The Rotunda’s Vigil

It was during my final year of medical school, three years after we had moved into the old carriage house on the grounds of the abandoned St. Emeric’s Asylum. My younger brother, Theo, and I had grown used to the creaking floors and the faint smell of decay that clung to the walls. Our parents, both foreign correspondents, were rarely home, and we had the place to ourselves. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but I had a healthy respect for the dark.

My routine was rigid: up at four, coffee, then hours of study at my desk by the window. At six, Theo and I would walk to the overgrown garden to pick rosemary for our mother’s occasional visits, though we mostly just enjoyed the morning air. One particular morning, I was lying on the floor, my textbook open beside me, staring at the ceiling to rest my eyes. The ceiling fan was off; I was certain, because I had switched it off before lying down. But then, with a soft click, the blades began to turn. Slowly at first, then faster, until they were a blur. I froze, staring, not daring to move. The fan hummed a low, mournful note that seemed to vibrate in my chest.

I told my parents over the phone that evening, but they dismissed it as a wiring issue. I tried to believe them, but the fan turned on again the next morning. And the next. Each time, the same slow start, the same hum, and then a faint scent of old perfume and something metallic that I couldn’t place. I started sleeping with the lights on, and I avoided the ceiling, but the feeling of being watched grew stronger.

One night, unable to sleep, I wandered into the attic. The stairs groaned, and the air was thick with dust. In a corner, half-buried under a tarp, was a wooden crate. Inside, I found a diary and a small, rusted pendant. The diary belonged to a nurse named Elara, who had worked at the asylum in the 1920s. Her writing was frantic, full of references to ‘the rotunda’ and ‘the patients who never left.’ She wrote of a night when she heard chanting from the asylum’s central rotunda, and when she went to investigate, she saw figures in white robes performing rituals over the graves. The last entry was dated a week before the asylum shut down: ‘They are waiting for the seventh cycle. The fan is the key, and the pendant is the lock.’

I showed the pendant to Theo, and we decided to explore the rotunda, hoping to find answers. The building was a crumbling shell, its windows like hollow eyes. The rotunda was a vast circular hall with a mosaic floor depicting a spiral pattern. In the center, there was a pedestal with a recess shaped exactly like the pendant. My hands trembled as I placed the pendant into the recess. A deep rumble shook the floor, and the spiral began to glow with a sickly green light. The air grew cold, and I could hear whispers, not in words but in feelings: longing, rage, and a desperate hunger.

The ground split open, revealing a staircase descending into darkness. We descended, and at the bottom was a vast underground chamber filled with rows of iron beds, each occupied by a withered, mummified corpse. They were arranged in a circle around a massive, ancient fan, its blades crusted with rust. The fan was humming, slowly rotating, and as it picked up speed, the corpses began to twitch. Their mouths opened, and from them came a sound like a choir of the damned, an unearthly harmony that resonated with my bones.

I realized then that the fan I had seen in my room was a conduit, a link to this place, and by activating the pendant, I had triggered a ritual that had been waiting for the ‘seventh cycle.’ The asylum had been built over an older, darker site, and the rituals had kept something imprisoned. Now, we had let it out.

The chant grew louder, and the fan spun so fast it began to blur. The corpses rose, their joints cracking, and they turned their hollow faces toward us. I grabbed Theo’s arm, and we fled, scrambling up the stairs, out of the rotunda, and across the grounds. We didn’t stop until we were back in our house, panting, the pendant still clutched in my fist.

That night, I heard the fan start again, but this time it wasn’t in my room. It was in the hallway, the kitchen, everywhere. The humming was everywhere. I looked out the window and saw figures standing in the garden, their eyes glowing faintly. The pendant grew warm, then hot, and I knew that the cycle was not over. It had just begun.

We haven’t left the house since. The fan runs constantly, and the shadows move on their own. Sometimes, I catch glimpses of faces pressed against the windows, and I know they are waiting. The diary said that the ritual would release them, but it also said that the seven cycles would bring a new warden. I think I was chosen to be that warden, but not to guard them. No, to become one of them. The fan hums a lullaby, and as I write these lines, I feel my skin tightening over my bones, and my mind slowly unraveling. The rotunda’s vigil is eternal, and now, so is mine.