I woke again.
This time slower.
No sudden breath. No panic. Just a quiet, heavy awareness pulling me back.
For a moment, I didn't move. I just listened.
Silence.
Not normal silence.
The kind that feels wrong.
I opened my eyes.
I wasn't in Ben's room anymore.
I was home.
My ceiling. My walls. My room exactly as I left it.
But something was off.
The light coming through the window was still red. Faint, dim, like the sky outside was bleeding into the world. The colors in my room looked drained, lifeless. Everything felt… distant.
I sat up slowly.
My bag was on the floor near the door.
The crystal was still inside.
So this wasn't a dream.
Or maybe it was worse than that.
I stood up and walked toward the window.
Outside, the street looked empty. No cars. No people. No sound. The houses were there, but they felt hollow, like shells without life inside them.
My chest tightened.
We didn't wake up.
We were still here.
I grabbed my phone with shaking hands.
Messages were already waiting.
Ben: are you guys seeing thisMichael: I woke up at homeLisa: me too
I swallowed and typed.
Alex: we didn't leaveAlex: we're still in
A pause.
Then Michael replied.
Michael: yeah… I think so tooMichael: everything feels wrong
Lisa's message came next.
Lisa: what do we do now
That question stayed on the screen.
No one answered immediately.
Because none of us knew.
I looked down at my arm.
The mark was faint, but it was there.
Watching.
Waiting.
And for the first time since all of this started, a thought settled in my mind.
We weren't just trying to escape anymore.
We were being kept here.
For something.
I tightened my grip on the phone.
Alex: we meet again
Alex: same place as yesterday
Alex: Ben's house
Ben replied almost instantly.
Ben: yeah
Ben: I'm going now
Michael: I'll head there too
Lisa: I don't want to stay alone
I slipped my phone into my pocket and grabbed my bag.
The house felt too quiet behind me as I walked toward the door.
Before stepping out, I paused.
Something felt wrong again.
Like the house itself was watching me leave.
I turned my head slightly.
The hallway behind me was empty.
But the shadows felt deeper than they should be.
I didn't stay.
I opened the door and stepped outside.
The red sky stretched above me once more.
And the world felt even less alive than before.
I decided to take the narrow back alleys. It was faster, and right now every second mattered.
The streets felt too open anyway.
I moved quickly, cutting through tight corners and empty passages, my steps echoing against the walls.
Then I heard it.
Footsteps.
Not one. Not two.
A crowd.
Dozens of them.
I froze.
The sound was organized. Rhythmic. Too steady to be random.
I immediately slipped behind the corner of a house, pressing my back against the cold wall, trying to control my breathing.
Slowly, carefully, I leaned just enough to take a glance.
And what I saw…
Made my blood run cold.
A crowd.
Figures shaped like humans… but wrong.
Their faces were twisted, stretched in unnatural ways, like something had tried to recreate a human face and failed. Some had hollow eyes. Others had smiles that didn't belong on anything alive.
They moved in formation.
Like soldiers.
Step by step, perfectly aligned, marching down the street in silence except for the sound of their feet hitting the ground at the same time.
My hand tightened around my phone.
Then one of them stopped.
Its head turned.
Directly toward me.
It saw me.
My body reacted instantly. I tried to pull back, to disappear behind the wall…
But I couldn't move.
Its face—
Too close.
Too wrong.
Something about it locked my body in place. Fear rooted me where I stood.
The crystal on my chest shifted.
Dark black.
The creature stopped halfway between us.
Everything went still.
For a moment… nothing moved.
Then it screamed.
A sharp, piercing sound that tore through the silence.
My ears rang.
And the others—
They heard it.
The entire crowd shifted.
Then they started moving.
Toward me.
Fast.
I snapped out of it.
Without thinking, I grabbed a rock from the ground and threw it as hard as I could at a nearby house window.
Glass shattered loudly.
I rushed toward it immediately and climbed inside.
The moment I crossed the window—
The screaming stopped.
The footsteps outside… slowed.
Then faded.
Silence again.