SHORT STORY | PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR | LIMINAL HORROR

Project ELYSIUM

Story Lamp Reviews: Short Story Competition 2026

Image Credit — Jorryn Morais https://www.pexels.com/@78973088/-Edited by Author on Canva

This story is part of the Story Lamp Reviews Short Story Competition for 2026

Genre: Psychological Horror/Liminal Horror

An announcement sounds and brings me back to life. You can hear words but not quite work out what is being said. My mind is crumbling and I feel like I am running just to stand still.

0450673, is whispered and eerily reverberates against the parallel walls.

I'm kinda in the state of knowing where I am, but I don't know for sure where I am.

Or even if I am, anymore.

Where am I?

It's a place where the echoes of life once murmured.

When the lights go out the darkness feels oppressive and heavy, like something weighing down on my eyes. The blackness swallows the air up so I can't even see inches ahead of me.

Every little sound is amplified, with a rustle here or a creak there, jarring on my ears.

And when there is light, it's those blinding fluorescent ones that flicker constantly, making shadows dance around and seem like you're no longer alone.

When it's dead silence it becomes intolerably louder.

I gather myself up from the cold hard floor as the long uninviting cavernous corridor eerily stretches into darkness until the buzzing fluorescent lights come back on. The lights seem to possess a kinda personality with the symphony of its humming like a heartbeat and painting light into the shadowy surrounding from their clinical glow.

I step over a broken discarded IV pole.

The atmosphere of decay is heightened by the institutional peeling sage green paint (which apparently is a stress reducing color). There is also a pungent smell of ammonia and the rhythmic sound of water dripping somewhere.

Suddenly a shadowy figure moved in the distance and I shouted out.

“Hey! Hey there, stop!”

It stopped, as I quickened my pace but I wasn't quite up to running.

I stopped dead as the lights went off again. I reached out in front of me, heart in my mouth and I touched someone.

Several Days Earlier…

I was doomscrolling on my phone when this ad popped up. It was for some medical trial. I was going to swipe, when I saw they were paying out $10,000 for a few days' commitment. It briefly specified that it was a neurological trial.

You hear horror stories about these trials, like bad side effects, but I was keen for the money. It didn't sound like one of those trials where they inject you with the plague and you come out looking like a walking dead mutant. My cousin Enzo did some deodorant testing, he had to have his underarms washed everyday and some product put on and then a panel of people sniffed his armpits. It was low risk so it didn't pay much but he got free deodorant.

Anyway I applied for this thing and was accepted as a participant. The only weird thing was that you had to get taken to a mystery place for an in-house residential stay.

Present Time…

I stood drenched in sweat, my skin was saturated in perspiration and feeling sticky with my clothing clinging to me. My hair felt like it was plastered to my forehead.

There was another incoherent announcement and the lights came back on.

The shadowy figure was now gone.

I was alone again, standing in the same long winding corridor. I saw some slippers on the floor and a medical chart. There was a metallic sound of rusty wheels of a gurney squeaking.

Breathless whispers followed me and I felt my bare feet begin to sink into the floor.

The lights felt harsh on my eyes, as I walked with my gaze transfixed ahead. It was there, the shadowy figure was there again. My heart thumped as I began to chase it down the endless corridor.

Out of breath I stumbled over an obstacle and uncontrollably fell down onto the floor. As I lay there, I looked behind me and saw an overturned wheelchair.

How didn’t I see that?

I raised my head up and bare feet with painted nails appeared in front of me. I used my front thighs and hands to push myself upright, rising slowly.

The figure was a young female, dressed in the same hospital gown as me and had a stickered label on her chest. The label didn't have a name on it, just a number.

I made out 0964527.

“Were you part of the trial?” I murmured. She silently nodded her head, pressed her finger to her pursed lips as if to say shush.

Another muffled announcement sounded.

I felt a cold draft go up my gown.

She tried to speak.

“He’s behind you”, she muttered barely audibly.

“Who?” I replied.

“The Doctor…” She breathed…

I then felt a cold breath against my neck.

Three Days Ago…

I was in a small office space with barely any furniture, save for a heavy desk and a swivel chair. There was natural lighting coming in through the window.

The door swung open and some short, rounded fusty old fart walked in, he was dressed in a white coat and was holding a clipboard.

He tried to look very important as he spoke to me.

