Taps from the closet.
Sky stood, swallowing hard. Opened the door.
Empty.
But there, on the inside wall, scratched deep into the wood:
"Lumen."
His name.
Lumen stared at it. "I've never been here before."
Sky sat down slowly. "Then how does it know you?"
That night, they dreamed again.
This time, it was just the hallway.
The ticking was louder now. Closer. Like a metronome for something alive.
Lumen stepped forward. Sky tried to hold him back—but couldn't move.
His limbs were wrong. Not frozen—detached. Like he wasn't in his own body.
Lumen reached the door.
Opened it.
Inside, a room with no windows. No ceiling. Just a floor of mirrors, all fogged from breath. In the center, a chair.
And in the chair, a boy.
Thin. Pale. Hollow-eyed.
Not Eli.
Not Max.
Not anyone from the past.
The boy looked up at Lumen.
Smiled.
"You're not awake."
Sky snapped out of the dream, choking on air.
He scrambled for the shard.
It was hot.
He touched it—against better judgment.
And saw himself.
But older. Cold. Standing over Lumen's unconscious body.
Smiling.
He dropped the shard.
Backed away.
It wasn't just a haunting anymore.
The ghost—the thing—wasn't in the dream.
It was inside him.