The Window That Would Not Open

Florence Frightengale

Welcome, dear listeners, to the unlit corridors of Hollow Hill. Here, among the whispers of time, lay the Frightengale Files—audio case reports buried in dust, sealed in resolve, and, most importantly, never meant for your ears.

Unknown Speaker

Graciously described, Florence. But, really—let's be honest—it’s far more than dust or silence that binds these tales. There’s something else, isn’t there? Something… unspeakable.

Florence Frightengale

Oh, quite. These accounts hold more weight than even their dusty leather bindings suggest. They carry the echoes of lives altered—some lost—by forces still unexplained. And now, you, brave listener, have decided to unlock them.

Unknown Speaker

Or, should I say, risk unlocking them? The archives didn’t gain their obscurity for lack of intrigue. They were closed for reasons. Serious ones, I’d wager.

Florence Frightengale

Precisely. It was better when these stories remained unheard. Yet, here we are. The tapes have surfaced, their warnings still intact. As I recall, 'Keep the lights low, the doors locked... and never, ever open the windows.'

Unknown Speaker

And now you've made them your audience. Bold! Just don’t misjudge the grave undertone in Florence's delivery. This isn’t a ghost story breathed to life for amusement—

Florence Frightengale

—It is a deliberate unraveling of truths too eerie for most. Truths we delve into to decipher experiences far beyond the ordinary thresholds of fear and understanding.

Unknown Speaker

Ha! Out with the ordinary, in with the macabre! Startling, isn't it, to think about that single act—the window opened—and everything that followed? You’ve just cracked the surface of what’s to come.

Florence Frightengale

The act of opening a window—simple, yet fraught with meaning. When Oswald Thatch drew his final breath, it wasn't just tradition in 1903; it was a ritual. That window wasn’t merely cracked to let the soul slip away unnoticed—no, it was an invitation, deliberate and perilous, to forces waiting out there in the night.

Unknown Speaker

Except Thatch, being the obstinate devil he was, had strictly other ideas. "I will not go," he said. "I know... what waits outside for me."

Florence Frightengale

Indeed. His voice, cracked and bitter, prophesied doom. 'The other side of the veil,' he rasped, 'is not redemption. It is not peace. It... is teeth and silence and falling endlessly backward.' And then, as if specifically condemning our efforts, he expired.

Unknown Speaker

He cursed the priest too, didn’t he? Raging about giving last rites when, well, the very idea filled him with more terror than the appearance of death itself.

Florence Frightengale

Exactly. Though I doubt the priest took it personally. Thatch was a man calcified by years of cruelty and regret. I wonder now if that was what made him linger. Perhaps malice builds the most solid anchor to this world.

Unknown Speaker

Or mere cowardice. Pure and simple. Ha! Can you imagine, Florence? A man clinging to the rotting shell of his body, choosing decay over—

Florence Frightengale

—Over writhing limbs tangling in darkness? Yes, I believe I can imagine it.

Unknown Speaker

Oho, you’ve seen it, haven’t you? You’ve had a glimpse beyond the threshold.

Florence Frightengale

Once. During a midnight vigil in the Eastern Ward. A patient slipped away, and I, alone with her, followed custom, unfastened the sash lock... and opened the window. But rather than the air lightening, I felt an unbearable weight settle into the space. It was as though the walls themselves held their breath.

Unknown Speaker

And this weight—you’re saying it felt like Thatch’s experience?

Florence Frightengale

In essence. Though I confess this chill was a colder beast. I turned back to the bed, Doctor, expecting peace, yet found her eyes wide open, entirely still—but unseeing. And when I stepped closer, she was already gone. The frost bit more than skin that night. It was... as if something lingered, observing my hesitation.

Unknown Speaker

My word.

Florence Frightengale

I think often of Thatch’s words. Of what he saw waiting beyond his frail body. Perhaps he wasn’t wrong to refuse.

Unknown Speaker

Florence, you spoke of the air shifting—how it seemed to weigh upon the room when you opened the window for her. Can you describe it again? Was it like Thatch, that crushing stillness you felt?

Florence Frightengale

Oh, vividly, Doctor. It was as if the atmosphere recoiled—and yet, drew nearer all at once. Thick, suffocating, alive. You see, after Thatch’s soul refused to leave, the shadows moved differently. Lingering in corners they had no business occupying. Draping over walls like shrouds.

Unknown Speaker

And the... the humming? Let me guess—the humming started the moment the window failed?