“Good morning, Mr. Jared Rossi, I am Dr. Faustus.”

He plonked himself down on the swivel chair and threw the clipboard onto the desk.

I found his name unnerving.

Faustus, which I repeated in my head over and over.

“We're very pleased to have you join our trial. I understand that our research team has explained the trial to you…”

He droned on and I nodded along.

Faustus, sold his soul to the devil… so told by Marlowe.

Present Time…

She had vanished.

I turned to see the figure lurking behind me.

Faustus.

It was Faustus.

“0450673, we're not done with you yet!” He grinned.

I shuddered and felt so heavy that I couldn't move. I then mustered up the strength and I realised that I was throwing punches at him, but nothing seemed to land.

I started to run down the endless corridor and refused to look behind me.

I finally came to what seemed like an end, a door was in front of me. I furiously shook at the door knob until it opened.

Still, I entered reluctantly.

The door led into a sterile realm of refrigerated vaults, that slowly hummed as if to preserve the fragile peace. The polished stainless steel of the metal furnishings gleamed.

I felt cold.

As I walked further in there was a glistening plinth in the middle of the room.

It was an autopsy table, where mysteries were unravelled in the final quest for the truth.

There was a body covered with a white sheet.

Did I dare look?

What if it was me…?

24 Hours Earlier…

The trial was underway, I had snuck away from my group to go for a wander. I wish I hadn’t as it was a pretty bleak setting. Everywhere I looked it was like WTF, I mean why bring us to this heck hole when they were paying out all that money.

That said I then stumbled into a room with a two-way mirror, I think it was some sort of viewing room. Everything here seemed expensive. On the other side of it was the clinical trial room where it was painted in calming soft blues. Diffused LED lights seemed to mimic natural light. There were digital monitors, EKG machines amongst the telemetry system and other high-tech medical equipment. The synchronized wall clocks seemed to be in action to maintain precision.

On the adjustable medical bed there was a volunteer hooked up to several machines, who I couldn't clearly see. I pushed a button and could now hear what was being said.

I saw old fusty fart Faustus blathering on as ever to some tall guy in a dark suit.

“So we bring about a clinical death in the subject and monitor the brain for activity of the afterlife.”

The man then asked.

“But how can you monitor enough in a short critical window, surely you have to immediately resuscitate them?”

“Well ordinarily if a clinical death is left untreated to the point of no return, it transitions into a biological death. This is when we can find the most vital data…” Faustus continued to explain to the other guy.

I stopped listening as soon as I heard him say biological death. Hell, they were killing people. I needed to get out of here…

I raced back to the door and crashed into something that made a hella noise. They were on to me, as I ran out I noticed a couple of guards give chase and yelled for me to stop.

$10,000, now I know why.

How do I get out of here?

They sounded the alarms, the relentless mechanical shriek was a panic-inducing cadence.

I found myself trapped in the same labyrinth of corridors…

Present Time…

I stood with my eyes transfixed to the table and the body on it. I moved forward, I imagined my Nonna Nina with her crucifix necklace as I closed my eyes, recited a Hail Mary and lifted up the cover.

I slowly opened my eyes.

It was her, the shadowy figure that I had chased, her skin was pale and almost blue. Her lips were darkened blue and her eyes looked stiff.

It's not me.

It's not me.

I'm not dead.

I leave the room and start running down the corridor again, it's the same corridor stretching into the distance.

My heart pounded and I shattered the silence with a visceral, raw shout for help that bled into the environment.

The number 0450673 echoed again in whispers.

“Help! Someone help me!

“Help!” I continued to shout.

“I'm not dead, I'm not dead!” I yelled.

Exasperated and exhausted I eventually fell to the floor, punching at it hard with my hands as my helplessness morphed into blinding anger and a sob ripped through my throat.

…

In the morgue, a refrigerated vault was left open, a foot was sticking out with a toe tag, showing a number on it, 0450673.

The writing of this story was inspired by “Backrooms” a 2026 American science fiction psychological horror film. The film makes use of the concept of endless liminal spaces to create terror.

I also drew inspiration from H.G. Wells's 1896 short story “The Red Room”, which is a Gothic psychological horror tale. The story reflects on the narrator who spends the night in an alleged haunted red room and seeks to debunk the myth of it being haunted.

Thank you for reading.

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