creepy pasta

It only took her a moment to figure out that this wasn’t where she wanted to be. The paint chipped and wallpaper peeled down as if bowing its head in resignation to the dilapidated state of the facility. She walked gingerly up the hall, dodging the debris that lay scattered across the yellowed laminate floor. An old, rusted wheelchair sat propped against a side door that led to nothing but darkness, as far as she could tell as she passed it. A pair of crutches leaned against the jamb of another door to her right, this one wide open to a room much more visible in the diminishing daylight. She made her way cautiously toward that door, nearly tripping over a loose section of flooring. When she got to the doorway, she peered in and felt her stomach churn with revulsion.

There was a solitary window letting in the sickly, pale yellow sunlight through its dusty pane. The shadows from a tree outside played across the dirty floor and broke up the lazy dance of dust motes in the stale air of the room. Along the far wall was a single, iron bed frame. Long ago, it had been painted a clean, clinical, crisp white; now the bars rusted and chipped, the white long since turned to dusty gray covering the dingy metal. The mattress sitting on it was sagging in the middle, striped and so dirty she couldn’t tell what colors it was originally intended to be. There were rumpled sheets that clearly never fit the thing at all, with a blanket and pillow tossed into the corner of the bed. Under it was the barest shadow of an old suitcase, its leather straps long ago sacrificed to the rot of this humid climate and the neglect of years passed.

In front of the bed, on the floor, was a pair of dusty shoes from a bygone era. They sat cockeyed, as if just slipped off by a young girl or boy whose feet turned inward from some shyness or infirmity. The toes of the shoes nearly touched and the dust made the old leather look soft, between the cracks. She had the impression that if she were to walk over and touch the shoes, they would crumble before her eyes. They certainly added to the smell in the air, of dust and old. She found herself wondering for the first time about the most recent inhabitants of this facility, the rats and spiders and other such creatures. Were they still here? Would they come out to meet her when the light dimmed enough for them to feel safe? She shuddered at the thought.