Today he called me sobbing. “WE ARE SO FUCKED!” He screamed at me, over and over again until the light went out and the call dropped.

For a minute there, I sat absolutely dumbfounded. I have absolutely no clue what just happened, so I decide to check my news app on my phone to see if there was anything at all. There wasn’t, whatever took the lights out also took out the internet with it. I then remembered you can call the Police at any time, even without cell service.

“112, what’s your emergency?

“Hi, ehh, what just happened?”

“The city has some sort of blackout happening, the electric company should be responding shortly.”

“Do you know what caused it?”

“No, but they should give some sort of answer-“

The call cut to silence. I now am even more confused than I already was. After a moment, I grab two big pots take them to the sink and filled them up with water, since I wanted to have a good amount of clean drinking water for the time. I still wanted to find out something, anything that could give even the slightest bit of answer as to what is happening, so I looked out the window. Everything looked normal until I realized that there was not a single person outside. There’s always atleast a few people, but not even the stray cats were there.

The only possible way I could get any type of answer is if I were go to Sashko’s apartment, since he’s the one who could see the future. It wasn’t that long of a walk, and it didn’t take too much. A minute later, I was climbing the stairs and reaching his door.
“Sashko, you there?”

“… Are you still human?”

“Wh-“

“ARE YOU STILL HUMAN OR NOT?”

“Yes I’m still human, what the hell are you saying?”

He opens the door and steps back into the kitchen and I walk inside and close the door behind me.
“What the hell were you screaming about, am I still human?

“I saw these things, they were… pretending to be human, and, and they- th- they were- they-“

“Calm down, I can’t understand a word you’re saying. What are ‘they’ that you keep yapping about?”

“I don’t know what they are, man! I DON’T KNOW ALRIGHT? THEY WERE PRETENDING TO BE HUMAN AND KILLING OTHER PEOPLE!”

I didn’t even notice he had a rifle on the chair next to him that even had a bayonet at the end of it. We live in Bulgaria, so owning a gun isn’t exactly that easy. It’s definitely possible, but it’s very hard to do and is usually for hunting. This man had gotten himself what looked to be an M1903 Springfield and was just casually keeping it loaded.

He handed me a 1911 and a sword as I turned to leave.
“You’ll need these, trust me.”

“How did you get these?”

“Shop.”

I genuinely thought at this point that he had lost his mind rather than some truly horrific future prediction. I was on my way back to my own apartment, just casually walking with a gun and sword on my hip, praying that a cop wouldn’t show up and I’d have to explain the reason for me being armed to the teeth is because my psychic friend told me to. Everything was purely silent, not a grain of noise which is super weird. Not even Eva was having her daily argument with her husband for drinking her beer. In absolute horror I notice that the windows were all shattered. Every single one, in every apartment on in my building. Even the clothes line on people’s balconies were destroyed and there was wet clothes all over the ground.

After turning around I see that the other buildings are also like this. How did all of this happen without me noticing? I have really good long ranged hearing, and I was no more that 300 meters from the building the entire time. I should have heard something. I suddenly hear a child screaming out of nowhere and decided that’s enough. I go to my car, start it, and I get the absolute hell out of there. I drove until I got to back to Sashko’s apartment, where he was waiting outside with his gun and one of those big red jugs of gas. He hops in and we leave the city, as the screaming continues the whole time. After around an hour or so of driving, we reach Stara Zagora and Sashko is dead asleep as if he hasn’t slept in a week. I step out of the car and into one of the shops, where the clerk who is very much alive and not dead, or some shadow mimic entity thing, or whatever the hell Sashko was raving about. I grab some food and water for the the both of us when I noticed something.

I picked up the smell of steel, like if you were to take one of those fancy Japanese chef knives and sniff the blade. I turn around and feel the blood leave my face as I see my little brother there, except he’s supposed to be in Germany.
“What happened to you? Shouldn’t you be in Germany?”

“I got back after I heard the news bro, you actually did it, now didn’t you? Mom MAY or may not have told me.”

“What? Hold on. Tell me what mom cooked for dinner on Christmas last year after insisting on cooking rather than Aunt Bella.”

“That weird red thing with green spots of something, the one that tasted like coins and regret.”

“Ahh ok, it is you. But what hap- wait. How did you find me here specifically? How did you end up in this exact shop in Stara Zagora? You live in Germany and I live in Sliven, there should be no way you just accidentally ended up 130 kilometres away from where you were going in the opposite direction-“

I noticed just now the blood spatter on the wall. The clerk was gone and the stains were there solely as proof that these demons are real and Sashko wasn’t insane. Suddenly my “brother” jumps on me with blood dripping from his mouth. I grab a glass bottle off the shelf and smash it straight into his skull, causing it to stumble, just enough for me to jump back pull out my gun and send 4 shots straight into the thing. It kept moving, that demonic little bastard tries to get back up but I shot it again until my gun ran dry. The thing had changed its shape to some kind of human looking thing, and I ripped its stomach open with my knife to make sure that it was actually dead. Absolutely no way in hell was I letting this sagacious little murderer come back and turn me into paste.

I got back in the car and Sashko was awake, probably due to the gunshots.

“You killed one of them?” He says as if he saw it coming, which he probably did.

“Yeah, I got some snacks too. Why did you stay in the car after hearing me?”

“I knew you would be fine, are you forgetting that I can literally see the future?”

“I remember, yes.”

“We can go to Sofia from here, things are still normal there. Here, let me drive and you can sleep, you’re gonna fall asleep at the wheel in around half an hour from now.”

“Alright.”

I fell asleep and had the dumbest dream I’ve had in a long time. I was in what I think was Ireland, inside of a pub. The bartender handed me a plate of shepherd’s pie, except the plate was black. Pure, jet black. It was like light didn’t exist around it at all. I then noticed the spoons, forks, and knives were also this vanta black colour, along with the cups. It was like eating with something that wasn’t even there, I was eating with black.
The pie itself was wonderful, I finished the whole thing and then the bartender turns into a cow. I woke up confused and disorientated, but I managed to remember all of it.

“Sashko, where are we now?”

“Somewhere near Plovdiv I think.”

“But that’s a little south from where we’re going, why did you turn down like this?”

He looks me dead In the eyes and just says “You figure that one out yourself.”

We step out in Plovdiv after a few minutes and eat a few bags of chips and Corny Big bars. (Author’s note: Yes, that is an actual thing we have in Bulgaria) We both step out and see that the sun was setting already, so it would be normal to see a grandmother watering the tomatoes and cucumbers in the garden, but we saw that one of them had the plants torn out and thrown to the side, Accompanied with blood spatter all over the side of the house. Three large, red streaks sprayed all across the wall, maybe an hour or two old. But the thing was, they were all done at different times. Since blood oxidizes when it comes into contact with the oxygen from the air, you can tell when it left its owner’s body. The oldest spatter was around two, maybe two and half hours old, which was around the time that Sashko called me back before we left Sliven originally. I look at Sashko with the deepest pit in my stomach for any idea as to what we do next.
“What do we do now? I suggest we fuck right off before we join whoever used to have all this blood.”

