The Midnight Archive

The rain sounded wrong.

That was the first thing I noticed.

Not the mansion. Not the forest. Not even the sky that had turned the colour of wet ash without anyone reacting to it.

The rain itself sounded hollow, as if it were striking metal instead of earth.

I remember standing near the edge of the picnic grounds, staring at drops bouncing against dead grass that looked painted into place, while everything beyond the trees remained a blurred gray as if the dream had not finished rendering the world.

Then the storm came harder.

Students screamed and laughed as they ran toward the mansion sitting beyond the hill.

It looked abandoned even from far away. Windows black. Roof sagging inward.

Not really a mansion. It was a rotting ribcage of timber and broken glass, with vines crawling over the stone like veins beneath dead skin.

Dreams are strange with proportions. From one angle it looked enormous. From another, too narrow to fit more than a few rooms. Sometimes the top floor vanished completely when I blinked.

"Come on!" someone shouted.

Everyone rushed ahead through the rain. Shoes splashing through mud that made no sound.

I followed because that is what people do in dreams. You follow the movement around you even when something inside you is screaming not to.

The moment I stepped onto the front porch, cold slammed into me.

Not ordinary cold. It felt alive.

The temperature dropped so suddenly my breath caught in my throat. Goosebumps spread across my arms as if invisible fingers had brushed over my skin. My stomach twisted violently. Every instinct I had started clawing backward.

I hugged myself tightly, whispering, "Can we not go in? It doesn't feel right."

A few students were already inside the doorway, silhouettes moving through darkness.

Others turned back toward me with amused expressions, the casual mocking bravery of people who don't know they are being watched.

"Don't be a baby."

"It's just an old house."

"We're gonna get sick out here."

One of them grinned. "Besides, haunted mansion during a storm? That's awesome."

They laughed. But their voices sounded distant now. Because the house was listening.

I do not know how else to explain it.

It didn't feel empty; it felt aware. Like something inside had noticed us the instant we arrived and had gone perfectly still to hear us better.

The front door stood open wider than before. No wind touched it. No one moved near it. Yet slowly, silently, the door continued opening inward on its own. The darkness behind it deepened.

And for one brief second, I had the overwhelming certainty that the house was not offering shelter.

It was swallowing us.

The moment everyone got inside, the front door slammed shut behind us.

The sound exploded through the mansion like a gunshot.

I jumped violently. So did everyone else. I know they did. I saw shoulders jerk. Saw faces pale for a split second.

One girl even let out a tiny scream before covering it with an awkward laugh. But nobody wanted to admit they were scared.

"It's just the wind," one of the boys said too quickly.

"Yeah," another agreed immediately. "The storm's getting worse."

The others nodded, avoiding each other's eyes.

No one tried the door. That was the part I remember most clearly.

Nobody said, Should we make sure it still opens?

Nobody even looked at the handle for more than a second.

It was like we had all silently agreed that touching that door would confirm something none of us wanted confirmed.

I stayed near it anyway, anchored by a refusal to go deeper.

The entrance hall smelled rotten, not like mold or wet wood, but something older. A smell like soaked fabric left sealed in darkness for years.

The air itself felt thick in my lungs. Every breath came colder than the last.

Outside, the rain hammered against the stone, yet inside, the mansion was quieter than silence. There was no creaking wood, no dripping water, no echo of the storm. The house simply swallowed sound before it could fully exist.

I hugged myself tighter.

The others had already started moving farther into the hall, trying to act normal. Talking louder than necessary. Laughing too hard. Their phone flashlights swept across dusty walls and long-decayed furniture covered in white sheets.

Every beam of light seemed weaker than it should have been. It couldn't reach the corners. Those spaces weren't just shadowed; they were dark- a heavy, independent darkness that felt like it remained there by choice.

And it was watching me. Not the group. Just me.

Every corner of that hall felt aware of my weight on the floorboards. Ahead, the grand staircase curved upward into a blackness so absolute it felt physical. I could not shake the feeling that someone stood at the top landing, just outside the reach of the lights, staring directly at me without blinking.

