Letto numero 6 (2019)

A young doctor named Bianca is hired at a private pediatric clinic run by religious authorities, without telling its director, Father Severo, that she is pregnant. She gets the job partly through the intervention of her husband, Ettore, who also works for one of the clinic’s suppliers. Her duty is to serve as the night doctor, and on her first day she learns that the doctor who held the position before her committed suicide by jumping from the window of her room. During the night, she begins hearing a child in bed number 6, crying desperately because he wants his mother to come visit him. Unaware of who the mysterious and disturbing child is, Bianca promises she will do everything she can to grant his wish. The next day, she investigates, but there is no trace of the child. The clinic’s director, who is fully aware of what is happening but strongly determined to conceal it, refuses to listen to Bianca. Thus begins a long series of nights disturbed by visions and nightmares that conceal a terrifying past. The events soon involve another child admitted to bed number 6—the same bed occupied by the child Bianca saw. The new patient is suddenly found with dozens of syringes stuck into him, all without any of the other children in the room having seen who committed the terrible act. The director continues to conceal what is really happening, creating an official account involving an imaginary “disturbed child” who was immediately removed from the clinic, and implying to Bianca that if news of the incident got out, she would be held partly responsible. Bianca also begins experiencing episodes of possession and has recurring nightmares in which she undergoes electroconvulsive therapy. She constantly tells her husband about her fears, but he refuses to believe her. With the help of Francesco, a young man who works at the clinic and believes Bianca’s stories, she discovers that there was once a children’s asylum at the clinic where children were subjected to electroshock treatment and several mysterious deaths occurred. Bianca becomes convinced that what is happening to her is connected to the clinic’s past. Francesco believes her, but her husband does not—not even when she sees the child in some old photographs dating from the 1950s. In the following days, a new wing of the clinic is inaugurated. Immediately after the event, the director is forced to agree to a request from the relatives of the clinic’s main benefactor, Donna Letizia, to hold a séance in the former asylum. However, one of the participants in the ritual is possessed by the ghost of the very child who is tormenting Bianca, and ends up dying by suicide. This death, too, is covered up. A few hours later, the director, Father Severo, is murdered by the ghost. Determined to resolve the situation, Bianca and Francesco investigate the clinic’s archives to identify the ghost child, whom they have learned from the photographs was named Michele and was admitted in 1956. They discover that the child died by suicide and was Donna Letizia’s son. Since the ghost keeps asking for his mother, they realize that bringing the elderly benefactor there is the only way to break the curse. Initially skeptical of their story, the woman is persuaded when Bianca proves she knows the lullaby she used to sing to her son. She agrees to go to the clinic and confront the child’s ghost, who wants her to join him among the dead. After a struggle between Donna Letizia and Bianca, who has meanwhile been possessed by Michele, the wealthy woman agrees to kill herself, apparently putting an end to the curse. In the days that follow, however, another little girl is possessed by Michele.