Chapter 1: 00:00
A structural inspector was tasked with assessing an old, abandoned building scheduled for a commercial auction. The entire place was dead silent; the only sounds were the echoes of his own footsteps and the heavy rhythm of his breathing. While examining the cracks along the walls of a pitch-black room, his flashlight caught a shadow on the floor.
A corpse.
He drew closer, his boots crunching on the grit, and focused the beam. The body was pinned under a massive slab of concrete that had collapsed from the ceiling. The victim's face, peeking out from beneath the rubble, was mangled beyond recognition.
His fingers fumbled against his pockets as he yanked his cellphone out. He dialed 911. An operator answered, but the connection hummed with thick, heavy static. “Sir? Hello? What’s your... location... can't... hear you...” until the line cut to a dull tone. He lowered the phone, staring at the screen. Minutes crawled by. He checked the display again, but the digital clock hadn't budged. The numbers remained frozen at the exact minute he had stumbled upon the body.
He swept the flashlight upward, tracking the deep, jagged fissures webbed across the ceiling. Every creak of the shifting settlement made him stiffen. A sudden chill swept through the room—a freezing, dead draft that made his jaw chatter, though the building's power had been cut for years. Along with the cold, a sharp pressure spiked behind his eyes, a blinding ache that throbbed in sync with his pulse. He pressed a palm against his temple, swallowing hard to keep his stomach down.