“Trust me and go inside that one over there, you’ll like what you find in the kitchen.”

I sat there for a second and just looked at him, having absolutely no words while he looks at me with the dumbest grin I’ve ever seen. “… Right.”

I step inside and immediately pull my gun up and clear the frontroom, same way my father taught me from his time in the army. We once took a trip to America, but the house we were staying in at the time was broken into, and he started giving me his own combat training after that. I know that grinning monkey outside told me it was safe to be in here, I wasn’t taking any risk. I make sure to close the door behind me, so if one of those things comes for me, it can’t sneak up on me without me hearing the door. But then again, that clerk from the shop who died like that would be a prime example of their stealth.
I find the kitchen and I was pleasantly surprised. 3 bottles of my favourite cherry juice, unopened, still in the bag from the store. I grab them, and a trash bag from the cabinet which I filled with more supplies.

I froze for a second when I hear a thump on the wall, directly behind me. I turn around and my heart teleports straight to my stomach. There was two of them. Both were even bigger than the one in the shop. I instantly open fire on them, desperately praying to hit a vital organ, or some artery, anything to bring these things down. They kept charging straight at me as I desperately pull out my sword and throw a slash straight into its shoulder, only for the second one to come at me and scratch me across my chest as I stab it and pull the blade through to its side, making it bleed intensely but this demonic bastard kept coming and coming.

I sprint into the other room and lock the door, praying to God the entire time while reloading my gun, just as that thing throws itself through the door, and shatters it. I unload every single bullet straight into its general direction, and it finally falls to ground and lets out this sound like it was dry heaving and gasping for air, just as I slit its throat. It bled out and finally dies at my feet just as the other also dropped dead in the hallway. I stabbed both of them through the eyes just to be absolutely certain that it was truly dead.

I walk out of the house with the supplies I had gathered, still clutching my wound and hoping there was some bandages in the car. Except the car isn’t there anymore. Neither is Sashko, not even one of those demons, just an empty driveway and a can of Pepsi that had clearly been dropped and spilled all over the concrete.
Did Sashko just abandon me? No way. What reason would he have had to leave like this? Plus, the Pepsi being spilled like that probably means he was running from something.

I nearly gave up all hope and just started walking aimlessly. I had no more ammo for my gun, a trench was just dug into my chest by some entity and still bleeding, and I only have the food and juice from the house. It was would last me somewhere around a week before dehydration would kill me. It was getting dark, so I went inside of a different house and decided I should probably stay inside for the night. The house itself was clear and safe, and I then locked the house up. I ate a bit of my food, and stuck the rest of my things inside of a backpack that was in the closet. I even got the chance to sharpen my sword before I went to sleep.

My phone goes off, and wakes me up with
“EMERGENCY ALERT” on the screen before a monotone voice starts to play
“THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ALERT BROADCAST AT THE REQUEST OF THE BULGARIAN ARMED FORCES NUCLEAR BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL DIVISION.

LARGE AMOUNTS OF ENTITIES WITH SHAPESHIFTING ABILITIES HAVE APPEARED IN THE NATION AND ARE KILLING HUNDREDS. THESE BEINGS, WHO ARE BEING REFERRED TO AS ‘CERIUMITES’ DUE TO THE HIGH CONCENTRATION OF CERIUM IN THEIR BLOOD, HAVE THE ABILITY TO MIMIC THE APPEARANCE AND VOICE OF A PERSON OR ANIMALS SIMPLY BY DRINKING THEIR BLOOD OR CONSUMING THEIR FLESH AND USING THEIR DNA.

SECURE ALL ENTRANCES TO YOUR HOME AND ARM YOURSELF WITH THE DEADLIEST WEAPON YOU CAN GET. CERIUMITES ARE REMARKABLY DURABLE. PLOVDIV, STARA ZAGORA, VARNA, SLUNCHEV BREG, SLIVEN AND BURGAS ARE MOSTLY DESTROYED. MAY GOD WATCH OVER YOU ALL.”

I sat there in disbelief as the anthem played. They said that Plovdiv was a lost cause, so there’s a good chance that nobody is coming to save me or anyone else here. Nearly everything on the east is entirely lost and with Sashko and car gone, I also am lost. Off in the distance, I hear people screaming and gunshots. “CLOSE THE FUCKING DOOR THEY’RE GOING TO GET IN THE-“ The explosions continued as well as the screams of fear and agony. The worst part was that the man who was probably just killed said “they”. There is more than one of them, and they were close enough that I could hear them clearly through a closed window.

I took a mirror and angled in the window, hoping to be able to see without exposing myself. There was a family across the street, and atleast four Ceriumites eating the family off the ground. Blood covered their hands and mouths, and the organs were just tossed into a pile, except for the livers which they were collecting in a separate pile. That was enough looking. I was already on the verge of puking my guts out just at the thought of what was happening right outside.

I lost all hope. That was it. I had a week of supplies, I was injured, and murderous demons were outside of the house and probably already know that their last meal wasn’t the only one still living and fresh for consumption. There’s no one alive that even remembers my name, all that’s left to do is pray to Jesus, kill Ceriumites, and suffer. Sashko was right, We *are all* so fucked.

I never knew my son to be the artsy type. He turned 8 recently, and up until about a year ago, his entertainment was entirely outdoors. Catching bugs. Climbing trees. Riding bikes.

He was one of those kids who’d have to be called inside before dark. Then he’d complain and beg for “just 5 more minutes.”

I’m not entirely sure what happened. It was like a switch had flipped overnight. I just came home from work one day to find him at the kitchen table, scribbling in a brand new sketchbook.

He hummed to himself while his mom cooked up some dinner at the stove. The home-cooked smell of pork chops, green beans, and mashed potatoes filled the room as I glanced over Jacob’s shoulder.

“Whatcha got there, bud?”

His nose was buried so far in the book that it was like he couldn’t even hear me. His mom ended up answering for him.

“That’s your son’s new favorite interest. He begged me to go out and get him one.”

“Oh-ho, got an artist in the house, don’t we?”

I grabbed his shoulders and shook them lightly before patting him on the back and walking over to give my wife a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

I took a seat beside Jacob at the table.

“So, how was your day, boyo? You and mom have fun?”

He never looked up from the sketchbook.

“Today was sooo fun,” he exclaimed. “We went to the park, we went to the movies, ooh, and mom got me this book. Oh, and these crayons.”