Florence Frightengale

Exactly. At first, so faint I doubted myself. But it grew. Pulsed. Rhythmic and haunting, as though carried by something older than language. Strange how sound can weave unease into the very marrow of your bones.

Unknown Speaker

Ha! Florence, tell me you didn’t just sit there and accept it?

Florence Frightengale

Truthfully, Doctor, I had no choice. The hospital moved as it always did—though heavier, slower—and yet, these events seemed to anchor it to something unseen. Then came the disappearance. Edith Rowe.

Unknown Speaker

The humming claimed her, then?

Florence Frightengale

That is unclear. But her absence was highlighted by what remained—her shoes, neatly placed beneath the bed. And on the floor, scrawled in ash: ‘He gave me someone else instead.’

Unknown Speaker

“He”? Thatch himself you think—or something darker using him as a proxy?

Florence Frightengale

The latter feels much closer to the truth. These forces rarely emanate from the human—flawed as we are. Edith vanished for three days, only to reemerge... wrong.

Unknown Speaker

Define “wrong.”

Florence Frightengale

Quiet steps where there once was life. A reflection that followed several seconds too late. And the constant—the maddening—humming under her breath. She wouldn’t answer questions, yet her presence was like Thatch’s shadow stepping through her form.

Unknown Speaker

Fascinating. This permeable line between death and... whatever waits. Something not quite malevolent, but chaotic, lingering in the “in-between.”

Florence Frightengale

Not quite malevolent? Would you say the same if it wore your face to lure the unwary?

Unknown Speaker

I suppose you have a point. It reminds me of a case—when I was a younger man, still learning how medicine and the unknown often intersect. A patient under my care spoke as the sands of time left her finer moments. Her last words were most peculiar: "He hasn’t left yet." Now, as far as I could see, there was no “he,” no spectral entity poised in the air. And yet... her eyes locked onto a corner of the room. Fixed with a terror I could not comfort away.

Florence Frightengale

And did you investigate further?

Unknown Speaker

Not at first, no. Though that image lingered with me—a living footprint on the edge of death’s scythe. It’s a delicate threshold, Florence, this boundary between breath and oblivion.

Florence Frightengale

Delicate, yes. But seldom without consequence once crossed...

Unknown Speaker

all this talk of thresholds and lingering shadows—was it Room 12 where the boundary felt thinnest for you? Where you stood alone, wrestling with the unseen? What did you find there?

Florence Frightengale

Oh, it wasn’t the unseen that unsettled me most. It was what the window offered—a view beyond understanding. A glass pane suddenly alive with motion, rippling as if caressed by darkened waters. It was too fluid to be merely a trick of light.

Unknown Speaker

Rippling glass? Alive, you say? How delightfully unnatural!

Florence Frightengale

Unnatural, certainly. It began with subtle tremors, but as I approached, the glass pulsated violently. And beyond its trembling surface... oh, Doctor, what I saw—

Unknown Speaker

Don’t tell me it was some quaint specter floating about. Spare me the soft horrors!

Florence Frightengale

Hardly quaint. Call it a void alive—a darkness not of emptiness but of teeming torment. I watched limbs emerge, writhing, clawing over each other, as if beckoning for salvation they knew would never come. The depth of it was suffocating, pulling me toward it—as though the abyss itself demanded company.

Unknown Speaker

Ah, so this void... this breathing void you describe, it explains why Thatch clung to his decomposing husk, doesn’t it? Face that or rot in place—I think even I’d hesitate!

Florence Frightengale

Precisely. He chose stagnation over whatever horror lingered in the space beyond. It’s a remarkable feat of fear. To prefer the decay of existence rather than risk the unknown.

Unknown Speaker

Ha! What a choice. But then, there’s Edith Rowe. She didn’t cling, she crossed, didn't she? Only to come back... wrong.

Florence Frightengale

Indeed. Whatever left as Nurse Rowe didn’t entirely return. I watched as her presence unraveled, little by little. She walks softly now, footsteps lighter than ever before. But her reflection—it lags behind her movements, mirroring a second too late. And the lullaby she hums... it chills the air.

Unknown Speaker

A lagging reflection? That, Florence, reeks of possession! The body commandeered but imperfectly synced, the operator unfamiliar with its vehicle. What else could it be?

Florence Frightengale

Or might it not be possession, but her replacement entirely? That shadow behind the glass—those reaching limbs—what if they traded places? Swapped her essence for something Other?

