Three weeks passed.
No unexplained deaths. No missing patients. No sightings of the man in white.
Noor General Hospital had returned to its routine of life and healing.
But for Zahra, peace felt unnatural. Like the calm sea before a storm.
She stood in the hospital's old records room, examining blueprints. She traced her finger across a faded section labeled
Restricted Zone—East Wing Sublevel
There was something beneath the morgue. A sealed chamber—never part of the original hospital plans.
She showed Arif.
"This isn't on any official layout," she whispered.
He leaned closer. "It looks like… a surgical room?"
"More like a lab," she said. "Look—there's a water line, electric conduit, and even oxygen supply."
"But the room's not in use."
"Not anymore," she replied.
Zahra requested access to the basement archives.
The files were dusty and fragile. But in a stack labeled Confidential: Pre-2000, she found something strange:
A black file titled
"Project Dawam—Healing Beyond Life"
Authorized by: Dr. Iftikhar Mirza
Date: 1999
Inside were torn documents, x-ray images, and several red-stamped notices:
EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES SUSPENDED
UNAUTHORIZED HUMAN TESTING SUSPECTED
DO NOT ENTER CHAMBER 9
Zahra blinked. "This… this isn't just about spirits or jinn. They were experimenting with death itself."
She took the file to Arif.
He scanned the papers, his face darkening. "Project Dawam... 'Dawam' means continuity. Immortality."
"They were trying to stop death," Zahra whispered.
"And they may have succeeded—partially. But at what cost?"
The next day, a young intern named Dr. Sadaf collapsed near the blood bank. Before she passed out, she kept repeating:
"He's down there… He sees everything… His blood is still warm…"
Zahra and Arif rushed to the security room. They asked to review CCTV footage from the sublevel stairwell.
At 3:03 a.m., a camera caught this:
A tall man in scrubs with no face, just smooth skin where features should be, standing by the sealed metal door beneath the morgue.
And then—he looked up at the camera.
The screen flickered to black.
That night, Zahra couldn't sleep. Her dreams took her back to the chamber.
But this time, she wasn't just observing.
She was on an operating table.
Men in lab coats whispered around her. One held a glowing vial. Another inserted something cold into her chest. She screamed—
And woke up with her heart pounding.
There was a bruise on her wrist.
Enough was enough.
She and Arif returned to the basement. This time, they brought tools—a crowbar, flashlights, Quranic amulets, and a portable speaker that played Surah Al-Baqarah on loop.
They pried open the sealed steel door marked Chamber 9.
The smell hit first—rotted chemicals and dust.
The room was circular. At its center stood an old metal chair, strapped with leather cuffs. Machines lined the walls, ancient and sparking.
On the far side: a glass tank filled with dark, preserved liquid. Floating inside… a human form.
Zahra stepped closer.
The being inside was male and tall, his body partially decomposed—yet alive. Its heart visibly pulsed.
Arif whispered, "He's still alive. Or… something like alive."
A label on the tank read:
Subject 01: Dr. Iftikhar Mirza
Status: Containment Stable
Directive: DO NOT UNSEAL
Zahra turned pale.
"He did it. He used himself for the experiment."
Suddenly, the tank hissed.
A mechanical voice filled the room:
"Sealing breach detected. Life support engaged."
The tank glowed red. The heartbeat inside accelerated. A low hum echoed.
"No!" Arif shouted. "We triggered something."
Zahra backed away as the tank's locks disengaged one by one.
Suddenly, the form inside twitched.
Then moved.
Then it opened its eyes.
Pale. White. Empty.
They ran.
The alarms blared. Lights burst. The sublevel doors sealed automatically.
But they escaped through the ventilation shaft, gasping when they finally reached the ground floor.
Zahra collapsed in the stairwell.
Arif leaned against the wall. "He's awake."
She looked at him, terrified. "And now he knows we're here."
In the following days, odd things began happening again—this time worse:
Patients had identical dreams of a man whispering, "Let me fix you."
Machines rebooted themselves and displayed messages in binary.
A doctor reported seeing himself performing surgery... while he was asleep in his room.
Zahra realized:
Dr. Iftikhar wasn't just experimenting on himself.
He was reaching out—through dreams, electricity, and memories.
He was looking for a way back.
Zahra met Mufti Rafiq again.
He listened carefully.
Then said something that sent chills down her spine:
"This is no longer a haunting, child. This is possession—of the hospital itself."
She asked how to stop it.
His reply:
"Only if you understand what he became. He isn't fully man anymore. Nor fully jinn. He is what exists between science and the forbidden. You'll need faith. But also knowledge."
Zahra knew what she had to do.
They would return to Chamber 9.
Not to run this time.
But to face him.
That night, Arif and Zahra prepared.
They prayed. Armed themselves with knowledge, Qur'an verses, salt circles, and sound-blocking headphones to resist hypnosis.
They descended one final time into the depths of Noor Hospital.
And this time, the door to Chamber 9… was open.
Inside, the chair sat empty.
The tank is broken.
A trail of red-black liquid led deeper into a hallway they hadn't seen before.
At the end of the corridor stood a tall figure in a lab coat.
He turned.
His face—stretched and unnatural—still bore the remnants of a man.
Zahra stepped forward.
"Dr. Iftikhar," she said. "This must stop."
His voice was soft, distant, and layered with echoes:
"I saved lives... I cured death. And you want me to stop?"
Arif stepped beside her. "You became something else. You crossed boundaries no man should."
Iftikhar tilted his head. "But I survived. I am the cure."
Zahra raised her Qur'an.
He hissed. "You cling to myth."
She began reciting Ayat-ul-Kursi aloud.
He shrieked and charged at her.
But Arif stepped forward and threw a vial of Zamzam water directly into his chest.
The being screamed.
Its form began to dissolve.
Zahra recited louder, tears in her eyes, her voice firm.
With each word, the corridor collapsed in light.
And then—
Silence.
Zahra woke up in the hospital chapel. Arif sat beside her.
"It's over," he whispered.
She blinked. "Really?"
"Yes. The cameras are clear. Machines are normal. No more voices. No more faces."
She exhaled.
"What happened to him?"
"He melted. Into light. Into dust. Or maybe… into memory."
That night, Zahra visited the children's ward.
A little girl held her hand.
"You're the ghost doctor, aren't you?" she asked sweetly.
Zahra smiled. "Maybe. But I like to think I'm just a healer."
The girl whispered, "I'm glad you're here. It feels… safe."
Zahra sat beside her. "It is."