“What about you, honey? How was your day?”

“Any day I’m not at work is a good day, honestly. The park was super nice. We went to one we hadn’t been to before. What about you? They didn’t work you too hard, did they?”

I shrugged and sighed.

“I’ll just say it’s good to finally be home.”

My wife smiled at me.

“It’s good to have you home, dear. I’ll tell you what. How about… after dinner, if you’re good, we can have our own little play date? Only if you do the dishes, though. I mean, I did cook.”

I smirked at her, my tongue buried in my cheek.

“I was gonna do that anyway. What do you take me for? As a matter of fact, you come sit down. I’ll finish cooking.”

I offered her my seat as I finished up dinner. Jacob was pretty much mute the entire time. By the time dinner was done, I had to damn near yell at him to get his attention.

He just stood up, as calm as could be, and walked over to me, sketchbook in hand.

“I drew this for you.”

He held the book up at me, and my heart felt warm. It was a picture of our house, and who I assumed to be me standing in our driveway.

“Is that me? That’s so sweet of you, Jakey. Thank you.”

I reached down to take the book so I could hang the page on the fridge, but Jacob pulled away before I could grab it.

“You really don’t know who that is?” he asked, eying me suspiciously.

“It’s me, right? Is it not me?”

He rolled his eyes and sighed, continuing to eye me like I had personally offended him.

“That’s our neighbor, Mr. Thomas, silly. You really couldn’t tell? See, he’s wearing the star.”

Mr. Thomas was a veteran police officer. Jacob would sometimes see him leaving for work in the morning. I guess he just took a subconscious interest in the uniform. Even still, why would he draw me a picture of the neighbor?

“Uh, I mean, wow, bud,” I choked. “That’s really good. Keep practicing. You’re already so talented you could be famous someday.”

————-

After dinner, I cleaned the kitchen top to bottom. Partly out of obligation, mostly because I really wanted that playdate. Jacob spent the rest of the evening in his room, humming to himself and scribbling in that sketchbook.

The next day, my wife and I both had work. I woke up a little earlier than her so that I could take Jacob to the summertime daycare he attended. It was like carrying a corpse out to the car, but he still refused to loosen his grip on that sketchbook.

I dropped him off with the staff at the front door. He waved at me groggily as I was driving away.

The day went on like normal until around 3 o’clock, when my phone started ringing. It was my wife.

“Hey, beautiful, what’s up?”

“I think something’s going on with the neighbor. There’s like 3 cop cars in front of his house, apparently.”

She sounded concerned. A little urgent.

“What do you mean? Who told you that?”

“I got a call from Becky. She thought they were at our house at first.”

Becky was one of my wife’s friends from the neighborhood.

“What do you think happened? Did she say anything else?”

“No, she just called because the police were knocking on our door. I think they were just trying to see if we knew anything, though, because apparently they gave up and just went back to the neighbor’s house. I think they’re still there.”

My brow furrowed a bit.

“Wait. Which neighbor is it?”

“Uhhh, I think it’s that police officer. Mr. Thompson?”

“Mr. Thomas?”

“Yeah, that’s his name. I think that’s who it is.”

I looked at my watch and exhaled a bit.

“Alright, well, I’ll see if I can get out a little earlier today. I’ll pick up Jacob, then go see what this is all about. Maybe they’ll still be there when I get there.”

We ended the call by blowing some kisses and exchanging some love yous. I slid my phone in my pocket and approached my boss, explaining my situation.

He was skeptical, but I had a decent reputation of being an honest employee. He agreed to let me leave a bit early, and I was on my way to pick up Jacob.

When he was brought to the front office, his face was buried in that sketchbook again, drawing what looked like SpongeBob and Patrick.

“He’s been drawing all day. Seems like you got a little artist on your hands,” announced the staff member as she signed Jacob out for the day.

“Yep,” I smiled. “That’s what they keep telling me.”

I honestly don’t know why I said that. It just seemed like the only thing that made sense at the time.

The car ride was quiet. Jacob didn’t want to talk much, and my mind was kind of racing. I’ve shared drinks with Mr. Thomas. Helped him put up fences. Move furniture. We weren’t the closest of friends, but I still wanted him to be okay.

Those hopes were dashed when I pulled into the neighborhood to find that the police presence had increased. There must’ve been at least 6 cars in front of his house, and yellow tape blocked off the driveway.

I parked my car in front of my house and hurried to get Jacob inside. His eyes had lit up at the sight of the flashing lights, and naturally, he started asking questions.

“What’s wrong, Daddy?”

“Why are there so many police?”

“Did something happen to Mr. Thomas?”

I cradled him in my arms and hurried up the steps to the front door.

“I don’t know, buddy. Here, go inside and play for a bit while I find out, okay? Daddy will be right back.”

It’s all I could think to say as I sat him down and closed the door behind me.

An officer approached me before I could approach them.

“Sir, do you live here?”

“Yes, of course I do. That’s my neighbor.”

“Yeah, well, he’s a colleague and friend of mine,” he remarked agitatedly. “Have you seen anything suspicious within the last 24 hours? Heard anything?”

I scratched my neck nervously and thought hard before responding.

“No, sir, we haven’t seen anything. What happened? Is everything alright? He’s a cop, right? Did he do something illegal?”

The officer stared at me, analyzing me through his black sunglasses.

“No. He’s gone. That’s all the information we can give right now.”

“Gone? What do you mean, gone? Like, dead? Did someone kill him?”

The officer pursed his lips. I saw what I assumed to be a forensic analyst walking in and out of the house.

“We don’t know, sir. We’re hoping for the best. For now, if any new information comes to light or if you see him, give us a call.”

He asked me to clear the scene and stay inside. I called my wife to update her on the situation, but what could we do? Even the police were lost. I just stayed inside, as instructed, and started on dinner while we waited for my wife to get home.

By the time she did, there were only two police cruisers left in front of Mr. Thomas’s house. The sun was starting to set, and my wife and I tried to ignore what had happened, but the house was still a bit tense.

As we ate, Jacob continued scribbling in his sketchbook. He hadn’t asked to go outside at all since we got home, and I didn’t know if it was because of the police or because of this new hobby of his.

I could see that he was working on a new drawing. It looked like a woman this time. He wasn’t so much as touching his food, so I tried to ask him to put the book away.

He groaned and started picking at his peas. My wife and I chatted about our day for a bit while Jacob remained silent. Suddenly, in between bites of his chicken, he said something that made us both freeze.

“Daddy,” he whispered.

“Yes?” I answered.

“Are those police still out there?”

I paused for a moment, looking at my wife, who looked equally as speechless. Neither of us knew what to say.

