Backstory: Cradle Bay Children’s Sanitarium (Established 1847 – Closed 1889)

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Tucked away in the fog-choked woods along the New England coast, Cradle Bay Children’s Sanitarium was once considered a marvel of progressive medicine. Built in 1847, the sanitarium was meant to be a haven for children suffering from "nervous ailments" and "melancholia" — catch-all terms used at the time for everything from epilepsy to autism to the aftereffects of trauma. Parents, desperate and overwhelmed, brought their children from far and wide, seduced by rumors of miraculous recoveries and a kind-faced founder, Dr. Horace Fell.

But the truth of Cradle Bay was far darker than anyone suspected.

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Dr. Fell, a former battlefield surgeon with a fascination for the emerging field of neuropsychiatry, had no formal training in treating children. His methods were experimental, brutal, and often fatal. Electroshock, hydrotherapy with near-freezing water, and sensory deprivation chambers were passed off as "cutting-edge care." The youngest patients — some only toddlers — were often never seen again after being taken into the “Quiet Wing,” a sealed-off portion of the building where only Fell and his trusted nurses were allowed.

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Rumors began to spread: of children who spoke in strange tongues after therapy, who clawed at their own skin, or who wandered the halls at night humming lullabies in voices that didn’t sound like their own. Staff whispered of shadows moving against the grain of light and rooms that grew icy cold even in the summer. One nurse, Sister Miriam, fled the grounds in 1859, half-mad, and claimed she had seen Dr. Fell performing “soul extractions” on the children — rituals meant to remove the "sick part of the mind" through occult means.

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In 1889, a massive fire engulfed the sanitarium during a particularly violent thunderstorm. When local townsfolk arrived to help, they found the gates locked from the inside. Screams could be heard — not just of children, but of something else, something older, shrieking through the flames. By morning, the building was a blackened husk. Over fifty children and ten staff members perished. Dr. Fell’s body was never found.

Officially, the fire was blamed on faulty gas lamps. But many believe the building itself was cursed — either by the suffering of the children, the twisted experiments of Dr. Fell, or something far older awakened by the rituals in the Quiet Wing.

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To this day, no one has successfully rebuilt on the site. Tools go missing. Workers report voices whispering their names, or hearing the sound of crying behind walls. On foggy nights, some say you can still see the faint glow of a lantern bobbing through the ruins, and hear a child's voice singing a lullaby that ends in a choking scream.

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And in the center of it all, if you get too close, some swear you can still hear Dr. Fell’s voice calmly asking:

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"Now then… what seems to be the trouble, little one?"