The Ward of the Unfinished

The air in the Sunset View Nursing Home was thick with the smell of antiseptic and the metallic tang of old machinery. My grandmother, Aunty Chen, was failing, her frail body a whisper of its former self, consumed by a quiet decay that had nothing to do with age and everything to do with time. My mother and her sisters had taken turns leaving the night shift rotation, but tonight, it was my mother’s turn. She sat in the hard plastic chair by the bed, her hand wrapped around Aunty Chen’s thin, brittle fingers, tracing the map of veins that rose from the wrinkled skin.

I had heard stories of that place—the old wing that had been closed off years ago after a fire had claimed the lives of three patients. Some said their souls never left, that the charred remnants of their moans still vibrated in the walls. But my mother, a practical woman who didn’t believe in ghosts, dismissed it as nonsense. Yet, as she finally dozed off, the weight of exhaustion pulling her eyelids shut, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was not alone.

She woke with a start, the clock on the wall reading 4:47 AM, a time she would later say felt ‘wrong.’ The room was dark, but not dark enough to hide the shapes. And there, by the privacy curtain that separated her mother’s bed from the empty one beyond, a figure swayed. It was not a person, not in the way she understood. It was a woman in a white hospital gown, but her limbs were absent—no arms, no legs, no neck. Her head sat directly on her torso, like a balloon tied to a stick. Her hair was long and black, damp as if just pulled from a river. And her eyes—huge, impossibly wide, the irises glinting like obsidian. Her lashes were so long they curled back and touched her forehead, making her stare seem even more intense, unblinking, bottomless.

My mother froze. The figure glided along the curtain, its gaze fixed on her, a silent accusation. It stopped at the edge of the curtain, then began to slide sideways, slow, deliberate, until it slipped behind the fabric and vanished. My mother did not dare move. She slowly reached for her towel, draped over the armrest, and pulled it up to her face, leaving only a slit for her eyes, as if that thin cloth could shield her from that gaze. She stayed like that until dawn, her heart a drum against her ribs.

When the morning nurse came, my mother was pale, drenched in sweat. She didn’t speak of it that day, nor the next. But on the day of Grandma Chen’s funeral, as we stood beside the open grave, my mother finally told me the story. She spoke in a low, trembling voice, her eyes darting to the forest beyond the cemetery, as if expecting to see the figure again. ‘It was watching me,’ she said, ‘like it knew I was there, like it was waiting for something.’ I tried to console her, to rationalize it away, but the image she painted—those eyes, those impossibly long lashes—burnt into my mind, refusing to fade.

Months later, I found myself standing outside Sunset View, having volunteered to clear out Aunty Chen’s old belongings. The building was being demolished, and the air was thick with dust and the scent of decay. As I walked through the empty halls, I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. When I reached the room where she had died, the curtain was gone, only the rail remaining. I touched the cold metal, and for a moment, I felt a tug, as if from a child’s hand, urging me to look. I turned, and there, in the corner, a shadow lengthened, forming the silhouette of a woman with no limbs, no neck. Her head tilted toward me, and even in the gloom, I could see those lashes, curling back, and the eyes—they were not black, but a deep, endless green, like the bottom of a lake. And I knew then what my mother had seen. It was not a ghost. It was a guardian, or a punishment, or something in between. It was the last thing my grandmother had seen before she passed, and now it was here, waiting for me.

I stumbled backward, tripping over a piece of rubble, and fell hard. When I looked up, the shadow was gone. But I knew it would be back. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling, and I felt it—the heavy presence, the weight of eyes on me. I turned my head slowly, and there, by the door, a figure stood in the darkness, its head tilted, its lashes brushing its forehead. It did not move, but I heard a whisper, like the rustle of dried leaves: ‘You’re next.’ And then, it vanished.

I don’t know what it wants, or why it follows the line of my family. But every night since, I keep my towel close, ready to hide my face. And every night, I wonder if this time, the towel will be enough.