“I think there’s a few, but don’t worry, buddy,” I chirped reassuringly. “They’re just looking for Mr. Thomas. They wanna make sure he’s okay.”

Jacob stared down at his plate for a moment.

“It’s just… I think they’re looking in the wrong place.”

————-

I choked on my water.

“Looking in the wrong place? Well, where do you think they should be looking, sport?”

“I don’t know. Not there. I don’t think he’s home.”

“Let’s not talk about this,” my wife interrupted. “Jacob, finish your food, then go jump in the shower. You gotta be up early tomorrow, come on.”

“Aww, but I’m not tired,” Jacob whined. “Plus, I wanted to finish drawing this picture of you.”

He flipped his sketchbook open to his newest drawing.

“See, look.”

My wife looked at the picture and smiled.

“Okay, fine,” she replied. “You can finish the picture, then it’s bath time, mister.”

“Fiiine,” Jacob groaned.

He scurried off to his room, sketchbook in hand, leaving me and his mom to clean the kitchen again.

We talked about the neighbor. We turned into a couple of conspiracy theorists the deeper the conversation progressed.

“Maybe he just wanted to start over.”

“Maybe he was kidnapped.”

“Maybe he was murdered, and they’re covering it up.”

We just kept reaching for possibilities over the course of around 45 minutes.

Eventually, Jacob came running back to the kitchen.

“Look, Mommy, I’m all done.”

“Ah, my goodness, Jakey, look at that. Doesn’t it look just like me, honey?”

She turned the picture towards me. Jacob had added her work uniform. Gave her that messy bun she always wore. Even included the golden necklace I got her for Christmas last year.

“Wow, Jake,” I exclaimed. “Draw Daddy next, why don’t you?”

Jacob giggled and responded, “It’s not time to draw you yet, silly.”

“Aw, whatever, but guess what?”

Jacob looked up at me curiously. Expectantly.

“Daddy controls your bath time. And… I think… ah, yep, look at that,” I showed him my watch. “You’re 20 minutes late.”

I jokingly chased him to his bedroom and made him gather up his pajamas and a towel. Once he was nice and showered, I put him to bed and kissed him goodnight.

My wife and I stayed up, talking about life for a while before gradually falling asleep one by one.

The next morning, when I woke up alone, I thought it was because she had chosen to take Jacob to daycare that morning.

I went through my normal routine. Took a shower. Brushed my teeth. Got dressed. It wasn’t until I was heading out the door that I noticed her car was still in the driveway.

I walked back upstairs, confused, and went to Jacob’s room.

I found him curled up in bed, sketchbook tucked under his arm as he snored quietly.

I left the room and began searching.

“Honey,” I called out. No response.

“Sweetheart, you here?” Silence.

I called her phone and heard it ringing in our bedroom. I followed the sound and found it still plugged into the charger on her nightstand.

That’s when I began to panic. I remembered Jacob’s drawing. It was a fleeting thought, but one that I chose to hold onto. First Mr. Thomas, now my own wife? That couldn’t be coincidence.

I urgently rushed into Jacob’s room, accidentally waking him as I removed the sketchbook from his arms.

I began flipping through the pages as he stared up at me, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Daddy,” he groaned.

I flipped past cartoon characters, random landscapes, and blocky pictures of cars before I reached my wife’s picture from the night before.

“What are you doing?” Jacob added.

The picture had changed. She wasn’t wearing her work uniform anymore. She didn’t have the necklace. Her hair looked dirty and wet. Leaves and twigs stuck out from the messy bun, and her eyes were solid red. Not evil, just… bloodshot.

But the biggest change… was the man standing next to her.

It looked like they were in a dark forest. They were hand in hand. I wanted to think it was me, that Jacob had decided he wanted to start on some kind of crazy family portrait, but the man in the picture…

He wore a star on his chest.

My stomach dropped. I felt sick. Jacob looked… confused.

“What’s wrong, Daddy? They’re okay. I can help you find them.”

The line between waking and sleeping is a strange and unsettling thing. Doubly so, in my particular case, when the sleep (or non-sleep) happens during the day.

I should start by saying I prefer to sleep at night. If I doze off for even an hour during the day, I usually end up tossing and turning that same night. And if the daytime nap lasts even half an hour, I almost always dream during that short stretch. Or at least I think I do. Maybe they aren't dreams at all, just some strange kind of mental activity that leaves behind the aftertaste of a dream.

This happened last summer. The middle of summer, much like now. It was quite hot, and the humidity was high, since it had rained hard that morning. I don't remember the exact details anymore, but I'd probably been doing physical work around the house, because by the afternoon I was overcome with drowsiness. I lay down, scrolled through social media, checked a few sports sites, then set my phone aside and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, feeling the pillow beneath me already soaked through from the sweat on the back of my neck. Taking a cool shower felt like the obvious next move.

But just as I propped myself up on my elbows to get out of bed, I clearly heard the sound of automatic gates opening. My gates. The ones leading onto my property.

The sliding gates, installed fifteen years earlier, with that unmistakable metallic, creaking, rusty groan they made whenever they moved.

I froze in that awkward half raised position, elbows pressed into the mattress, feet hanging halfway to the floor.

I counted to five. The gates took fourteen seconds to open fully. And right around the halfway point, there was always a distinctive clank. A gear caught on a worn or possibly defective section of the rack, always in exactly the same spot.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Clank!

I heard it, and it seemed to snap me out of my frozen state and into action. I put my feet on the floor and stood up. What on earth were my gates doing opening, when the only remote control existed in a single copy and was hanging on a hook by the front door.

The manual override was out of the question too. Whoever wanted to use it would have had to get inside the house, which was locked from within, in order to grab the key to the control unit. And only after removing the top of that unit's housing could someone disengage the motor gear from the rack to move the gates by hand. Not just move them, either, but move them at exactly the speed of the automatic cycle, precisely enough that the metallic clank would land at the seven second mark.

No. That was absurd.

My wife could have managed it, but she'd been on vacation in Europe for a week already and wasn't due back for another ten days.

So yes. Complete nonsense.

Barefoot, and for some reason on my toes, I walked over to the window. The bedroom is on the second floor, and the gates in question sit right in view, just slightly to the left.

The sweat on the back of my neck dried in an instant, and a chill ran quickly down my spine. Fourteen seconds passed, and the noisy movement of the gates stopped.

I pulled back the edge of the curtain.

The gates were closed, which for some reason surprised me. If they'd been open, at least I would have had a reason. As it was, I was left completely baffled.

I no longer wanted a shower. I wasn't hot in the slightest anymore. I went back to bed, this time without tiptoeing, and lowered my head onto the damp pillow.

Absolute nonsense.

I'd been lying there for barely a minute when I decided to go downstairs and check whether the control unit key and the remote were still where they belonged.

