HOW IT ALL  BEGAN

Located just beyond the edge of a small farming town long forgotten by all except those that know its history, stand the water-stained ceilings, peeling paint, and crumbling walls of the Sycamore Asylum. A haunting reminder of untold stories and unknown truths. Once a building filled with hope and kindness, it now stands silent, waiting, watching for its next life.

One day, a group of hopeful educators decided to repurpose the asylum into a school for troubled and forgotten children. At first, the students and faculty who walked the halls of the asylum-turned-school spoke of a weight pressing on them at all times. No matter how much summer sun poured in through its wavy glass windows, its twisting hallways felt dark, and shadows seemed to linger just out of sight. Whispers and muffled voices would come from empty rooms and from behind locked doors, but no one dared look inside.

As the weeks passed, strange things began to happen. Students would go missing during the night only to return days later with no memory of where they had been. Some students vanished without a trace, leaving behind only an unmade bed and scattered belongings. Stranger still, no one ever asked where they went. Faculty would just shrug and ramble on incoherently, repeating themselves over and over again while shuffling down the hallway. As the disappearances continued, the darkness and shadows crept deeper into the facility, devouring everyone and everything in its path. The once hopeful educators became twisted husks of who they once were, their minds consumed by an unknown darkness always there, waiting just around the corner.

In the end, only one student, a once hopeful girl named Emily was the only soul left. Though horrors and abominable creatures still roamed those darkened halls, Emily was alone in the nightmarish school, the last survivor with an ounce of her humanity left. Though she held out the longest, the building’s secrets had taken their toll, leaving her alone in a world of shadows and whispers. She wandered the empty halls and dark bathrooms silently, her eyes dark and hollow, searching into the darkness that had claimed her classmates, her teachers, herself.

And so, the Sycamore Asylum-turned-school, a building that had once stood as a beacon of hope and renewal, had become a tomb of unknown nightmares. Its halls forever haunted by the spirits of those that have been unlucky enough to enter its walls. No one knows what became of Emily. To this day, her story is a testament to the horrors that lurk just around the next corner and remain today behind those walls, waiting and watching…