A few friends and I were bored one night, looking for something to do. One of my more “adventurous” friends Liam said he knew a spot and that we should go check it out together. Me and the others knew he was interested in exploring abandoned places, as he’s in some group online where they share cool abandoned places they’ve found, so we expected to be dragged along to a random old skate park or something.
He had coordinates for the place he wanted us to go to, so we all chipped in to catch a cab to a gas station that was nearby. Liam stayed rather cryptic about where we were going, not saying what the place actually is and instead just scrolling on his phone throughout the whole cab ride there. He was the only one in the group that I didn’t really know, as he was a friend of a friend.
When we finally got to the gas station, we realised we had to trek through a woodland to get to this abandoned place ,that Liam still didn’t disclose any information about. It was only around 9pm and not too dark at that time, so we just decided to keep going and see what we find. To say that the woods were eerie is an understatement, I constantly felt like I was being watched from one place or another, but there’s not much else to expect when walking through a forest at night.
We all had fun scaring and jumping at eachother for the 10 minutes that we had to walk through the woods, until the trail finally ran clear and led to a tall white building. It was obvious that the building is a hospital, or was at one point. The paint was peeling and the bricks were chipped, with ivy crawling up and covering the walls. It was mostly demolished, but there was still structure to the building, making it look like a set from a low budget horror movie. We all pulled out our phones and used the flashlight to guide our way, before stepping inside. Graffiti covered almost every inch of the cracked walls, clearly it was a common spot for people to come. The further we walked into the building, the more wet and damp the building came. Pools of murky green water covered the floor, patches of mud covering it too.
After walking around for about 25 mins, getting deeper and deeper into the building, we realised we had forgotten what way we came. Each corridor stretched for ages, most rooms looking identical, it can’t be that hard to get out of a rectangle building though, right? We were all still mostly calm, knowing we can just choose a direction and keep going that way. We all decided to just keep walking straight, and that eventually we would get out. After another 10 minutes of sticking to that plan, it seemed we had made no progress and that we were just walking further into the building. Our phones had no reception and our map apps weren’t getting a location, due to no signal. The graffiti had mostly stopped at this point, and we would only see a bright scribble every few meters now. We were starting to subtly panic, and everyone but Liam had an anxious expression on their faces.
After another 5 minutes of aimlessly walking, we stopped, thinking of where we went wrong. An argument throughout the group broke out, as we had been stuck in an abandoned hospital for about 90 minutes and couldn’t find a way out. Halfway through the shouting match, I heard a cough coming from what seemed to be a few meters away. We all immediately turned silent as we stared at each other in shock. Liam started laughing, so we just assumed it was a joke he was pulling or something dumb like that.
Just a minute after the cough, we heard someone humming, loudly. We all immediately started sprinting back the way we came without a word. I could hear the humming become louder, as if it was following us as we ran. I tried my hardest to run faster than ever, but my long, uncoordinated legs went too far forward or something and I face planted right into one of the mud piles. I reached out to my buddy for help but he just kept running, so I scrambled back onto my legs and ran in the same direction, my vision mostly blurred from the thick mud and stagnant water. After a few minutes of silent sprinting, we slowed down and slumped into a random room in the corridor. My friends were laughing while I was panting, using my hoodie to wipe the mud off my face and arms. They all took the situation as a joke, while one of my friends and I were genuinely scared.
After catching our breaths, someone suggested we just follow the graffiti back to the entrance. Most of our phones had died at this point, and we only had one left as a flashlight with only about 15% battery. After another hour or so of following the graffiti we finally made it back to the entrance. At this point, it was 1am and we were so done. We made it through the woods, even a twig snapping would make us all jump.
We called a cab and everyone slept over at mine, as it was closest and ion all fairness, no one really wanted to be alone that night.
We still don’t know what that humming or coughing was, but we all heard it and knew we weren’t imagining it. It’s safe to say none of us have been to any abandoned places since.