Welcome back, dear listeners.I am Florence Frightengale—former nurse, and current... lorekeeper of Hollow Hill.The account you’re about to hear has been meticulously reconstructed from archival reports, whispered testimonies, and yes... recent sightings. Things some would rather leave forgotten.But forgotten things have a way of listening, don't they?This is Case File 043—The Cards Never Lie.Proceed with caution.It began, as so many unsettling things do in Hollow Hill, with a sound no one could explain.A winter morning in a locked nursery, no less. And a figure who should’ve never been there.Yes, this particular figure was a woman named Nurse Calloway. Retired, technically, but Hollow Hill......it doesn’t easily relinquish its hold on people.Mmm, especially those who intrigue its peculiar nature.She was a quiet presence, moving about the hospital's forgotten corners. Organizing linens, feeding the ward cats... keeping to the shadows. She was, in essence, invisible.Invisible, yet irreplaceable. A remnant of something untouched——until the veil thinned, as you like to remind me.Indeed. A ghost, but not quite. She kept her kindness intact, even as the hospital itself grew... restless.And on this particular winter morning?She found herself alone in the abandoned nursery, kneeling near the old hearthstone......when she heard crying. An infant’s cry.Crying? From a room locked tight for decades?Precisely. Not the sort of scream one might dismiss as noisy pipes or creaking floorboards. This was unmistakable. Fragile. Unnerving.And rather impossible. Such acoustics defied logical explanation. Was the room inspected later?Oh, it was. But what she found went beyond a mere investigation.Go on.Reaching toward the sound, her hand brushed against the crumbling bricks of the hearth. They gave way, disintegrating beneath her touch...And there, hidden behind the wall... was a child’s burial gown, folded neatly around something.Something?Twenty-two cards. Warm beneath her fingers.Stained, no doubt.And pulsing.A living anomaly sealed in stone. Fascinating... and utterly sinister. Did she keep them?She didn’t scream, Elijah.She didn’t speak at all.Calloway didn’t scream, Elijah. Her fingers lingered on the cards, warm and pulsing as if alive, daring her to question—what spirit could anchor itself so profoundly?No shock? No terror? Surely the discovery would have unsettled her.You’d think. But no. She simply... sat. And then she drew.Drew? As in—One card. One solitary card.And what did it reveal?Ah, no one knows. She claimed she couldn’t remember. But... she said it saw her.Saw her? A deck of cards. Seeing someone. It's—Not rational? You’ve said as much before.It defies logic. Things don’t... look back. The mind must’ve played tricks on her. But the changes in her after that morning were undeniable.Changes?She stopped speaking altogether. Forever.Muteness, induced by trauma perhaps?Oh, it wasn’t mere trauma. It was a pact.A pact? Explain.Her silence wasn’t empty. It was power. Her presence changed too—sharp, unnerving, like the air before a lightning strike.And this... shift, it manifested how?She began leaving cards beneath the pillows of dying patients. Just one. Always face-down.For what purpose?No one knows. But by morning, the cards—and the patients—were gone.Gone? Without explanation? Or witnesses?Exactly. It’s as though the cards and death worked in unison. A dance no one dared interrupt.Fascinating. But it only raises more questions.Questions we may never answer.If I recall correctly, Dr. Whitcombe was the first to openly explore the cards' enigmatic allure, wasn’t he?Yes. A man of science, logic, and... unbearable grief.Grief? What happened to him?His wife had just given birth to a stillborn. A quiet sorrow settled over him, as if he’d been swallowed whole.And yet, he sought counsel from a deck of cards. Hardly the rational approach of a man of medicine, wouldn’t you say?Grief rarely heeds the bounds of reason, Elijah.Fair point. So, what did he ask?He asked if he'd ever find joy again.And the card?The Empress. Reversed.A symbol of... corruption, isn’t it?Corruption, sterility... a promise broken, turned sour.And what followed?Two weeks later, he was found in the linens room. Cradling a bundle of soaking cloth, rocking it gently, whispering sweet nothings.Wait—are you implying he thought it was...?"There, there, love," he said. "You’ll wake your mother."Good heavens...No one dared intervene. Except... one brave nurse.And what became of her?She was found later. Twisted in