Anna pushed open the hospital's heavy front doors, the sterile scent of antiseptic washing over her. The fluorescent lights above buzzed faintly, casting everything in an artificial white glow. Her boots clicked against the polished tile floors as she made her way to the nurse's desk, her thoughts a whirlwind.
Anna was tall for her age, with olive-toned skin and a sharp jawline softened by a quiet concern that lived in her eyes. A waterfall of dark hair tumbled past her shoulders, held back from her face by a single silver clip. She wore a charcoal coat over a turtleneck sweater and jeans, but it was her eyes—storm-gray and always searching—that most people remembered. She didn't look like someone who should be in a place like this. Yet here she was, again.
The nurse gestured toward the familiar hallway without a word. Anna nodded and turned, her pace quickening. When she reached the consultation room, she found the doctor already waiting.
Dr. Alphonse Keller was a man molded by long years in the medical field—mid-fifties, balding but hiding it poorly with a side comb, and permanently smelling of mint and latex gloves. His white coat was slightly wrinkled, and his spectacles perched precariously on his crooked nose.
"Miss Anna," he greeted with a tired but sincere smile, "thank you for coming."
"How is he?" she asked quickly, stepping forward.
Dr. Keller sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Still in the conscious phase. That's the good news."
"And the bad?"
"Follow me."
They passed down the corridor, into a wing Anna hadn't visited before. The halls were quieter here, darker. Shadows clung to the edges of the ceiling like cobwebs. She counted her footsteps to calm herself. Twelve. Twenty. Thirty-four.
At the end of the hallway, a secured door beeped open under Keller's access code. Inside was a large room lined with beds—some curtained, others not. Machines beeped softly beside the patients. Some breathed steadily. Others didn't breathe at all.
"This is our long-term containment unit," Keller said. "These are all Dream Rot cases… various phases."
Anna slowed as she passed the beds. Men, women, even some teenagers—motionless, like marionettes with their strings cut. Tubes ran into arms and noses, eyes closed, some peaceful, some twitching as though lost in battle within their minds.
"Leo Huntsman," the doctor said, motioning toward a bed near the far wall.
Anna followed his gaze.
Leo looked nothing like she expected. He was tall even lying down, with thick lashes resting on cheekbones sharp as blades. Muscles rippled beneath his pale skin, as if he were sculpted rather than born. Yet despite his imposing build, there was a stillness in him—a silence that felt deeper than sleep. His chest rose and fell in slow, calculated rhythms. Wires ran from his temple to a monitor that displayed brainwave activity far more intense than any of the other patients.
"He's been like this for over a year," Keller said. "His consciousness is... active. Incredibly so. But he hasn't moved. Hasn't aged. Nothing."
Anna swallowed. She wanted to ask more about him—but something else tugged at her attention.
Two beds down, beside a quietly beeping monitor, lay a woman. Her appearance didn't scream for attention, but Anna couldn't stop looking. She had long, silvery white hair, draped loosely around her shoulders like a bridal veil. Her face was soft, delicate, and still—yet there was something ancient in the way her brow creased faintly in sleep. Like a person lost deep in a nightmare they couldn't escape.
Anna's brows furrowed. Something about the woman felt… familiar. She tilted her head, eyes narrowing. A flicker. A whisper of memory. A dream? A photograph?
"Where have I seen you…?" she muttered under her breath, barely audible.
Then her gaze dropped.
There, resting just beneath the woman's collarbone, was a pendant.
A small, elliptical medallion of blackened silver, etched with a pattern of interlocking spirals—delicate, cryptic, and elegant in its simplicity. The cord was worn, frayed in places, but the pendant gleamed as though untouched by time.
Anna's breath hitched.
That pattern. That shape.
She got attracted to it immediately, life as if she had seen it before.
Anna's stomach twisted. Her mind tried to race for answers, but none came.
Keller stepped beside her. "She's in the dead phase," he said, softly now. "Brain activity has flatlined. No signs of consciousness for the past three years."
Anna tore her eyes away from the pendant. "What causes it, exactly? Dream Rot. You mentioned it before, but there's so little known about it."
"There are theories," Keller said, his voice taking on that tone of clinical detachment again. "It began five years ago. Symptoms vary, but it always starts the same—sleeping longer, vivid dreams, resistance to waking. Then… decline. But we've never isolated a biological trigger."
He paused, then added, "That's why I wanted to ask you something."
Anna blinked. "Me?"
"Yes. Could you visit Andrew's house? Look into what he took. Pills. Supplements. Even food..anything new. We suspect the disease might be activated by a compound… or something more arcane."
"You mean," she said slowly, "you think he was exposed to something… here? In the real world?"
Keller nodded grimly. "The more we know, the better we can act. Leo's case is extraordinary. But Andrew might still be pulled out of it...if we act quickly."
Anna hesitated, then gave a sharp nod. "Alright. I'll go."
But as she turned one last time toward the woman with silver hair and the mysterious pendant, the question pressed again like a ghostly fingerprint on glass.
Where have I seen her before?
And what does that pendant mean?
------
Getting to Andrew's abode, she was shocked by what she saw.
Men in black suits and trousers. Andrew's door was broken. The men were busy searching around and throwing out his belongings.
No he didn't own any house rent.
Then she saw him. Leo's brother. The man she greeted the other day at the doctor's office.
Mr Huntsman.
But what the hell is he doing here?