Vincent was running. The world around him twisted, folding into itself like a paper. The colors of the city, of the park, bled into a thick, syrupy haze, stretching beyond recognition. Buildings shifted into impossible shapes—walls bending where they shouldn’t, corridors looping back onto themselves. He could hear the hum of something, far off but growing closer, like the low drone of electricity through a distant wire.
He wasn’t sure what he was running from, but he knew it was behind him. His legs moved without his permission, as if the ground itself pushed him forward, desperate to avoid whatever lurked in the depths of the place that shouldn’t exist. The air was thick, almost suffocating, clinging to his skin like a wet cloth. Every breath was labored, every heartbeat echoing in his ears louder than the last.
Shadows danced at the edges of his vision, their forms indistinct, but he felt them watching—silent observers to his flight. He turned down a narrow alleyway, only to find the brick walls stretching out into the horizon, endlessly long, with no escape. The alley darkened, the light from whatever distant source there was dimming, fading into an almost black void. His footsteps echoed, bouncing off the unseen walls, multiplying until they sounded like a hundred people were running beside him.
His pace quickened, the dread rising in his throat like bile. He could feel something behind him now—close, so close that the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. It didn’t make a sound, but its presence was overwhelming, pressing against him, urging him forward into the abyss.
The alley narrowed further, squeezing him between the walls that seemed to close in the deeper he went. His shoulders brushed against the cold, damp bricks, but there was no turning back. Not now.
Something shifted in the shadows ahead—a figure, faint and translucent, stood at the end of the narrowing alley. Its outline was barely human, but wrong in all the ways that mattered. The limbs were too long, the head tilted at an unnatural angle, and it shimmered like a mirage. Vincent slowed, breath ragged, chest heaving as the figure seemed to glide toward him.
It stopped just a few feet away, its featureless face turning as if to study him. Then, from the deep silence, a whisper crawled into his mind.
“What are you waiting for?”
Vincent froze, his blood running cold. The voice wasn’t audible—it was something else, something inside him. The figure’s head tilted again, impossibly far this time, as if its neck had snapped in two directions at once.
“It’s behind you.”
His body reacted before his mind could process, twisting around, but there was nothing—just the same dark alley, stretching back for eternity. But he knew, somewhere in that void, something waited. Something worse than the figure before him.
When he turned back to the figure, it was gone. The alley was empty again. But now, the sound returned—a low hum that vibrated in his bones. It was closer than before. Louder. Pulsing through the ground, rattling the walls, growing until it felt like his skull would split apart.
Then, the walls of the alley shifted again, this time snapping him into a small, claustrophobic room. The air was thick with the scent of mildew, and a single, flickering bulb hung from the ceiling. The walls were bare concrete, cracked, and worn. There was a door at the far end, but it was locked.
Vincent didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. He could feel the weight of it, mocking him, trapping him inside. The hum had grown into a rumbling roar now, a soundless sound that filled the room, vibrating in his teeth.
And then, the lights went out.
Vincent woke with a start, drenched in cold sweat. His heart was pounding, his breath uneven as he sat up in bed. The familiar dark room of his apartment surrounded him, but the remnants of the nightmare still clung to him, warping the edges of his reality. He wiped a trembling hand across his face, trying to shake the feeling that something was still watching him, lurking just beyond the edge of his vision.
This wasn’t the first time.
He got out of bed, staring at the faint glow of the early morning seeping through his blinds. Sleep was impossible now, the quiet too oppressive. The nightmares were becoming more vivid, more… real. He needed to talk to someone. And there was only one person who might have answers.
The bus glided smoothly along the fog-covered streets, its pristine interior gleaming under the soft overhead lights. Vincent sat alone, feeling the eerie stillness, his fingers tracing the spotless, polished seats that seemed as though they’d never been touched. It gave the unsettling feeling of stepping into a sterile, pure white room—too clean, too perfect. Not a soul in sight, and not a sound from the driver. Each stop the bus passed seemed more forgotten than the last—empty sidewalks, flickering neon signs that barely cut through the mist.
As the bus pulled into the final stop at the far edge of the city, the bus hissed to a stop, its doors sliding open with an almost mechanical precision. As Vincent stepped out, the thick fog clung to him, muffling the world around. Before him loomed a sprawling complex of buildings, their stark, minimalist architecture stretching high into the mist-shrouded sky. The structures were unnervingly uniform—flat gray concrete, sharp lines, and blank facades with no variation in form or design. Each window was a perfect square, dark and lifeless, giving the impression that the entire place was abandoned or untouched by human presence.
As Vincent walked, the air felt colder, heavier. Every step he took echoed slightly, the sound lost in the fog behind him. The pathways twisted between the towering blocks like a maze, but it wasn’t their arrangement that disoriented him—it was the absolute lack of distinguishing features. Every corner he turned revealed the same scene: a wall of identical doors, lined up with military precision, stretching down the endless halls like the infinite reflection in two mirrors.
It was easy to feel lost here, not just in direction but in time. No light flickered from the apartments, no signs of life, no noises except his footsteps on the cold pavement. The doors were all identical—gray, flat, featureless. No plaques, no numbers, no markings. He wondered how anyone could live in such a place without losing themselves completely.
Vincent moved deeper into the complex, the stillness growing heavier as he approached the farthest edge, where his destination lay. His mind felt disconnected from his body as if the further he went, the less he belonged in this world. He hadn’t seen another person for miles, and the fog only thickened, swallowing the city behind him. The air tasted different here—metallic, almost stale, like he was breathing in a forgotten place.
Finally, he stopped in front of a door, indistinguishable from the hundreds he had passed. There was nothing remarkable about it, yet something told him this was the one. The sensation wasn’t logical; it was more instinctual, like his body had led him here even though his mind screamed that it all looked the same.
He knocked softly. The sound barely registered in the thick silence.
From the other side came a gentle voice, calm and collected.
“Come in.”