the laundry chute. Cold. Blue.And the card?Still reversed. Tucked in her uniform pocket.So the cards punish those who resist?Not punish. They fulfill. Whether you desire it or not.And then, as if emboldened by its dark promises, the deck began to whisper to others, didn’t it?It did. A faint hum at first, like the murmur of restless dreams.Dreams—or something far less benign. And those who dared to draw from it?One nurse drew The Hanged Man. She stopped speaking entirely, staring at the ceiling as though waiting for the heavens to part... until the day her pulse faded.Compelling. She became ensnared by this figurative suspension, then succumbed. Was that the intention of the card itself? One can only speculate. And then there was the nurse who drew Death.Ah yes, transformation, not literal demise—although in Hollow Hill, that distinction blurs.Indeed. She laughed when she drew it, saying, "It means transformation." The next morning, Elijah... she arrived without fingerprints.Without fingerprints? You're suggesting...?She had shed herself. Completely. Cleanly. Hollow Hill doesn’t interpret transformation lightly.Absurd... and yet, absurdity seems to be the hallmark of these occurrences. Tell me, did the staff stop engaging with the deck after these incidents?Oh, quite the opposite. They begged for readings, craving answers, desperate to glimpse what the cards might unveil.Naivety. Did they not grasp the inherent peril?They misunderstood entirely. They thought the cards revealed the future. They couldn’t grasp the truth.And what truth is that?The cards don’t read your fate...They summon it.That is... a chilling distinction.Yes, and one they learned far too late.And yet, Florence, even amidst such revelations, we must turn to another case. This brings us to Maribel Dunn, does it not?Indeed. The wandering nurse with no papers and far too much knowledge for comfort.A peculiar figure. What’s known of her origins?Very little. She appeared during a typhoid outbreak in 1907, offering her services without credentials. Yet her skill and demeanor were enough to silence questions—at least at first.And she claimed to... guide souls?Through the veil, yes. She said the line between life and death was thin, and she could thread it like a needle.A bold assertion. Did anyone take her seriously?Not in the beginning. But Maribel had a way of knowing things—or causing them. When a child’s fever broke after she whispered in their ear, or when a dying man’s heartbeat steadied as she placed her hand over his chest... well, skepticism began to waver.Superstition has a way of taking root in desperate places.And few places were more desperate than Hollow Hill.Curious. When did the suspicions begin?Oh, they always lingered. But nothing surfaced until Sister Gallara drew The Tower, the card of collapse and harrowing revelations.A card infamous for chaos and upheaval.Exactly. The Sister screamed. Accused Maribel of cursing the very bones of Hollow Hill. And she wasn’t alone in her fury.Let me guess—they sought retribution?Retribution, punishment... justice, as they called it. They dragged Maribel to the incinerator room, where the fires burned hottest.And they burned her alive?They did. Her screams filled the west wing. And by that night... so did the flames.The fires consumed the hospital?The west wing, yes. It became ash and smoke, as though the veil itself broke apart in vengeance.And yet the deck survived?Untouched. Not a single scorch mark upon it. Found later beneath the ashes, perfectly preserved.Impossible.And yet... entirely in keeping with Hollow Hill’s grim truths.Maribel's end was no ordinary death. The cards somehow clung to her memory, didn’t they?They did. And they’ve never stopped whispering since.They tried to contain it, of course. The rational response to such a phenomenon. But Hollow Hill, as we’ve come to understand, does not bow to ordinary logic.Oh, they tried everything, Elijah. Fire, burial, locks, glass... nothing worked.Define 'nothing,' if you would. Surely, some methods showed promise?They burned the cards to ash. The deck reassembled itself by morning. Buried it beneath consecrated ground, only for it to unearth itself weeks later.Un... unearthed itself? Surely some outside force was responsible—No force stronger than its own will, Elijah. Even locked behind glass in the most secure vaults, it rebelled. By dawn, every attempt to uphold containment had failed.And what of those tasked with containment? Surely, their resolve faltered as well.Dr. Harrow Glass was no