But that October, something happened that she would never forget.
It began on Halloween night.
Donna was assigned to the evening shift at a small hospital on the outskirts of Reykjavik. The hospital was old, with narrow corridors, wooden doors, and windows that rattled whenever the wind blew from the mountains. Most of the patients were asleep, and only a handful of nurses remained on duty.
Outside, snow fell steadily beneath a dark, cloud-covered sky.
At exactly 11:30 p.m., Donna finished checking on an elderly patient named Mr. Eriksson, who had been admitted three days earlier after suffering a minor stroke. He was a quiet man who rarely spoke, but whenever Donna entered his room, he would stare at her with an expression that made her uncomfortable.
That evening, as she adjusted his blanket, he suddenly caught her wrist.
“Do not answer the footsteps,” he whispered.
Donna frowned. “What footsteps, sir?”
His eyes moved toward the window.
“When you hear someone walking behind you, do not turn around. And whatever you do, never open the door when the clock strikes midnight.”
Before Donna could ask another question, he released her hand and closed his eyes.
She tried to convince herself that the old man was confused because of his illness. Still, his warning lingered in her mind as she returned to the nurses’ station.
At 11:55 p.m., the hospital’s electricity flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then everything went dark.
Emergency lights glowed red along the corridor, and a warning alarm sounded somewhere near the main entrance. Donna reached for her flashlight while her colleague, Anna, checked the backup generator.
“Probably the storm,” Anna called from the other end of the hallway.
Donna nodded, although she could barely see her colleague through the dim light.
Then she heard it.
Footsteps.
Slow, heavy footsteps coming from the far end of the corridor.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
They sounded exactly like someone walking through fresh snow, yet the hospital floor was dry.
Donna raised her flashlight.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
The footsteps stopped.
She waited, listening.
Nothing.
Then a cold breeze brushed the back of her neck.
Donna spun around, but the corridor behind her was empty.
Her heart pounded. She hurried toward the nurses’ station and found Anna examining the generator controls.
“Did you hear that?” Donna asked.
“Hear what?”
“Someone walking.”
Anna looked at her strangely. “Donna, nobody is walking around here. Everyone is in their rooms.”
Before Donna could reply, a telephone rang.
It was the old landline connected to the emergency ward.
Anna answered it.
Her face changed immediately.
“What do you mean, room twelve?” she asked.
She listened for several seconds before slowly lowering the receiver.
“That was the night guard,” she said. “He saw someone standing outside room twelve.”
Donna felt her stomach tighten.
Room twelve was Mr. Eriksson’s room.
“But that’s impossible,” Anna continued. “The guard says the person was wearing a white hospital gown and standing barefoot in the snow outside the window.”
Donna looked toward the corridor.
Room twelve was on the second floor.
There was no balcony, no fire escape, and no ledge wide enough for anyone to stand on.
At that moment, the hospital lights returned.
The footsteps began again.
This time, they came from directly behind Donna.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
She remembered Mr. Eriksson’s warning.
Do not turn around.
Her entire body stiffened. She wanted to run, but her legs refused to move. The footsteps drew closer until she could hear something else: a faint, ragged breathing, as if someone were standing inches from her ear.
Then a voice whispered in Filipino.
“Donna… tabangi ko.”
Donna nearly screamed.
The voice sounded like her mother.
Her mother, who was thousands of miles away in the Philippines.
“Donna… bugnaw kaayo…”
The words meant, Donna, help me. I’m so cold.
Tears filled Donna’s eyes. She wanted to turn around, to see whether the impossible figure behind her was somehow connected to her family.
But she remembered the old man’s warning.
She squeezed her eyes shut and whispered a prayer.
The footsteps stopped.
When she finally opened her eyes, Anna was standing in front of her, pale and trembling.
“Donna,” Anna whispered, “you need to see this.”
They hurried to room twelve.
Mr. Eriksson was sitting upright in bed, staring at the window. His hands shook violently, and his lips moved as though he were speaking to someone invisible.
Outside the glass stood a woman.
She wore an old-fashioned white dress, her long black hair hanging over her face. Snow covered her bare feet. Her skin was so pale that it almost blended with the falling snow.
Donna stepped closer.
The woman slowly lifted her head.
For one terrible second, Donna saw her own face staring back at her.
Same eyes.
Same nose.
Same small scar near the eyebrow.
But the woman smiled with a mouth that seemed far too wide for her face.
Then she raised one hand and pressed it against the window.