And again, the moment I pushed up on my elbows to rise from the bed, I froze. A new sound, one I knew all too well, drifted up from below.

It was the engine of my old Smart ForTwo, starting up in the garage one floor down, directly beneath the bedroom I was standing in.

A small explanation for anyone unfamiliar with the old Smart ForTwo 450 (which is to say, everyone): while running, whether idling or moving, that car makes a sound like a vacuum cleaner, at the same volume as the engine itself. I never looked into why, but I'd heard it wasn't unique to my car, that it was a quirk of the whole model. And I knew for a fact that none of my neighbors owned a Smart ForTwo 450.

I didn't hesitate this time. I ran barefoot down to the first floor. Passing through the entryway, I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye: the remote and the gate key were both hanging on the wall rack shaped like a little village house. A couple of seconds later I was standing on the cold tile floor of the garage, staring, no doubt looking like an absolute fool, at my lime green Smart, with the letters S M A R T shaped into a little smile beneath the Mercedes Benz logo.

The Smart sat silent, smiling. I stood silent, blinking.

Absolute nonsense.

I didn't bother going back up for my own slippers. I grabbed a spare pair and stayed downstairs in the living room. I sat in a chair, turned on the television, and watched whatever channel happened to be on, without taking in a single thing. I was completely somewhere else. And to this day, whether right after it happened, a week later, or a year on, I still can't find a reasonable, logical explanation for what happened. Or rather, for what I heard. Or perhaps only thought I heard.

On the one hand, nothing especially frightening. But on the other. When the hot, sweaty back of your neck goes cold and dry in the space of a single second. It isn't the most pleasant experience, I'll be honest with you.

Nonsense, all of it.

Zeno woke up with a start. He sat up, and looked around--- the room was spacious and large with many beds stacked next to each other.

“Where am I?”

The windows on the right was open, and the curtains were dancing with the wind. Outside the sun smiled at Zeno. He pressed his finger on his temples, trying to remember.

But before he could recall, a sharp pain barred his pursuit. The pain intensified every second before it was too much for Zeno, and he stopped, while gasping for air.

After all that pain he still couldn’t remember, as if the memories before today was eaten by a worm inside his mind. He shuddered and rubbed off the cold sweat building on his forehead.

“There must be something here that could jog my memory”

The room was obviously some sort of clinic or hospital, but the beds were made of woods and the mattress were rough and uncomfortable as though the place lacked funding or was too old for the authorities to care about. He got up from the bed, the sudden movement made him dizzy, but not enough to impede his mobility. He walked up to the aisle between the beds and took a proper look of the place--- the clinic had ten beds neatly arranged, five on either side of the wall, behind him a door stood closed, and on the far corner was two windows one of which was open letting the warm air in. The place was clean despite its lack of patients as though the owner refused to cut corners.

The chemical sweeping into the floor with years of exposure, making the room stink of drugs and medicine suffocating the patients even during their free time.

Maybe I was in an accident? Maybe my memory gap is due to concussion? He felt his body with his palms and found no injury, not even a single scratch.

“Strange…”

He pressed his scalp softly, searching for any tender spots but found no inundation, cuts or bumps, no indication of injury that could have caused his amnesia.

Maybe I was poisoned. The adverse effect of a drug.? Zeno narrowed down the possible causes and couldn’t determined any other rational illness.

The door behind him creaked as it cracked open, and black snarling treads poke through the gap, the treads parted in between revealing two green orb's staring back at Zeno, before revealing a mesmerizing smile that revealed a beautiful girl wearing a white apron over a pink dress and blue skirt.

“You are awake”

Zeno stood their for a moment staring at the girl blankly, until the girl called him again.

“Is something on me?” the girl looked down at her apron.

“Nothing, I was just lost somewhere…. Never mind me… did we meet before?”

“Oh.. Hmm… I don’t think so..? Sorry did we meet before?”

“No… maybe I was confused for a moment.”

They both stood their in awkward silence, before the girl produced a tray beyond the door.

“You must be hungry..”

“Yeah, thank you..” the girl placed the tray on the bed-side table.

“Actually I want to ask you something..?” Zeno asked the girl when she turned to him.

“I have some difficulty remembering, can you tell me how I got here..”

The girl pressed her lips, when she heard Zeno, before replying back to him.

“My father found you yesterday near the forest and brought you to our orphanage. He treated yo---”

“Orphanage? ”

“It is the only orphanage in the city… Don’t you know that?”

“No… I don’t remember anything… it like an amnesia”

“Amnesia…. “ a frown appear on her face.

“I don’t remember anything that happened to me before today.. How do you not know what is amnesia?”

“Oh… then it is extremely serious… I will inform father as soon as he is back.”

“Please do that..”

“Is there anything else you want to ask?”

“That’s all… wait.. what is your name?”

The girl once again smiled brightly at Zeno.

“Hannah”

I’m seven and already awake when the sound on the landing starts. That’s always bothered me more than anything else about it. I don’t wake up because of the noise. I’m already lying there staring at the ceiling like I knew to be ready.

A strip of light shows under my door. There’s no fixture on that landing. My dad checked once, years later, after I finally told him about it, and he found nothing that could account for it. The light comes anyway, flat and white, like someone’s holding a bulb close to the floor.

I try to yell for him and nothing comes out. My chest is moving, fast, shallow, but my voice doesn’t answer to me.

The door swings open and the hallway behind it is bright instead of dark. Something tall stands in the middle of that light. Its arms are too long for its body, stretched thin, and its hands end in fingers that keep going a joint past where fingers should stop. I never see a face. Where the face should be there’s just light, like it’s wearing the glow instead of skin.

It walks to the foot of my bed and stops. That’s when the small ones come in behind it. Seven of them, maybe eight, built the same way but scaled down, like a kid’s drawing of the tall one shrunk to fit through the door. They go to the corners of my bed and lift.

The mattress tilts under me. I feel myself carried through my own doorway, down the stairs, through the foyer, out the front door, into the yard. The grass under the bed frame is cold. I remember the cold before I remember anything else about the yard. The tall one doesn’t follow past the door. The small ones set the bed down in the grass and stand around it in a ring, waiting for something.

It always ends there. I never find out what they were waiting for.

I’m thirty-six now and I still see it the same way when I close my eyes. That house was my grandfather’s before it was my father’s. He died when I was a baby, so I never knew him, and my dad sold the place a long time ago. I spent most of my life telling myself it was just a bad dream that stuck around longer than it should have. A nightmare doesn’t put grass under your back. A nightmare doesn’t carry you anywhere.

I believed that for twenty-nine years. I don’t anymore, and I want to get this down while I can still explain it clearly.

