Frightengale

Patient 13. The name—or rather, the number—keeps cropping up in old case notes. No medical records, no admission forms, nothing official. Just whispers and references.

Unknown Speaker

Other patients called her “the one who listens.” They claimed she could speak through dreams. I’ve seen similar phenomena, but never so... consistent. And the staff who treated her? Most resigned. Some were institutionalized themselves. It’s as if she was a contagion of the mind.

Florence Frightengale

Or a mirror, perhaps, reflecting what they feared most. I wonder if she ever truly left the ward.

Florence Frightengale

I found a list of planned discharges—patients who were meant to leave the North Wing. None of them did. All died the same night, except for Patient 13.

Unknown Speaker

Patient 13 was scheduled for “external containment.” That’s not a term I’ve seen in any standard protocol. It sounds more like exile than discharge, doesn’t it?

Florence Frightengale

Or a desperate attempt to contain something they couldn’t understand. The North Wing was never about healing, was it?

Unknown Speaker

I stumbled upon a psychiatrist’s office—untouched, as if someone had just stepped out for tea. Dust on the desk, but the air felt... occupied.

Florence Frightengale

And in the desk drawer, dozens of unsigned death certificates. Every name matched a living staff member. It’s as if the office was keeping score, waiting for the right moment to fill in the blanks.

Unknown Speaker

Or the wrong moment, depending on your perspective. I’m not sure which is worse—being forgotten, or being preemptively mourned.

Florence Frightengale

We tried to make rounds, as one does. But the hallway was longer than the blueprints. We passed the same door three times before realizing it was following us, not the other way round.

Unknown Speaker

And the smell—burnt hair and ammonia. I’ve only ever smelled that in operating theatres gone wrong. It’s a warning, I think. Or a memory, refusing to fade.

Florence Frightengale

Or both. In Hollow Hill, warnings and memories are often the same thing.

Florence Frightengale

I found therapy logs with my own handwriting in the margins. Only, I never wrote them. The notes described patients’ fears before they’d even spoken them aloud.

Unknown Speaker

One margin read, “Stop reading. She’s not asleep anymore.” I don’t know if it was a warning for you, or for whoever—or whatever—was listening.

Florence Frightengale

Perhaps both. I’ve always said, the dead have excellent penmanship.

Unknown Speaker

Patient records mention an experimental therapy—meant to “quiet the soul.” One nurse recounted a patient who stopped speaking, and whose shadow no longer moved with her. That’s not medicine. That’s... something else entirely.

Florence Frightengale

The treatment was discontinued, but only after the nurse lost her voice too. It’s a chilling reminder that in Hollow Hill, the cure is often worse than the disease.

Florence Frightengale

A case study showed twelve patients reporting the exact same recurring nightmare. Elijah, it matched memories I’d never spoken aloud. Did it feel familiar to you?

Unknown Speaker

Uncomfortably so. The “smiling woman behind the wall”—I’ve seen her, or something like her, in my own dreams. It’s as if the ward was sharing its nightmares with us, not the other way round.

Florence Frightengale

Or perhaps we were always part of the dream.

Unknown Speaker

A former orderly described a female figure walking behind the mirrors in patient rooms. Patients called her “Mercy,” though no staff by that name ever worked there.

Florence Frightengale

A psychiatrist left a note: “Mercy watches. Mercy waits.” I wonder if she’s the same presence we’ve felt in other parts of the hospital. The one who never blinks.

Unknown Speaker

Or the one who never leaves. I’m not sure which is more unsettling.

Florence Frightengale

Personnel records from the last months before the shutdown show constant staff turnover. Names repeat under different job titles. I even found my own name on a rotation list—dated decades after my death.

Unknown Speaker

That’s the North Wing for you. It keeps its own time, its own staff. Sometimes, I think it keeps its own version of us, too.

Florence Frightengale

A hospital that never lets you clock out. How very Hollow Hill.

Unknown Speaker

On October 13, 1972, every patient in the ward fell silent for eight hours. No one knows why. The only sound recorded was humming—an “unknown lullaby.”

Florence Frightengale

A lullaby for the lost, perhaps. Or a warning for those who remained. Silence can be more terrifying than screams, don’t you think?

Unknown Speaker

Absolutely. Especially when it’s the only thing left.

Florence Frightengale

The head psychiatrist, Dr. Vale, left cryptic notes about a “mirror consciousness.” His last journal entry ends mid-sentence: “It wants to be seen. Not healed. Seen.”

Unknown Speaker

He was never declared dead—just “unavailable for further treatment.” I suppose that’s one way to put it. Or perhaps he simply became part of the ward’s reflection.

