Darkness didn't fall this time ; it rose, like ink bubbling up from a cracked floor, swallowing every edge of the room until even my breath felt coated in it.
I couldn't see the eyeless man anymore.Couldn't see the children.Couldn't see the reflection.
But I could hear them.
Breathing.Whispering.Shifting.
The worst part?Some of the whispers sounded exactly like me.
I wasn't alone in this darkness…but the thing beside me wasn't a person.It wasn't even a memory.
It was something that crawled out of the past I tried to forget.
A tiny hand brushed my wrist .....ice cold.
I jerked back.But the hand followed.Another grabbed my shoulder.Another touched my ankle.
A swarm of small, trembling shapes moved in the dark around me, forming a circle that tightened, and tightened, and tightened,
A faint light flickered , like a dying candle someone carried too far into a storm.
The children appeared first.
Not standing.Dangling.Suspended in mid-air like forgotten dolls. Their bodies twitching gently, as if someone was holding them up by strings made of smoke.
Their faces were still blank.Still smooth.Still stolen.
But something new was happening.
Their heads were turning slowly… toward me.All at once.
My throat dried. "Don't come closer."
Their bodies jerked forward anyway ; one inch, then another ..... pulled by something I couldn't see.
A voice echoed above them.
"You made promises you never kept."
The eyeless man materialized behind the children, stepping out of the dark like he'd been waiting for me to notice him. The room rippled , walls bending inward like they were breathing.
"Stop lying," he said."Stop running.""Stop pretending you're the victim."
I backed against the nearest wall.
"I don't remember any of this," I whispered. "I never hurt them."
"You didn't need to."He tilted his head."You just needed to leave."
My heart lurched.
The children stopped moving.
Then,One of them raised its hand.
Slow.Shaky.Reaching toward me.
But not for help.
For recognition.
"You know us," the child's voice whispered , not from its mouth but from everywhere. "You saw what followed us… the night the darkness came."
The room shifted again.
The playground behind them flickered back into view… then blurred… then sharpened into something new:
A hallway.My hallway.The one from the memory I kept pushing away.
Bloodless footprints stamped across the tile.Not human.Not child.Something else.
They crawled along the walls, the ceiling, looping in frantic spirals like someone tried to run in every direction at once.
My breath hitched.
A girl with a version of me with the empty sockets , stood in the hallway's far end.
Her chest rose and fell in shallow, panicked breaths. She kept glancing back over her shoulder, as if something was behind her… something I couldn't see.
She wasn't crying.She was shaking so violently her bones looked like they were rattling.
The eyeless man stepped forward.
"That night," he said, "you survived because something chose you. Something that didn't choose them."
The children lowered their heads.
A low hum shook the walls.Not human.Not animal.Something older.
A shadow slithered along the ceiling like a spider made of night.
The eyeless man ran his hand along the wall ..... and the wall turned transparent like glass.
"You locked the door," he said.
And I saw it:
Me ; the other me ; standing outside the hallway.My hand gripping the lock.My face terrified, shaking, torn between fear and guilt.
Inside the hallway, the girl screamed silently, pounding on the glass-like wall, her mouth opening and closing in silent horror.
Behind her…
Something crawled out from the darkness.Huge.Wrong.Many-limbed.Fast.
I swallowed hard. "I tried to help."
The eyeless man leaned closer, his blank face inches from mine.
"You saved yourself."
My knees buckled.
The children's heads snapped up suddenly .... all at once , as if responding to some silent signal. Their bodies jerked unnaturally, limbs twitching like marionettes held by an impatient puppeteer.
Then…
They rushed me.
Not walking.Not running.Floating, dragged forward by invisible force, heads tilted, arms reaching.
My chest tightened.
"No," I whispered. "Stay away"
The darkness behind them deepened, swirling like a vortex.
And then something stepped out of it.
Not the eyeless man.Not my reflection.Not a child.
But a tall, skeletal figure with joints bent the wrong way, its body made of shadow stitched into the shape of a human. Its mouth stretched across its face like someone carved it too wide, too deep, too forced.
It hissed my name.
And the children froze.
The eyeless man bowed his head slightly , like he was acknowledging a king.
"This," he said slowly, "is what followed you home."
The shadow creature turned its head , bones cracking, darkness dripping .... and pointed a razor-thin finger at me.
"You don't remember the deal you made," the eyeless man continued.
My pulse thudded hard enough to hurt.
"What deal?"
The shadow moved closer, its outline glitching in and out like a corrupted memory.
"You traded something," the eyeless man whispered."Something precious.""Something human."
The shadow's voice slid through the room like a blade dragging across stone.
"You traded… yourself."
My vision blurred.
My reflection appeared behind me again , eyes black, smile wicked , and whispered one last thing in my ear:
"You're not the survivor of what happened that night."
She leaned closer, her breath icy.
"You're the one who let it in."
The children screamed.
The lights shattered.
and all that was there was darkness...