The Salt Wind Ward

The hospital sat at the edge of Barangay Malabinas, a skeletal concrete structure whose paint had long since surrendered to the salt-laden air. Its windows faced the sea, and on still nights, the sound of waves rolled through the hallways like a patient breath. I was assigned to the evening shift, 4 p.m. to midnight, and the nurse’s station was a cramped alcove guarded by a poster of a smiling child holding a vaccine vial. The place was understaffed, the lights hummed a low buzz, and the air carried the sour smell of antiseptic mixed with brine.

My name is Amara. I was a third-year nursing student then, sent here from Baguio to fulfill my two-week rotation. The staff was small—a head nurse named Mang Cesar, who smelled of tobacco and mint, and two aides who rarely spoke. The patients were mostly fishermen with injuries from the boats or old folks recovering from strokes. On the second night, I noticed something odd: an old woman in Room 4, bed 2, always had her window open despite the cold. Her name was Lola Ising, and she had been admitted for fatigue and weight loss. She would sit up at night, staring at the sea, whispering to herself in a dialect I couldn’t fully understand.

That night, I decided to do my rounds early. The corridor was dim, with only the emergency exit lights glowing like small angry eyes. Room 4’s door was ajar, and I heard a rhythmic creak, like a rocking chair. I pushed it open slowly. Lola Ising was not in her bed. The window was wide open, and the white curtains billowed inward, heavy with mist. The floor was wet, as if someone had walked in from the sea. I called out, ‘Lola Ising?’ No answer. I stepped closer to the window, and from the corner of my eye, I saw a shape in the water—a figure standing waist-deep in the waves, facing the hospital. It had long, stringy hair, and it seemed to be pointing at me. I stumbled back, my heart pounding, but when I blinked, the figure was gone.

I ran to the nurse’s station to report it, but Mang Cesar just laughed. ‘Ah, you saw the Salt Wind Ward’s visitor,’ he said, not looking up from his logbook. ‘Don’t mind her. She only comes for those who are close to the sea.’ He refused to say more. I tried to dismiss it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. The next day, I learned that Lola Ising had been found wandering on the beach at dawn, soaked and confused. She kept muttering, ‘She’s coming for the boy.’ The boy was a young patient, a fourteen-year-old named Boyet, who had been admitted with a severe infection after a diving accident. He was in Room 2, right next to Lola Ising.

On my third night, I was assigned to watch over Boyet because his fever had spiked. The room was small, and the constant hum of the fluorescent light drove me mad. I sat in the corner, trying to study, but my thoughts kept returning to the figure in the water. At around 10 p.m., Boyet stirred. His eyes fluttered open, and he stared at the door. ‘She’s here,’ he whispered. I stood, my skin crawling. ‘Who?’ I asked. He didn’t answer, just pointed to the window. I turned, and there, pressed against the glass, was a pale face—dripping wet, with black eyes that had no whites. It smiled, a thin, lipless grin. I screamed, but the face vanished. The window was intact.

I called for help, but when the others came, they found nothing. Mang Cesar pulled me aside, his face grave. ‘You must not interact with her,’ he said. ‘She was a nurse here many years ago. Drowned herself after losing a patient. Now she comes for those who see her. But she only takes them if they touch the sea water she leaves.’ He pointed to the wet footprints on the floor, which formed a trail from the window to Boyet’s bed. ‘You have to keep him dry. She leaves sea water as her mark. If the patient touches it, she can take them.’ I looked at the floor, and there were indeed wet footprints, but they were fresh and led from the window to my own feet. I realized, to my horror, that I had been standing in the water the whole time.

From that moment, I felt a coldness creeping up my legs, a chill that wouldn’t leave. I knew she had marked me. I refused to sleep, fearing she would come. At midnight, as the shift ended, I walked out of the hospital, and the ground seemed to shift beneath me, like sand. I looked back at the building, and in the second-floor window of Room 4, I saw her figure again—this time holding a child’s hand, both of them staring at me. I ran to the jeepney station, and I never returned to that hospital. But the cold never left me. Now, five years later, as I work in a busy Manila hospital, I still feel her presence when the wind blows from the sea. And sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see the water rising over my feet, and I hear her whisper: ‘You’re already one of us.’