The Man In Room 9

1 — THE HOSPITAL Every night at exactly 11:00 PM, Dr. Elias Vane walked through the iron gates of Ravenhill Psychiatric Hospital. The hospital was old, isolated, and almost forgotten by the outside world. Its corridors smelled of dust, medicine, and something older. Elias had worked there for three months. There was only one patient he visited every night. Room 9. 2 — ROOM 9 The patient never spoke. He sat beside a small wooden table beneath a single flickering lamp. His name was never written in the hospital records. Everyone simply called him The Man in Room 9 . Every night, Elias sat across from him. And every night, the patient drew. He never looked at Elias while drawing. He never explained what the drawings meant. He simply placed each finished picture on the table. 3 — THE FIRST DRAWING On the fourth night, Elias saw something strange. The drawing showed a man standing inside an elevator. The man was Elias. But in the drawing, he was lying dead on the floor. His neck was twisted at an impossible angle. Elias stared at it. Then he looked at the patient. The patient continued drawing. As if nothing had happened. 4 — THE SECOND DRAWING The following night, there was another drawing. This time, Elias was lying in one of Ravenhill's corridors. Blood covered his white coat. The drawing was incredibly detailed. Even the small silver watch on Elias's wrist was there. The same watch Elias was wearing. Elias asked: "How did you know?" The patient didn't answer. He only turned the paper over. On the back was a date. Tomorrow. 5 — THE THIRD DRAWING Elias stopped sleeping. Every night, another drawing appeared. A different death. A different place. A different version of him. The bathtub. The staircase. The basement. The hospital garden. None of them had happened. Not yet. Elias began avoiding the places shown in the drawings. But somehow, the drawings kept changing. As if they were following him. 6 — THE PATTERN Elias secretly collected every drawing. There were seventeen. He spread them across his office floor. Then he noticed something. The drawings weren't random. They were telling a story. In every picture, Elias appeared alone. And in every picture... the patient was somewhere nearby. Sometimes reflected in a window. Sometimes standing at the end of a corridor. Sometimes hidden in the shadows. Elias had never noticed him before. Until now. 7 — THE EMPTY ROOM One night, Elias entered Room 9 at 11:00 PM. The chair was empty. The patient was gone. The door had never been opened. The window was sealed. There was no possible way he could have left. Elias approached the table. A blank sheet of paper lay beneath the lamp. Then, slowly... a line appeared. Then another. The patient was drawing. But there was nobody holding the pencil. Elias stepped backward. The door slammed shut behind him. 8 — THE LAST DRAWING The next night, the patient was sitting in his chair again. Exactly where he had always been. Elias entered cautiously. The patient looked at him. For the first time... he smiled. Then he began drawing. Elias watched the pencil move across the paper. This time, there was no dead body. No blood. No coffin. No hospital corridor. Instead, the patient drew the entire hospital. From the outside. Ravenhill Psychiatric Hospital stood beneath a black sky. And in front of the entrance stood Elias. Alive. 9 — THE HOSPITAL Elias stared at the drawing. Something was wrong. There was someone standing behind him. The patient. Elias slowly turned around. Nobody was there. He looked back at the drawing. The patient was still there. Standing directly behind the illustrated version of Elias. Then Elias noticed something else. The building in the drawing wasn't Ravenhill as it looked today. It was older. Much older. And above the entrance was another name. RAVENHILL ASYLUM — 1957. 10 — THE QUESTION Elias turned toward the patient. "Who are you?" Silence. "Why are you drawing me?" Nothing. Elias stepped closer. "How do you know how I'm going to die?" The patient finally raised his head. His eyes met Elias's. And for the first time in three months... he spoke. His voice was barely a whisper. "You were never the doctor." Elias froze. 11 — ROOM 9 The lights went out. When they came back on... Elias was sitting in the patient's chair. He looked down. He was wearing a hospital gown. His hands were trembling. Across the room, another man stood wearing Elias's white coat. The man carried a medical file. He opened the door. A small brass plaque beside it read: ROOM 9. The man walked inside. He looked at Elias. "Good evening, Doctor." Elias tried to answer. But he couldn't speak. He looked down at the table. A pencil was already waiting for him. 12 — THE DRAWING The next morning, the new doctor found a drawing on the table. It showed a man sitting inside Room 9. Underneath it was a single sentence. TONIGHT, HE REMEMBERS. The doctor looked at Elias. Elias stared back at him. Silent. Motionless. Then he picked up the pencil. And began drawing. Outside the room, the clock struck 11:00 PM . The cycle began again.