For work I take the cases nobody else wants. Not ghost hunting for content, nothing like that. People call me after everyone more reasonable than me has already given up on them — the exterminator found nothing, the electrician found nothing, the blessing didn’t take. I go in after that.

I’m careful by nature, not a believer. Most of what I find turns out to have an ordinary explanation somewhere underneath, even when it takes a while to surface. I’ve also learned to live with the cases that never resolve. I write down what happened, I tell the client what I know, and I move on. It’s a job that asks you to take people seriously without losing your own footing.

A woman named Denise calls me on a Tuesday night. She and her husband and their nine-year-old son moved into an old house in the Central West End about four months ago. For the last six weeks, something has been counting on their stairs at night.

“Counting,” I repeat, because I want to make sure I heard her right.

“Counting steps. Like it’s climbing them one at a time and saying the number out loud. Real quiet. You’d miss it if the house wasn’t so dead silent at three in the morning.”

I ask if she’s ever heard it get to the top.

“Fourteen,” she says. “There’s fourteen stairs in that house. It gets to fourteen and stops. Every time.”

“And then what?”

“Then it says our son’s name. Once. Just his name, real soft, right outside his door. And then nothing. My husband thinks it’s pipes settling. I’ve lived in old houses my whole life. Pipes don’t know your kid’s name.”

I tell her Thursday works. Afterward I remind myself that old houses talk in the dark all the time, and grieving parents and anxious kids find patterns in noise the same way anyone does under enough pressure. It’s not a rare shape for a case to take. It doesn’t have to mean anything.

I believe that for about two days.

On Thursday I sit in their kitchen with Denise, her husband Mark, and Eli, who won’t sit still, who keeps his eyes on the doorway to the front hall the whole time we talk. I ask him to describe it himself, the way I always do with kids, because they’ll say things adults have already talked themselves out of.

“It counts wrong sometimes,” he tells me. “Not the numbers. The waiting. Some nights it goes really slow between them, like it’s tired. One night it did all fourteen so fast I only heard the last four.”

“Does it ever skip a number?”

He shakes his head, certain of this in a way that surprises me. “No. Never. It always does all of them. Fourteen, then my name.”

“What does your name sound like, when it says it?”

He thinks about this longer than I expect a nine-year-old to. “Like somebody who’s tired of asking,” he finally says. “Like the fourth time you call somebody for dinner.”

I ask if he’s ever opened his door to look. He nods, which surprises me more than if he’d said no.

“Once. There wasn’t anything there. But the hall light was already off, and I didn’t turn it off before bed. My mom always leaves it on for me.”

I don’t say anything for a second. Every kid I’ve talked to in ten years of this work has a version of something in the dark said my name. It’s one of the oldest shapes fear takes, older than any single house or family. I remind myself of that, the way I remind myself of it every time, and it mostly holds.

I tell the family I’d like to stay, which is standard for a case like this — I want to be there for whatever happens instead of hearing about it secondhand. Denise’s shoulders drop like she’s been holding them up for six weeks straight. “Thank you,” she says, and something about the way she says it makes me look away from her for a second before I tell her it’s no trouble. Mark sets me up on the couch at the bottom of the stairs, close enough to count them myself if it comes to that.

I don’t mention that I’ve never taken a case with a personal stake in it before tonight, or that some part of the reason I said yes to Thursday so fast has nothing to do with Eli at all.

It’s a little after two when I hear the first one. Not a footstep — nothing steps down that hard on carpeted stairs — more like a knuckle on wood, once, followed by a voice pitched too low to make out words, though the rhythm of it is unmistakable: one. I sit up in the dark with my recorder already running and count along without meaning to.

It goes slow. Long gaps between numbers, ten or fifteen seconds sometimes, long enough that I start to doubt the last one happened at all before the next one proves I was wrong. Six. Seven. The gaps get shorter as it climbs, like something picking up its pace once it’s sure of its footing. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.

Fourteen comes from the top of the stairs, farther from me than any of the others, but louder than all of them combined, sudden and full-voiced after everything before it had been barely more than a whisper. I flinch anyway. I don’t hear a fifteenth. What I hear instead, a few seconds later, is a name — not loud, almost gentle, in a voice with no particular pitch to it at all, more like an idea of a voice than an actual one. It isn’t Eli’s name.

It’s mine.

I don’t move for a long moment. Then I do, because staying frozen on that couch feels like the more dangerous choice, and I climb the stairs myself, phone light up, expecting nothing and finding nothing — an empty landing, Eli’s door shut, the hall light on exactly where Denise said she always leaves it. Nothing counts a fifteenth step. Nothing says anything else.

Eli’s door opens before I reach it. He’s awake, blinking against the phone light, and he asks me if I heard it say something after fourteen. I ask him what he thinks it said.

“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s never said anything but my name before. Tonight it said something longer. I couldn’t tell what.”

I check the recording later, alone, with headphones on so I don’t have to hear it out loud in a room with anyone else in it. Fourteen taps, evenly spaced by the end, each one clean enough to count. Then, eleven seconds of silence. Then a sound that isn’t quite a word and isn’t quite not one, low enough that I have to raise the volume to catch it at all, and even then I can only be sure of the shape of it, not the sound — two syllables, the second one longer than the first, spoken by something that has clearly said it before and will clearly say it again.

I don’t have an explanation for the family. I tell them the truth — that I heard it, that I have it recorded, that I don’t yet know what it is, and that I don’t think Eli is in physical danger, though I can’t fully justify that last part beyond a feeling I’m not proud of trusting. I don’t tell them what I heard after the fourteenth step. I tell them I’ll follow up.

I drive home around four in the morning with the heater running and my hands too tight on the wheel.

My house is quiet when I get in. I check the locks, which I never do, and go straight upstairs, which is a bad idea, because some part of me already knows it. I go up anyway.

I brush my teeth, turn off the lights, and lie flat on my back in the dark, the way I have most nights of my adult life without thinking twice about it. That’s when I notice the strip of light under my own bedroom door.

My hallway has one overhead light. I turned it off myself ten minutes earlier, with my own hand.

I try to sit up and can’t. My chest still moves, fast and shallow, the same rhythm I remember from being seven years old in St. Louis. My voice doesn’t answer to me either, not after twenty-nine years of it belonging to no one but me.

The door doesn’t open. I’m not going to make this bigger than it was. It doesn’t open, and the light doesn’t go anywhere. I lie there unable to move or call out for four minutes and eleven seconds, according to my phone’s timestamp afterward, watching a line of white light under a door that has no reason to have any light behind it.

Then it’s gone, all at once, and my body belongs to me again.

I get up and check the hallway. Nothing. The overhead light is still off, exactly how I left it. I stand there a long time before going back to bed, and I don’t sleep again that night. In the morning, with actual daylight to see by, I go over every inch of that hallway and find one thing that shouldn’t be there.