Unknown Speaker

Marvelous proposition! Yet, if it is a replacement, we must ask—was Edith willing? Could her lingering soul have bartered for escape?

Florence Frightengale

That is the cruel irony, isn’t it? If Edith held agency in the exchange, then the lullaby she hums is not a lament—it is a cruel gift from whatever claimed her. A taunt encased in melody.

Unknown Speaker

And what better way to haunt than through sound? You know, Florence, this all aligns intriguingly with other cases I’ve encountered during my medical career—though rarely have I seen it executed with such finesse.

Florence Frightengale

Such finesse, indeed. But finesse, does not make it less monstrous. She walks among us, yes, but her presence births an unmistakable rot. A body preserved, perhaps, yet the soul... displaced. And the question lingers: does she hum because she remembers, or because she was told to?

Unknown Speaker

A displacement of the soul... such a chilling conjecture. And yet, Edith's story, her lullaby, it beckons us to dig deeper—to uncover truths that may unsettle the very foundations of our understanding. Why, then, do we hesitate? What can be more monstrous than the unspoken?

Florence Frightengale

Because some truths, are teeth, hidden in the darkness. Mysteries like these—like Hollow Hill itself—are reflexive. They stare back, reshaping anyone foolish enough to pry too deeply.

Unknown Speaker

It’s more than reshaping, isn’t it? It’s... consuming. How many have you seen fade? Vanish under the weight of their own curiosity?

Florence Frightengale

Enough to understand one thing: there are doors in this world that beg to remain closed. And when opened, no amount of resolve will usher them shut again.

Unknown Speaker

But isn’t that precisely what makes this fascinating? The fragility of the human mind, daring itself to push against such thresholds, even at its own peril?

Florence Frightengale

You would call it daring. I would call it folly. These archives are not warnings for the curious—they’re graves for the reckless. Humming lullabies, whispering shadows, trailing reflections... they are merely preludes to the real horrors that lie just beyond comprehension.

Unknown Speaker

Horrors indeed! And still, I’m captivated by this pull—a gnawing need to understand. Surely, you feel it too? The yearning to unlock what lingers in silence?

Florence Frightengale

I feel it and I resist. There’s nothing heroic in self-destruction masked as discovery. These tapes are warnings, and I hope those listening heed them. For once you glance too long at these shadows, they... start to notice you as well.

Unknown Speaker

And when they do, do we retreat? Or face the consequences of our gaze?

Florence Frightengale

That, Doctor, depends on how dearly you hold your reflection in the mirror. Because the moment you dare too much, even that might refuse to follow.

Unknown Speaker

explain this to me—he didn’t just plead for us to leave the window shut. No, it was more than that, wasn’t it? It was never just the window—it was what waited beyond it, watching and waiting for us to be foolish enough to peer through.

Florence Frightengale

No. The window was merely an understanding—a symbol of something far greater. A glimpse into the unknowable, if you will.

Unknown Speaker

The unknowable being an abyss teeming with tormenting voids, reaching limbs, and exchanged souls. Cheery business, indeed!

Florence Frightengale

Mock it if you wish, but the truth remains: what we face is less about what we see and more about what it sees in us. A reflection of our own daring, our fear… or worse, our willingness to open those doors it beckons us toward.

Unknown Speaker

Ah, reflections—always so deceptive, always watching. And who’s to say? Perhaps they’re only mimicking us until the day they decide to become us. Now that’s a riddle to leave your audience pondering!

Florence Frightengale

If they can still find their reflection at all. Remember, the cost of understanding is not always worth its reward.

Unknown Speaker

And yet, despite your eloquent warnings, Florence, I can't help myself. The pull remains. The thrill of standing at the edge of the unknown... it’s intoxicating.

Florence Frightengale

Then I hope for your sake, and theirs, that your edge does not crumble beneath you. Because, once you step beyond it… returning is no certainty.

Unknown Speaker

Ha! Ever the cryptic egalitarian. But on that ominous note, I suppose we’ve unraveled enough shadows for one night.

Florence Frightengale

Indeed. And to our listeners: heed these warnings, and tread lightly through the corridors of the unknown. Lest your own footsteps begin to lag a second behind.

Unknown Speaker

Or worse... not follow at all.

Florence Frightengale

And with that, dear audience, we leave you to your own reflections. Stay cautious... or curious. The choice is yours.

Unknown Speaker

On that somber note, rest well. And remember, whatever you do—

Florence Frightengale

—Do not open the window.