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“Well, as you can see, I’m standing in, I guess, the lobby, and nothing’s come to kill me. Yet.” The image on the smartphone’s screen blurred as he turned around to pan around the room, ultimately catching very little of the environment in favor of dust and darkness, his phone’s light and his other small flashlight not doing much to aid his phone camera’s already shoddy quality. “Man, this feels stupid.”
Harry came to a halt, allowing his camera to focus on what was at one time the foyer of Hogwarts Asylum, one of the most infamous mental institutions of the 20th century. Now the room was a shamble of its former self. Dust thickly coated the floors and the dilapidated desk in the middle of the room, disturbed only by the old footprints of animals and what must have been stupid teenagers who came to explore after accepting a stupid dare from their friends. Like him.
Not that he was particularly frightened of this shell of Hogwarts Asylum, one of the most infamous haunted locations of the 21st century. Harry didn’t believe that there were any ghosts or ghouls lurking about the abandoned hallways, but he also wasn’t too keen on being by himself in an abandoned building out in the middle of nowhere til his friends came back to fetch him at sunrise. Who knew what kind of animals--or even other people--could be living in the building now. Not to mention the fact that he was definitely not going to get any sleep tonight.
Alas, if he could go back in time to approximately two hours ago when slightly tipsy Harry accepted the dare from his equally tipsy friends to stay all night in Hogwarts Asylum, he’d kick past Harry’s ass. And probably ruin the Halloween party in the process.
“I guess I’ll just explore the first floor for now.” Once again, the image quality of his phone’s video tanked as he started down one of the hallways. His friends insisted he take video as proof of his exploration, probably hoping he’d be able to catch a ghost during his stay. They’d just have to deal with the severe lack of definition. “Dunno how much I trust the stairs…” Harry tapered off into a mumble. Even though he didn’t think he’d alarm any ghosts by talking too loud, it did feel wrong to interrupt the overbearing silence of the building. The sound of his footsteps echoing off the walls did enough to disturb the atmosphere.
There were a few rooms down this hallway, but none featured anything interesting. Some had been completely gutted, while a few still contained remnants of desks and chairs. Probably offices, if he’d had to guess. Graffiti was painted over the walls and floors every so often, some of which he was able to catch in his video. “GET OUT.” “J <3 L 1998.” “REDRUM.” “STAY IN THE LIGHT.” “MORSMORDRE.” As well as more than a few dicks and a lovingly rendered skull with a snake crawling out of its mouth. Harry liked the last image, though it did feel as if it were trying a bit too hard to be creepy.
“I hope you guys are having more fun than me right now,” Harry spoke lowly into his phone as he wandered closer towards the end of this hallway. He could imagine everyone else back at the party, probably getting shitfaced and watching dumb B-horror flicks without him. What he wouldn’t give right now to be wedged between his friends on a sofa under a nice, warm blanket, laughing at horrible monster effects and dumb jumpsca-- “AH!”
A loud BANG echoed through the hallway behind him as Harry yelped and whirled around, flashlight beam frantically flitting around the hallway he’d just come from. All was still. Only dust floating about the stale air and the lone trail of footprints leading to him disturbed the scene. It was probably just an animal--his friends would get a kick out of his fright later, surely. But still… “Hello?” Harry felt like the protagonist of a horror movie in that moment, calling out to their doom. The difference being that there wasn’t a demon lurking down the hallway. Or a psycho killer. Hopefully. “Er, if I’m not talking to myself right now, could you come out? I promise I’m not a serial killer or anything.”
“How encouraging.”
Harry let out a scream as he whirled around once more to find himself nearly face to face with a man. Harry stumbled back a few steps, nearly dropping his phone, heart threatening to beat out of his chest from the adrenaline. “Holy shit.” Harry tried to take a few deep breaths to steady himself as he focussed on the stranger. He didn’t expect anyone to actually be there! Who the hell came to an abandoned asylum in the middle of the night? Well. Aside from himself.
“My apologies. I didn’t mean to scare you like that.” The young man in front of him sounded sincere enough, though he didn’t look very apologetic. “I didn’t think you’d react so violently. You were calling out for someone, after all.”
“Yeah, well. I didn’t think anyone was actually here.” Harry couldn’t keep the slight edge out of his voice, though he wasn’t as spooked as before. He felt that it was fair to be wary of a stranger in the middle of an abandoned asylum in the dead of night, but. To be frank, the man was rather handsome. Though the light of Harry’s flashlight didn’t do him any favors, the man didn’t need any; his dark hair was artfully arranged, and his aristocratic features and high cheekbones contrasted with the shadows thrown on his face by the meager light. Harry found himself subconsciously relaxing and getting flustered at having made a fool of himself simultaneously. “I mean, how many people just go wandering around abandoned buildings in the middle of the night.”
