Far away from the chaos of the black palace, Roger floated in darkness.
She was suspended in midair, surrounded by an endless hollow — a space with no sound, no floor, no light. Everything was black, but not empty. The darkness moved, breathing slowly, like it was alive.
Roger tried to scream, but her voice didn't echo. It vanished, swallowed by the void. Her arms hung limply, her body weightless, her mind trapped between dream and death.
Then something moved in front of her — faint, soft, almost glowing.
A hand.
It was an off-white color, faintly translucent, reaching toward her from the dark. Roger hesitated, but the voice that came with it was calm and distant, like a whisper through water.
"They have to save you…"
The hand touched hers — warm, human, real — and the moment it did, the darkness cracked like glass.
The world snapped back.
—
The scene shifted suddenly to the second floor of the palace. Jet, Tony, and Kim had just climbed in through the open window. The room they entered was large, filled with broken furniture and scraps of old paper scattered across the floor. Dust danced in the faint light leaking through the shattered glass.
"This… this looks like the room Samy and Tin were in," Jet said quietly.
Tony nodded. "Then the diary should be here somewhere."
They stepped forward carefully. As soon as they did, a soft wind brushed past them — but there were no windows open. Papers began to stir on the floor.
Then, one by one, they lifted into the air.
"What the hell—" Kim began, but before he could finish, one of the floating pages sliced past his shoulder, cutting through his jacket like a knife.
The paper wasn't paper anymore.
It shimmered in the air, edges glowing faintly. Another page sliced through a wooden chair, splitting it clean in half.
"Run!" Jet shouted.
The pages began to swirl around the room like a storm, hundreds of them, spinning faster and faster. One struck a book on the table — and the book itself snapped open, as if alive, its pages flapping violently.
Now the air itself was full of blades.
Tony ducked as a page sliced past his face, missing by an inch. The sound it made was sharp and metallic — like a katana cutting through air. Everything the papers touched was torn, shredded, or sliced.
They bolted for the door, slamming it open and sprinting into the hall. The flying papers followed, slicing into the walls, tearing through portraits, shredding curtains.
"Go left!" Kim yelled, pointing down the corridor.
But before they could turn, a groaning sound echoed from the left — deep, wet, and hollow.
From the right, a flash of movement — the glowing paper storm closing in.
They were trapped.
"Inside!" Jet yelled, grabbing the nearest door handle.
All three of them rushed inside a random room and slammed the door shut behind them.
Silence.
For almost two minutes, nothing moved. Only their heavy breathing filled the air.
Tony leaned against the door, his chest rising and falling. "What… what was that?!"
Kim shook his head. "This place doesn't want us here. Everything's alive."
Jet's hands were trembling. "Then what else is coming?"
The answer came in a single sound — a wet splash.
They froze.
A blue liquid began seeping under the door. It moved like it had a mind of its own, spreading slowly across the floor. Wherever it touched, frost began to form.
The wood turned white.
The furniture froze solid.
Even the air felt heavier, colder, like it was freezing inside their lungs.
"Don't breathe!" Kim whispered.
The blue frost spread faster, creeping across the room. The sound it made — a faint crackling — filled their ears. It was climbing the walls, freezing everything in its path.
Then, suddenly, the closet door behind them creaked open.
They spun around—
Two figures stumbled out, gasping.
"Samy? Tin!" Jet cried out.
Samy was holding the diary tight against her chest, her eyes wide with fear. "Run! It's coming!" she shouted.
There was no time for questions.
The blue frost reached their feet, turning the floor slick and glassy.
Without thinking, all five of them ran toward the nearest window. Tony kicked it once — the glass cracked. He kicked again, harder — and it shattered, letting in a rush of freezing wind.
"Go!" Jet yelled.
They jumped.
All five of them leaped through the second-floor window. The night outside swallowed them.
They fell into the dead garden below, landing hard but alive. The cold air hit their lungs, but it was better than what was coming from inside.
The sound of the frost still echoed above — the crackling, the hissing — like the palace itself was turning to ice.
They rolled over, gasping, looking up at the shattered window.
For a moment, everything was still. Then a wave of blue frost burst from the opening, freezing the vines and the ground where they had just been.
"Keep moving!" Kim shouted.
They crawled backward across the dead roses, watching as the frost spread down the walls like veins of light. The palace moaned, its structure creaking, as if it was alive and in pain.
Samy clutched the diary tighter, her hands shaking. "This book… it's connected to everything. It's what they were trying to control."
Tony looked at her. "Control what?"
Samy's eyes lifted toward the palace. The upper windows were glowing faintly blue now, the same color as the freezing liquid.
"The shadows," she whispered. "They weren't just ghosts. They were made here."
A gust of icy wind blew past them, and for a second, it sounded like a voice — the same one Roger had heard in the void.
"They have to save you…"
Jet looked around, shivering. "Did you hear that?"
But no one answered.
The palace behind them cracked again, a thunderous sound that made the ground tremble. The black walls began to shimmer, as if something inside was trying to break free.
The five of them stood in the dead garden, their breath visible in the freezing air.
Above, the dark clouds swirled violently, and the palace's windows began to light up one by one, glowing with that eerie blue hue.
Samy whispered, "Roger… she's still in there."
Jet clenched her fists. "Then we're going back."
The others stared at her like she was insane.
But somewhere, deep inside that black hollow room, Roger's eyes opened again — and the off-white hand that once held hers began to fade into the dark.
The palace wasn't done with them yet.