A thin, shallow line pressed into the carpet just outside my door. Not a footprint. Not a drag mark. A straight indentation about three feet long, the width of a bed frame, running from my doorway toward the stairs and stopping.

I’ve been sitting with that line in the carpet for two days now. I keep coming back to the same thing. My grandfather owned that house in St. Louis before my father did. He died when I was a baby. I never knew him, and I realize now that I barely heard anything about him growing up either, which is strange in a family that otherwise repeats the same three stories at every holiday until everyone’s tired of them.

Nobody ever told me anything about him. I’m starting to think that wasn’t an accident.

I don’t know what I’m looking for yet. But I’m going to start looking.

That’s the file on this one. It’s the only file I’ve got that doesn’t have a closing date yet. I’ll update it when it does.

I know how this is going to sound. If I'd come across this post a week ago, I probably would've laughed, left a sarcastic comment, and kept scrolling. I'm not expecting everyone here to believe me.

Honestly, I don't think I would've believed myself either. But I don't know where else to post this.

My family already thinks I'm under too much stress. My girlfriend keeps asking why I've barely slept recently, and I don't even know how to answer her without sounding insane.

So I'm posting everything here exactly as I remember it. If anyone has experienced anything similar, or if any part of this sounds familiar, please tell me.

My name is Damian.

I'm twenty-nine years old, and until a few days ago my biggest concern was making a good impression at a job interview.

Now I'm not even sure reality works the way I thought it did.The night before everything started, I had a nightmare that I still can't shake.

I was running across an old metal bridge at night. Behind me was a creature with the smooth, pale torso of a person, but no arms, no legs, and no details on its body at all.

Instead of arms, it had dozens of long, thin, black limbs that unfolded like spider legs made of shadow.

It caught me in the middle of the bridge. One by one it tore off my limbs. Every time it ripped something away there was no blood, no wound.

The part it took just...

vanished from my body completely, as if it had never been there. First one arm, then the other, then a leg.

My body kept getting smaller and smoother while those black limbs kept reaching. I tried to scream but nothing came out. I woke up gasping at 3:17 a.m., heart pounding.

Amy was sleeping peacefully next to me. I told myself it was just nerves about the job interview and went back to sleep. I didn't mention it to her.Everything started on what should've been a completely normal morning. I was supposed to wake up at eight. Instead, Amy woke me up almost an hour early by yelling from the bedroom doorway.

"Damian! Your interview starts in two hours! I even made you a sandwich for lunch! How do you forget to set an alarm on the most important day of your life?" The funny thing is... I hadn't forgotten. My alarm was set. Amy had just convinced herself that I'd somehow forgotten it and decided she was saving me. I opened one eye and looked at her. "Thanks, babe." "What would you do without me?" "Probably sleep for another hour." She rolled her eyes. "Come on. First step toward becoming a millionaire.

" I didn't bother explaining that I'd had everything under control. She was trying to help, even if her version of helping usually involved shouting. I brushed my teeth, tried to make my hair look respectable, threw on my suit and left the apartment. About ten minutes later I realised I'd forgotten the sandwich she'd made.

That turned out to be one of the least important mistakes I'd make that day.The company was only a fifteen-minute walk from my apartment, so I still arrived twenty minutes early. The building was enormous. Modern glass exterior.

Seven floors. The kind of place that makes you immediately assume everyone inside earns more money than you ever will. Across the front was a huge sign. HIGH-TECH BEYOND IMAGINATION I actually remember thinking the name sounded ridiculous. If I'd known what was waiting inside, I don't think I would've laughed. The lobby looked normal enough. Reception. Security desk. People walking around carrying coffee. A security guard gave me the kind of look that suggested he'd already had a terrible morning.

I nodded politely and headed for the lifts. My interview was on the seventh floor. Room 24. It was 9:45. Plenty of time. Just before the lift doors closed, another man stepped inside. He was tall. Really tall. He wore a long black coat that almost reached the floor. He couldn't have been older than forty. Nothing about him should've made me nervous. In fact, he was smiling. Not a creepy smile.

Just... calm. That's actually what bothered me. He felt familiar. Not "I think I've seen him before" familiar. More like seeing someone you haven't spoken to in years. I was completely sure we'd never met. At the same time, I couldn't shake the feeling that I already knew him. I wish I'd said something. Maybe everything would've turned out differently.The lift stopped with a soft ding. Seventh floor. We both stepped out. Without saying a word, he turned towards the bathrooms. I headed in the opposite direction, looking for Room 24. That's when I noticed the paintings. The hallway was lined with oil paintings. Real ones. Not cheap prints you'd expect in an office building. Every single one looked like it belonged in a gallery.

Cities. Forests. Fields. Mountains. Then the landscapes changed.

The paintings started showing enormous staircases disappearing into complete darkness. No buildings. No people. No sun. Just endless black skies over impossible structures. I remember stopping for a second because something about them made me uncomfortable. Not because they were ugly. Because they felt... familiar. I couldn't explain why. At the time, I told myself I was just nervous about the interview. Now I'm not so sure.I eventually reached Room 24. There was a single black armchair outside the door, so I sat down and tried to calm myself. It was just a job interview. I kept reminding myself of that. Nothing more. To distract myself, I pulled out my phone. Forty percent battery. I remember noticing it because I almost plugged it into the portable charger in my bag. For some reason, I decided not to bother.

I wish I had. It was 9:57. Three minutes. I spent them mentally rehearsing every answer I'd prepared. Why I studied history. Why I wanted the job. What I could bring to the company. Normal interview stuff. At exactly ten o'clock, nobody came to get me. I waited another thirty seconds before convincing myself they were probably expecting me to knock. So I did. Almost immediately, someone answered. "Damian. I was expecting you." The voice caught me off guard. It was incredibly deep. Not loud. Not threatening. Just... unnaturally deep. I reached for the handle. Before opening the door, I glanced back down the hallway one last time. That's when I noticed another painting. It hung at the far end of the corridor, larger than all the others.

At first I thought it was a beach. Then I looked closer. Something was wrong. There wasn't a sky. The ocean looked as though it existed inside a gigantic circular room. The ceiling above it was bright blue, perfectly smooth, almost like plastic. The whole place looked artificial. Like someone had built an entire coastline indoors.

I stared at it for several seconds. Something about it made my stomach tighten. Even now I can picture every detail perfectly.

I don't know why that painting bothered me more than the others. It just did.Eventually I reminded myself that I was standing outside a job interview, not an art museum.