A dark handprint appeared on the glass.
The window was on the inside of the hospital’s supposedly secure second floor, yet the print remained visible as if someone had touched it from outside.
Anna screamed.
The woman disappeared.
Donna rushed to Mr. Eriksson’s bedside. “Who was that? What did she want?”
The old man turned toward her, his eyes suddenly clear.
“She was looking for you,” he said.
“Why me?”
He swallowed hard.
“Because tonight is the night she died.”
Donna felt a chill deeper than the Icelandic winter.
Mr. Eriksson explained that forty years earlier, a Filipino nurse named Maria had worked in that same hospital. On Halloween night, during a terrible snowstorm, she had disappeared while walking home. Searchers later found her footprints leading away from the hospital and into the forest.
The strange part was that her footprints stopped in the middle of an open field.
There were no footprints returning.
Maria had been declared dead, although her body was never found.
“Every Halloween,” Mr. Eriksson whispered, “she returns to the place where she worked. She looks for another nurse to take her place.”
Donna stepped back.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I tried,” he replied. “Nobody believed me. Until you came.”
Suddenly, the hospital clock began to chime.
Midnight.
The room door slammed shut.
The temperature dropped so quickly that Donna could see her breath. Frost spread across the window, forming delicate white branches. From the hallway came the familiar sound of footsteps.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
This time, they were accompanied by dozens of others.
Donna heard doors opening, patients crying, and something dragging itself along the floor.
Then a woman’s voice called from the corridor.
“Donna Domingo, your shift is over.”
The voice sounded exactly like Donna’s own.
Mr. Eriksson grabbed her hand.
“Do not answer.”
The doorknob began turning.
Donna backed away, praying silently. Anna clutched her shoulder, too frightened to speak.
The door opened by itself.
A woman in a white uniform stood in the doorway.
Her face was Donna’s face.
Her smile was Maria’s smile.
Behind her stretched an endless corridor filled with shadowy figures wearing hospital gowns. Some had hollow eyes. Others had snow falling from their hair. All of them stared at Donna.
The woman extended her hand.
“Come with me,” she said. “You have been working too hard. Let me take your place.”
For a moment, Donna felt an overwhelming desire to accept. She was exhausted, homesick, and frightened. The woman promised warmth, peace, and the familiar embrace of home.
Then Donna noticed something.
The woman had no reflection in the glass cabinet beside the door.
Donna remembered what her grandmother had once told her about spirits that borrowed familiar faces to deceive the living.
She lifted her cross necklace and whispered, “You are not my mother. You are not me. You have no power over my soul.”
The woman’s smile vanished.
A terrible scream shook the corridor. The lights exploded one by one, and a violent gust of wind swept through the room.
Donna held Anna tightly as the shadows twisted and dissolved into the darkness.
Then everything stopped.
The clock showed 12:01 a.m.
The door was closed.
The temperature slowly returned to normal.
And outside the window, the snow fell peacefully over the empty grounds.
By morning, Mr. Eriksson had passed away peacefully in his sleep. No one could explain the strange handprint on the second-floor window, which remained visible for three days before disappearing without a trace.
Donna completed her shift, but she never worked another Halloween night.
Months later, she transferred to another hospital in a different part of Iceland. She tried to forget what happened, telling herself that exhaustion and fear had played tricks on her mind.
Then, one winter evening, she received a message from Anna.
It contained a photograph taken by the hospital’s security camera on Halloween night.
The image showed Donna standing alone in the corridor at exactly midnight.
Behind her stood a woman wearing a white hospital gown.
The woman’s face was hidden by long black hair, but one detail was unmistakable.
She was holding Donna’s hand.
Beneath the photograph, Anna had written a single sentence:
Donna, I checked the footage again. You were alone in that corridor. Nobody was standing behind you.
Donna stared at the image until her hands began to shake.
Then her phone rang.
An unknown number.
She answered cautiously.
For several seconds, there was only silence.
Then she heard footsteps crunching through snow.
A familiar female voice whispered in perfect Filipino.
“Donna… it’s cold here.”
The line went dead.
Donna locked every door and window in her apartment. She switched on every light and sat awake until sunrise.
But just before dawn, she noticed something on the floor beside her bed.
A trail of wet footprints.
They began at her bedroom door and ended beside her pillow.
There were no footprints leading away.
And on her bedside table lay a folded piece of paper bearing a message written in unfamiliar handwriting:
“See you next Halloween, Nurse Donna.”