stranger to impossible cases. He ventured where others feared to tread, using monitors and probes to study the deck’s... influence.Monitors? Bold. And the results?Tragedy. Five subjects driven mad. Two nurses... unwilling to ever speak again. And one patient——What became of them?He bit off his tongue after drawing The High Priestess.Good heavens.The janitor refused to re-enter the vault after what he claimed he saw one night.And what did he see?The Devil... wink.Surely not.He quit the next morning. Shaking. Hollow-eyed. He hasn't spoken to anyone since.It seems nothing and no one escapes unscathed.Speaking of those who bear its shadow, Nurse Calloway… she still lingers in Hollow Hill, doesn’t she?Oh, she does, Elijah. Her white shoes never make a sound, no matter how long the corridors stretch or how empty the wards fall.A silent specter, roaming the halls as if still tethered to her duties. Remarkable.Her lips never move either, except to mouth names.Names? Of colleagues? Patients, perhaps?No... of those who haven’t died yet.Are you suggesting she predicts their—She doesn’t predict. She knows. And when she appears by their bed, humming that unfamiliar lullaby......It’s like she’s marking them, isn’t it?Marking, preparing, guiding... perhaps all three. Those who wake to find her humming rarely escape.And if someone defies her—or tries to intervene?No one dares anymore. Not since the nurse who tried...What happened?She was found... twisted beneath a gurney, cold as the air in Room 17.Room 17 again... That accursed room.It seems even Calloway fears no place, Elijah. And she doesn’t stop humming. Ever.So, Florence, it raises a striking point—why is the deck still here? After everything it has caused, surely someone must have acted to remove it from Hollow Hill entirely.Oh, Elijah, they've tried. More times than anyone cares to count. Burned it to a crisp. Buried it in consecrated ground. Locked it behind reinforced steel and glass.And yet...?And yet the deck always returns. Ashes reform, roots unearth, locks—...fail.So, it’s not just haunting Hollow Hill; it is Hollow Hill, in the truest sense?Precisely. It has seeped into the very bones of this place. The bloodstained tiles, the bassinet carvings, the laughter wafting from the ventilation shafts—it’s all connected, Elijah.And you believe the deck feeds off this connection?Not feeds, Elijah. Hungers.Hungers? That’s quite the metaphor. Or... not a metaphor at all, perhaps?It’s no metaphor. The deck doesn’t observe from the shadows; it decides. You don’t draw it to glimpse your fate, Elijah.The deck draws you.A deeply unsettling idea. But why keep it? Why not—Why not try again? Why not destroy it... or leave it to rot? Because that’s never an option. It remains because it is destined to remain.Destined by whom, or what?By the town, Elijah. By Hollow Hill itself. It’s as much a part of this place as its foundations, its shadows, its whispers. It decides who stays, who falls, who disappears into silence.And the deck's endurance—hollow resilience—it’s as if it ensures its own survival. A manipulative predator masquerading as an oracle.Yes. And it doesn’t merely read your fate, Elijah. It threads it together, one card at a time.Like a cruel weaver, dictating patterns no soul can escape.Precisely. And once the thread’s been pulled......there’s no going back.And so, Elijah, the deck remains—its hunger unyielding, its purpose immutable. Perhaps one day, its secrets will unravel, but for now, dear listeners, we close the pages on Case Report 043—The Cards Never Lie.Case Report 043—The Cards Never Lie. A story as enigmatic as the deck itself, wouldn’t you say?Indeed. The deck’s persistence is as ceaseless as the cries that haunt these halls.One can’t help but speculate—if such a thing chooses its keepers, do we remain untouchable? Or are we merely waiting for our card to be drawn?A question better left unanswered, for those who seek such knowledge often find it to be their undoing.A poetic warning, as always.Not a warning. A reminder. Because at Hollow Hill, nothing forgotten is ever truly gone.To those listening, mind the darkness...And remember: the deck doesn’t just reveal your fate. It decides it.An unsettling thought to carry into the quiet hours.This has been Case Report 043—The Cards Never Lie.And if ever you hear a shuffle in the dark......or feel the soft brush of a card beneath your pillow...Do not turn it over.Because at Hollow Hill...You don’t choose the deck.The deck chooses you.

Episodes

The Cards Never Lie