Inside the gate, everything changed.
The air felt wrong. Heavy. Tight.
I struggled to breathe, as if the space itself rejected me. Fear rushed through my body. I knew I was dreaming-yet it felt far too real to be a dream.
As my vision adjusted, the chaos disappeared.
I was standing inside a room-calm, structured, and disturbingly ordinary.
There was a well-maintained table and chair. Shelves lined the walls, filled with books. Everything was neatly arranged, clean, intentional. It looked like a library... or perhaps an office. There was even a separate cabin, enclosed and quiet.
I walked slowly, my fear mixing with confusion.
The books caught my attention.
They were not normal books.
They looked demonic-dark covers, strange symbols, journals filled with records. Some appeared work-related, organized like official files. It felt less like a place of chaos and more like a functioning system.
An office.
A library.
But for whom?
And why did everything feel so... inhuman?
As I stood there trying to understand, I noticed someone approaching.
He looked human.
About five feet ten inches tall, healthy build, around forty years old. He wore spectacles and normal office clothes, like someone working a regular desk job. Nothing about him appeared threatening-yet my body refused to move.
I wanted to run.
I couldn't.
I just stood there, staring at him as he walked toward me calmly.
There were no words in my mind to explain what I felt.
Fear didn't fully describe it.
Neither did confusion.
It was something deeper-something unexplained.
And as he came closer,
As he walked toward me, my body froze.
I was unable to speak.
Unable to move.
Even my thoughts felt suspended.
For a moment, I believed this was the end-whether in a dream or in reality, I could not tell. Strangely, I was not afraid. I had already accepted it. I welcomed the ending, the way someone welcomes rest after a long exhaustion.
I stood there, waiting.
He stopped in front of me and spoke calmly.
"Cristina. Welcome."
The moment he said my name, everything shattered.
I woke up.
I was back in my room-my bed, my walls, my reality. My heart was racing now, fear finally catching up to me. My hands were shaking as I tried to understand what had just happened.
Then I felt something in my palm.
The card.
It was still in my hand.
I stared at it, my breath shallow. The red ink that once carried only my name was gone. In its place, new words had appeared.
Welcome, Cristina.
That was the moment fear truly arrived