Unknown Speaker

We found a storage room with dozens of outdated medications, all labeled for Patient 13. Each vial a different color. One labeled “memory suppressant.”

Florence Frightengale

One dosage was still warm, though the room was cold. It’s as if someone—or something—had just been there. Or never left.

Florence Frightengale

We stumbled into a room lush with vines, growing straight from the walls. Each plant had a tag with a former patient’s name. One root wrapped around my boot and murmured my name. I must say, I prefer roses.

Unknown Speaker

It’s a living archive, in its own way. The hospital keeps its memories rooted deep, doesn’t it?

Unknown Speaker

I started feeling... off. Agitated. I kept misremembering details about my own death. Florence, you said you thought the ward was rewriting our histories. I’m not sure I disagree.

Florence Frightengale

A new file appeared: “Case Study: Subject Blackwood.” I suppose we’re all patients here, eventually.

Florence Frightengale

A blank patient chart began filling itself in, day by day. It matched everything we experienced inside the ward. Then a future date appeared, marked simply: “Transfer complete.”

Unknown Speaker

I don’t like being on someone else’s schedule, Florence. Especially not when I don’t know who’s keeping the chart.

Florence Frightengale

We found uniforms from the 1920s, hanging in pristine condition. Each pocket had a name badge. One said “Frightengale.” I never worked in this ward... or so I thought.

Unknown Speaker

Perhaps you did, in another life. Or perhaps the ward simply remembers you better than you remember yourself.

Unknown Speaker

Patient notes described hallucinations of water filling the ward. My shoes started leaving wet footprints, though I hadn’t stepped in water. Above the doors, a mark: “Swim or sink.”

Florence Frightengale

A test, perhaps. Or a warning. In Hollow Hill, you either adapt—or you drown.

Florence Frightengale

Vivienne Hart’s name was scrawled into a wall in the isolation corridor. I dismissed her for misconduct decades ago—before the ward even opened. She wrote, “She found a home here. Now I live in her place.”

Unknown Speaker

The ward keeps its own records, Florence. Sometimes, it keeps its own ghosts, too.

Unknown Speaker

Patient 13 isn’t just a patient—she’s a vessel. Absorbing fear, memory, identity. I found myself responding to her as if she were my old mentor. It’s... disconcerting.

Florence Frightengale

I looked in the mirror and saw my reflection smiling back—with someone else’s teeth. I think the ward is hungry, Elijah. And it’s learned to feed on us.

Florence Frightengale

We found a hidden document: Hollow Hill Containment Measures. It details how to “pacify a psychic outbreak.” Staff sacrifice, memory disassembly, patient assimilation. It’s not a failure, Elijah. The North Wing succeeded—too well.

Unknown Speaker

That’s the most terrifying part, Florence. The system worked. It just didn’t care who it consumed.

Unknown Speaker

Transfer orders appeared for both of us, listing a new ward: Below. The forms were signed in black wax. Florence, I started to forget what year it was. Or who I was meant to be.

Florence Frightengale

That’s how it begins, isn’t it? The slow erasure. The gentle lullaby of forgetting.

Florence Frightengale

We walked a hallway lined with mirrors. Each one showed us living another life—as patients. I saw myself in restraints. You, Elijah, were grinning behind a clipboard. Neither reflection blinked.

Unknown Speaker

I always thought I’d make a terrible patient. Turns out, I’m an even worse doctor—at least in the mirror’s eyes.

Florence Frightengale

Patient 13 was gone from her room, but her presence was everywhere. The walls pulsed like lungs. Memories collapsed. I realized—we were always part of the treatment.

Unknown Speaker

We thought we were investigating the North Wing, Florence. But perhaps we were only ever patients, waiting for our own diagnosis.

Florence Frightengale

A nurse clocks in at Hollow Hill. Her new assignment: North Wing, Room 13. Her chart notes match my own vital signs. The door clicks shut behind her. And so the cycle continues.

Unknown Speaker

The North Wing never truly empties, does it? There’s always another chart, another patient, another story waiting to be told.

Florence Frightengale

Thank you, dear listeners, for braving the North Wing with us tonight. If you’d like more tales from the haunted halls, visit patreon.com slash FlorenceFrightengale. Your support keeps the lanterns burning and the stories alive.

Unknown Speaker

And remember, the hospital never sleeps—and neither do its ghosts. Until next time, Florence, try not to let the mirrors catch you unawares.

Florence Frightengale

I’ll do my best, Elijah. Goodnight, everyone. May your dreams be quieter than ours.

Unknown Speaker

Goodnight, Florence. Goodnight, listeners. Stay curious—and stay safe.