The stranger simply raised an eyebrow, as if to say ‘you do, apparently.’
“Uh, my friends dared me to come spend the night here, so. I don’t really believe in ghost stories so I didn’t think it would be a big deal, but now I’m practically stuck here all night and it’s pretty boring, and kinda spooky regardless, and…” Harry trailed off from his rambling, having felt the need to explain himself and now feeling rather silly about it. “And cold.” He hadn’t noticed it before, but he was shivering a little. “What brings you here?”
The man looked amused at his babbling. “You aren’t the first one to trespass here on a dare.” His eyes flicked down to Harry’s phone, still recording. “Hunting for ghosts.”
Harry had almost forgotten about the video. “My friends wanted proof that I didn’t just sit in the foyer the whole time. Probably are also hoping for some ghost footage, yeah.” He shrugged. “I don’t put much stock into it, myself. I can stop recording, though, if you’d like…?” Harry was mildly reluctant to stop recording, but he also didn’t want to make the guy uncomfortable.
“It’s alright,” He seemed to consider something for a moment before a sly smirk crossed his face. “I know my way around this place fairly well. How about I show you the most ‘active’ areas? I’m sure your friends would like to see, and it would be less boring than going round talking to yourself. Unless you’d rather do that?”
Harry was surprised by the offer, and even more surprised by the fact that the man claimed to know his way around. Did he come here often? Must be an occult enthusiast or something. But anyway, walking together seemed like a much better time than lurking about on his own for who knew how much longer. “No, I mean, yeah, it’d be great if you could show me around.”
The man’s teeth showed in his grin. “Don’t worry. I’ll be with you the entire time.” He must’ve also been lonely in here. “Come along, then,” he said as he passed Harry, heading back towards the foyer. “Not much to see down this hallway. Very few interesting things happen here.”
Harry caught up to the man so that he was walking beside him, his lone flashlight beam keeping the two of them from walking in the dark. “So, do you come here often, if you know it well? And, uh, my name’s Harry, by the way,” he awkwardly tacked on, hoping this would also prompt the other man to give his name. It just felt weird to hang out with someone whose name he didn’t know.
“Tom,” the other replied, thankfully. “And I suppose you could say that. It seems as if I’ve spent years here.”
Harry didn’t quite know how to respond to that, but thankfully he didn’t have to.
“The history of this place is fascinating, if you’re interested in the macabre. I can see why it gets so many visitors. Do you know much about it?”
“I can’t say that I do. Like I said, I’m not really into ghost stories.”
“Ghosts aside, there are plenty of other horror stories involving Hogwarts Asylum.” They arrived back in the lobby. Harry followed Tom up the stairs to the balcony overlooking the foyer, making sure to catch the view with his phone. Tom’s silhouette appeared in the video for just a moment, a flash of white in the otherwise oppressive darkness. “Bureaucratic greed shoulders most of the blame. Sadism, the rest.”
Harry followed Tom down the hallway as he continued, “Back in the day, there weren’t many regulations regarding asylums. Even if there were, the municipal government couldn’t be arsed to waste their resources on the crazies. So pretty much anything went here, for a while.” Harry didn’t expect to get a history lesson when he agreed to this, but it was interesting regardless. Tom seemed sure of himself as he spoke. He must’ve been pretty passionate about this place.
The rooms they passed were barely more furnished than those downstairs. These were probably bedrooms, as they contained the remains of broken-down bed frames and a few moldy blankets. “The rooms were horribly cramped. Too many people. Even if there was space, they just threw whoever in with each other, so fights broke out often. The orderlies gave up trying to stop them, eventually. A few people died that way.” Though he knew of the place’s reputation, Harry felt a chill at the matter-of-fact tone with which Tom described the conditions of this place.
“And here,” they came to a stop in front of a rusty metal door. It felt...different from the other rooms they’d passed. “This room is a favorite of visitors. Care to guess why?”
“Er,” Harry was caught off-guard at being addressed in the middle of what had been Tom’s monologue, “this room is supposed to be more haunted than the others? It seems like some sort of solitary confinement, maybe.”
Tom nodded, and silently nodded toward the door, encouraging Harry to open it. He didn’t know why Tom didn’t just do it himself, but he lightly pressed the hand holding the flashlight to the door anyway. Old paint flaked off and stuck to his hand, but the door didn’t budge. With more effort, the door dragged open, scraping the floor and hinges squealing.
