“Just 21 Kilometers Away”
It wasn’t the photo itself that shook me—it was the timing, the silence that followed, and the fact that my brother, Ethan, took it just 21 kilometers from our house. Close enough to walk. Close enough to run, if you were desperate.
It was a misty Tuesday morning, early July, when Ethan set out with his Canon camera and a flask of coffee, promising Mom he’d be back before noon. He’d always been the one who noticed things others didn’t—cloud formations shaped like dragons, a rustle in the bushes that turned out to be a family of foxes, the abandoned railway line tangled in vines that no one had walked for years. He had a habit of wandering off, but he always came back.
Except this time, something was different.
The photo came in at 10:42 AM. One single image, no caption. I was sitting at the kitchen table scrolling through emails when it buzzed through. I opened it without thinking.
At first glance, it was beautiful. Hauntingly so. The landscape seemed almost otherworldly—an open field beneath a smothered sky, heavy with storm clouds. In the distance, there stood what looked like an old water tower, bent slightly to one side, metal flaking with rust, vines spiraling up its legs like nature was trying to reclaim it. The ground looked wet, the soil dark. But that wasn’t what stopped me cold.
In the lower left corner, just barely visible, there was a figure. Thin, slouched, barefoot. Facing away. Wearing what looked like… a hospital gown? I squinted and zoomed in, heart beginning to thud. The figure’s arms hung limp, and its head drooped at an unnatural angle.
I called him. No answer. Texted. Nothing. I stared at the photo again. My thumb hovered, hesitating, before I forwarded it to Mom with a shaky note:
“Ethan sent me this. Something feels wrong. He’s not answering.”
She was home in minutes.
The police took it seriously faster than I expected. Maybe it was the image, maybe it was the location—near a known psychiatric facility that had shut down five years ago. It was all over the news back then: patient neglect, unexplained deaths, lawsuits, and finally a lockdown. The place was boarded up, fenced off, left to rot in the wilderness.
And apparently, 21 kilometers away from us.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed, phone gripped in my hand, refreshing his message thread like he might suddenly start typing.
He didn’t.
The search party found his backpack the next afternoon, right where the photo had been taken. The grass around it was matted down, footprints all around, leading in different directions. The camera was gone. His phone, too.
But the strangest thing was the voice recording on his old GoPro, the one he sometimes used for field footage. It was only ten seconds long, recorded just before the timestamp on the photo.
A soft crackling sound. Then Ethan’s voice, whispering:
“It’s not abandoned. Someone’s still here.”
Silence.
Then a metallic screech.
And then static.
Over the next few weeks, rumors spread. People started posting online about hearing strange sounds near the old asylum—moaning, footsteps, flickering lights inside despite the power being cut. A few even claimed to have seen a figure at the fence. Always watching. Never moving.
Some said Ethan had staged it all. That he was a thrill-seeker looking for internet fame. But he wasn’t like that. He wasn’t reckless. He was curious—but grounded.
A month passed. Still no sign.
Then, on a foggy morning, I got another message. Same number. Same eerie silence.
No words. Just a photo.
This time, it was taken from inside the old asylum. A long hallway, lit by natural light spilling through a broken ceiling. Floor stained with water. And at the end of the hallway—barely visible—stood Ethan. Or someone who looked like him. Pale. Eyes wide. Staring straight into the lens. Behind him… a figure. The same one from the first photo. Closer now.
I dropped the phone.
The police traced the photo to a tower near the asylum. When they entered it, they found scribbles on the walls. Ethan’s handwriting. Pages torn from his notebook.
“It walks like a man, but it isn’t. Don’t let it follow you.”
“The door was open. Why was it open?”
“I hear breathing at night. I’m not alone here.”
We never found him.
Not truly.
But every now and then, someone reports a sighting—a photographer going too close, a scream echoing in the valley, a shadow in the window. And always, always the same location.
Just 21 kilometers from our house.
Years have passed. Mom never really recovered. She keeps a print of the first photo framed on the mantle, convinced it holds a clue. I moved away. Too many memories, too much silence.
But sometimes, in dreams, I see him. Ethan. Standing in the field. Calling to me. And behind him, the figure is always there. Waiting.
And I wake up with a chill and a question I still can’t answer:
