A few seconds passed.
No more.
Parsa was still standing.
Dead phone in his hand.
The black book on the desk.
Nothing moved.
That was the worst part.
No sound.
No tremor.
No shadow darting away.
It felt like the world was waiting for him to act first.
"…Is it over?" Parsa whispered.
The word hadn't fully left his mouth when—
Something shifted in the room.
Not in his ears.
Not in his mind.
In the space itself.
The light didn't turn off.
It suffocated.
Darkness didn't fall.
It collapsed.
Parsa didn't even have time to scream.
Something breathed in the dark.
Short breaths. Irregular.
Like something that had just learned how to inhale.
Parsa stepped back.
His heel hit the edge of the bed.
He fell.
The floor wasn't cold.
It was soft.
Yielding slightly beneath his weight… then pushing back.
His breath caught.
"…No."
The black book made a sound.
The cover didn't open.
But something scraped inside it.
Not paper.
Not pages.
Like fingernails dragging slowly along the inner skin.
Parsa tried to look away.
He couldn't.
The symbol on the cover began to change.
Not move.
Not shift.
Its meaning changed.
And his brain screamed.
Pain exploded behind his eyes, sharp and immediate. Parsa clutched his face.
Something wet touched his fingers.
Not blood.
Not tears.
Something warmer.
Then—
The book spoke.
Not with sound.
With certainty.
Parsa knew he wasn't alone.
Not in the room.
Not in the building.
Not even in the city.
Something was there that didn't need distance.
And it knew he was looking.
A female voice filled the space.
Not the one from before.
Older. Deeper.
"You were not supposed to stay awake."
Parsa tried to answer.
No sound came out.
The darkness was no longer uniform.
In the corner of the room, where the wall should have been straight—
Reality was folded.
Not a shadow.
Not a creature.
A fold.
From within it, eyes opened.
Not two.
More.
Parsa understood that counting them would break him.
The voice continued:
"Your mother looked the same way."
With the last fragment of control he had, Parsa whispered,
"…What are you?"
Silence.
Then an answer.
Not words.
A knowing:
If you understand my name, you will no longer be human.
The floor began to sink.
Not falling.
Sliding. Slowly. Like slipping into sleep.
The book slid off the desk.
It didn't fall.
It crawled.
Stopping beside his hand.
The cover was open now.
The pages were not white.
Not black.
They were filled with things the mind shuts down to survive.
The last thing Parsa saw—
Before the lights returned—
Was the eyes closing.
Not because they left.
But because they were waiting.
And the voice, very close now, said:
"Chapter one is finished, Parsa."