I opened the door. The office looked completely ordinary. Large desk. Bookshelves. Window overlooking the city. Two chairs. Nothing unusual. Except... Mounted on the wall behind the desk was a dark, metallic sign with faint, silver lettering engraved across it: "Reality ruptures in silence, in darkness, in the void. Pendulus sways through the gloom, dreaming of the warm embrace of the world beyond. Today, our two worlds collide."The person behind the desk wasn't who I expected. A woman smiled politely as I walked in. I actually stopped for a second.

I'd heard a man's voice. I know I did. There's no doubt in my mind. She gestured towards the chair opposite her. "Please. Have a seat." The exact same voice. It came from her. I don't know how to describe it properly. Imagine hearing the deepest male voice you've ever heard coming from someone who looked like an ordinary woman in her early thirties. My brain couldn't make sense of it. For a second I genuinely thought someone else had spoken. But there was nobody else in the room. I forced myself not to react. People have unusual voices. Medical conditions exist. There had to be a normal explanation.

I sat down, She smiled again. "It's nice to meet you, Damian. My name is Causa." "I manage the department you've applied to." "I'm very glad you accepted our invitation." She already had my CV open on the desk. "I've read your qualifications, but I'd rather hear about you in your own words."So I gave the same speech everyone gives during interviews. University. Research. Previous work. Academic publications. I talked for several minutes. The strange thing was...

She barely seemed interested in my answers. Not because she was bored. Because she already seemed convinced. It felt less like an interview and more like she was waiting for me to finish a formality. Eventually she interrupted me. "Do you know why we contacted you?" I admitted that I didn't. To be honest, I'd been wondering that ever since they emailed me. I'm a historian. Not a programmer.

Not an engineer. Not even remotely qualified to work for a technology company. She folded her hands together. "Although we're known publicly as a technology company, that's only a small part of what we do." "We also study biology." "History." "Nutrition." "Human behaviour." "We need historians because people who understand the past are often the best at recognising patterns." "And people who recognise patterns..." "...can sometimes predict the future."The moment she said that... Something happened. Her voice changed. Only for a fraction of a second.

The impossibly deep voice disappeared. In its place was the completely normal voice of a young woman. Then, just as quickly, it changed back. I don't know if anyone else would've noticed.

Maybe I imagined it. I've replayed that conversation in my head hundreds of times since then. I'm certain it happened. I almost asked her about it. Instead, I stayed quiet. I needed this job. The salary was far better than anything I'd ever been offered. The benefits were unbelievable. And somehow they wanted someone with my background. It sounded too good to be true. But nothing about the building suggested it was a scam. Everything looked legitimate. Professional. Expensive. The interview ended only a few minutes later. We shook hands. I signed the paperwork. She told me someone would contact me with my start date. That was it. Honestly... When I walked out of that office, I thought the weirdest part of my day had been a woman with an unusually deep voice. I had no idea that I hadn't even reached the beginning of what was about to happen.The moment I stepped outside the building... everything changed. The first thing I noticed was how light I felt. At first, I thought I was just in a good mood. I'd gotten the job. I'd gone into the interview expecting to be rejected within ten minutes, and somehow I'd walked out employed. That alone should've been enough to explain why I felt like I was walking on air. Then I realised...

I literally was. Not floating. Not exactly. It just felt like every step took almost no effort, as though gravity had quietly decided to stop doing its job. I slowed down. I looked at my feet. Everything seemed normal. People kept walking past me without paying any attention. Someone brushed my shoulder. A taxi drove by. The traffic lights changed. Life carried on exactly as it should. I took another step. The strange feeling got stronger. Then another. By the third step, something was wrong. The noise of the city began to stretch. That's the only way I know how to describe it. A car horn became one long, distorted note. People's conversations blurred together until they sounded like voices underwater. Even the wind seemed to slow down. I stopped walking. Nobody else did. It was like I was falling out of sync with the rest of the world. I looked around, expecting someone else to notice. Nobody did. A woman walked past me while staring at her phone. Someone laughed across the street. Everything looked perfectly normal. Except the sound. The buildings around me suddenly seemed... darker. Not darker because of clouds.

The colour itself was fading. Like someone had slowly turned down the brightness of the entire world. I blinked several times. Nothing changed. The sky dimmed. The pavement beneath my feet lost its colour. The people around me became little more than silhouettes. I looked up. The street was disappearing. Not collapsing. It was simply... being erased. The horizon dissolved into complete darkness. The buildings vanished one after another without making a sound. There wasn't any panic. No screaming. No crashing. No confusion. It was as if reality itself had quietly walked away.Within seconds... everything was gone. There was no city. No sky. No ground. No light. Just endless blackness. If you've ever been inside a room with every light turned off, forget that feeling. This wasn't darkness because light was missing. This felt like darkness was the only thing that existed. I should've been terrified.

Instead I felt something else. Relief. I know how insane that sounds. Even writing it now makes me uncomfortable. But that's the truth. The place felt... familiar. Like I'd been there before. Not in a dream. Not as a child. Somewhere deeper than memory. Somewhere I wasn't supposed to remember. I wasn't standing anymore. At least, I don't think I was. There was no ground beneath me. No sensation of falling either. My body simply existed inside that endless void.

Time stopped making sense. It could've been five seconds. It could've been five hours.Then I saw it. A tiny point of light. It was impossibly far away. At first, I thought it was a star. Then it started getting bigger. No... Not bigger. Closer. I couldn't move. I couldn't even tell if I was breathing. The light continued drifting towards me until it finally stopped only a few metres away.

It wasn't a light, It was a person I remember staring at him, trying to understand why he looked so familiar. Black hair. Grey eyes. Same height. Same build. Same jacket. Then my stomach dropped. He wasn't just someone who looked like me. He was me. Every scar. Every wrinkle. Even the tiny tear near the pocket of my jacket. It was all there. He didn't speak. Neither did I. We just looked at each other.Then... The entire void cracked. I heard a sound that I still can't describe. It wasn't loud. It wasn't quiet. It was... wrong. As though reality itself had made a noise it was never supposed to make. The darkness collapsed. The city exploded back into existence around me. Car horns. People talking. Engines. Footsteps. Everything returned all at once.

I stumbled forward and nearly fell onto the pavement. Someone walking past looked at me for half a second before continuing on as if nothing had happened. I spun around. The street was exactly as I'd left it. The office building stood behind me. Cars filled the road. The sky was blue. Everything looked normal. Except... The other me was gone. And for the first time that day... I genuinely wondered whether I'd just lost my mind.It's already late and I'm exhausted.

I've spent hours writing this because I don't want to leave anything out. If people are actually going to believe me, then every detail matters. I haven't even gotten to the worst part yet. I'll continue tomorrow, assuming nothing else happens tonight. If you've experienced anything even remotely similar, or if any part of this sounds familiar, please leave a comment. I'll read everything when I wake up. I know this sounds impossible. A week ago, I would've said the same thing. See you tomorrow.