The room was smaller than the others, windowless and completely cement. It was nearly empty save for a chain bolted into the far wall and suspicious stains on the floor. Despite himself, Harry shuddered as he made sure to capture the room on video. He felt like he shouldn’t be in there, felt like he should turn right around and walk away. And he would have had he not felt Tom’s presence at his back, urging him a couple steps further in the room, contrary to the wishes of his now pounding heart.
“You feel it, don’t you,” Tom spoke lowly right next to his ear, causing the hair on the back of his neck to stand upright. It wasn’t a question. “You feel the need to get out, right now, escape from this room and never look back. The feral impulse of flight, to flee. But you can’t. Imagine, being chained to the wall in this small, cold, dark room for days and days. No sound, save for the beating of your own heart. No sight, save for whatever tricks your eyes play on you. No company, save for whatever your mind conjures up for you. Usually not very kind things.” Harry felt himself inching further and further into the room against his will, eyes trained on the beam of his flashlight which seemed to get narrower and narrower, darker, darker--
BANG
For the third time that night, Harry screamed and turned on his heel, swinging his flashlight in front of him, heart in his throat and pounding so loudly it’s a wonder he’d been able to hear anything else at all,
Only to find Tom standing a few feet outside the doorway, looking at him with concern. “Are you alright?”
He-Harry could’ve sworn Tom had been right behind him as he spoke. He scrambled out of the claustrophobic room, clutching his chest as he tried to calm his heart rate. “Y-yeah, I just…” He really didn’t know how to explain himself, and was starting to feel silly about getting so worked up over what was just a room. “Did you hear that noise? I, I’d heard one earlier, but I thought it was just you.”
Tom shook his head. “It wasn’t me.” He didn’t elaborate. “Come, I’ll show you something else of interest.”
Still quaking like a leaf, Harry wasn’t too sure he wanted to follow. But he definitely didn’t want to be left alone, either. He didn’t look back as he hurried to catch up to Tom.
“Solitary confinement was enough to drive anyone insane, if it didn’t kill them,” Tom continued his speech as they went downstairs and toward the hallway Harry hadn’t gone down. “But the basement is where even worse atrocities happened.”
“Basement?” Harry would never admit that he practically squeaked out the word. “I mean. We don’t have to go down there, surely?”
“I thought you weren’t afraid of ghosts, Harry? But no, we don’t have to go down there,” he gave Harry a sly look from the corner of his eye, “if you’re too scared.”
An appeal to the same bravado that brought him to this building in the first place. Harry was pissed that it worked. He didn’t want to go down to the basement, but he would just to prove that there wasn’t anything to be afraid of. Earlier was just a fluke.
Tom seemed to sense that he’d given in. “Don’t worry. I’ll be with you the entire time.”
Before Harry could react to that, he continued. “I’ll spare you the gory details. But gross negligence isn’t the only crime the head of the asylum is guilty of.” They came to a half-open door leading to some stairs downward. Tom slid though, and after a moment’s hesitation, so did Harry.
“Hogwarts was eventually closed when an expose was published on the horrors going on here,” while Tom had seemed to have no issue speaking normally upstairs, he took on a hushed tone as they descended. As if he didn’t want someone else to hear. “The living conditions and the torture of solitary confinement would’ve been bad enough to make public. But the worst of it was the rituals that would take place in the morgue.”
“Excuse me, rituals? In the morgue?” It seemed too cliche and outlandish to have actually occurred.
Tom nodded. “I know how it sounds. But it was more convenient that way. You wouldn’t have to drag a body all the way down there after you were done with it. Alternatively, you had bodies on hand, should you find yourself in need.” Harry was once again chilled by Tom’s blase tone. How long had they been walking down these stairs for?
“The head of Hogwarts was trying to summon something here, using the bodies of those that society had forgotten. Dumbledore.” Tom nearly hissed the name, voice dripping with hatred. That word alone was nearly scarier than what Tom had been whispering to him upstairs. Harry’s pulse quickened. “He might’ve been trying to summon the Devil. A god. Maybe Death itself. I don’t know.”
Finally, they stepped off the last stair and faced a nondescript door. Tom looked at Harry expectantly. He once again reached out with the hand grasping the flashlight, and slowly pushed it open.
“I don’t know. Because the thing that showed up is much worse than any of those.”
Harry was frozen in place at the sight of the grotesque creature in front of him. His phone slipped through his grasp as he was forcibly driven further into the room by Tom at his back. The creature’s elongated limbs cracked as it shuffled towards him, and he could only stare into its blood red eyes and gaping maw. While he looked his death in the face, Tom whispered in his ear. “Don’t worry. I’ll be with you the entire time.”
Harry’s fate was sealed as the basement door closed behind them with a final BANG.