Then, one of the flashlights flickered.

Everyone froze.

For half a second, the hall went completely dark. And in that brief, breathless gap in the light, I heard it. Wet, heavy breathing, right beside my ear. Not mine.

I knew something was beside me.

Not imagined. Not maybe.

There are instincts older than logic, older than reason, the kind that once warned ancestors that something was waiting in the dark before humans even had words for fear.

Mine were screaming.

I did not move. Every part of me locked in place beside the door while the others wandered deeper into the mansion pretending not to be afraid. Their voices sounded far away now, muffled and distorted, as if I were hearing them underwater.

Slowly, against my will, my eyes shifted sideways. And I saw it.

A shadow stood beside me. Not cast on a wall, but standing. It was tall and unnaturally thin, a shape stretched longer than the room allowed. It had no face I could fully understand, only depth like a human-shaped hole cut into reality itself.

My heartbeat became violent, a frantic drumming against my ribs that I thought my chest would burst open.

I squeezed my eyes shut instantly, as if refusing to see it would undo what had happened. As if the mind could negotiate with terror by pretending ignorance.

But something about that desperate little act amused it.

I felt that immediately. A sudden thrill in the air, a pressure that suggested it enjoyed my panic because my terror confirmed I could perceive it.

Then, arms wrapped around me from behind.

It wasn't human cold; it was dead cold. The heavy limbs closed around my body with impossible strength, and agony bloomed through my chest in deep, throbbing waves. My lungs tightened. I tried to inhale and managed only half a breath as ice seemed to move through my veins instead of blood.

Then it spoke. Not aloud, but directly inside my head, its voice fractured and layered like multiple things speaking out of sync, overlapping my thoughts in a way that made me feel physically sick.

"Many could feel my presence," it whispered. "Some directly. Only a few could see... or hear me."

My body trembled uncontrollably.

I could feel its touch moving slowly across my arms, my shoulders, my throat, not touching skin but something deeper, something underneath the body itself.

"I waited... a long time..."

The rest became distorted. Either it stopped speaking, or my mind stopped understanding.

The world around me grew distant. The mansion. The students. The storm. Everything faded behind the crushing heaviness inside my chest.

Each breath became smaller than the last.

My legs weakened first. Then my hands. Even my thoughts started slowing, drowning beneath overwhelming exhaustion.

I realized dimly that I was dying. Not in the ordinary sense. Something was pulling me downward into itself.

I still kept my eyes shut. I could not open them. Some instinct told me that if I looked directly at whatever held me, something irreversible would happen.

My knees finally gave out.

The last thing I felt was the sensation of falling backward into freezing darkness while those cold arms still held me gently, almost possessively.

Then consciousness disappeared completely.

When my senses returned, I was lying on a cold floor.

At least, I think it was a floor. The surface beneath me felt solid one moment and strangely soft the next, like stone breathing slowly beneath thin fabric.

My vision blurred in and out before finally stabilizing enough to reveal a room though room is a generous word.

The ceiling stretched impossibly high until it dissolved into twisting darkness. I could not tell where the walls truly ended because they never stayed still for long. The edges of the room shifted subtly whenever I looked away, as though the mansion kept rearranging itself while pretending not to move.

The air felt wet and freezing.

I pushed myself upright weakly. Every muscle in my body ached. My chest still hurts with each breath.

And I was not alone.

The others sat crowded together nearby on the floor, huddled close like animals trying to survive a storm. Their faces looked completely different now. The false excitement from earlier had vanished entirely.

Some were crying quietly into their sleeves. Some stared blankly at the impossible geometry around them.

One boy was hyperventilating so loudly it was the only rhythm in the room.

The moment they noticed I was awake, everyone started talking over each other, their voices collided in a frantic, broken chorus.

"You're awake-"

"We thought something happened to you-"

"You just collapsed-"

"The house changed-"

"The front door disappeared-"

One girl grabbed my arm with trembling hands. Her eyes were swollen red from crying. "It's not a house," she whispered shakily. "It's alive."

Someone else started panicking again immediately after hearing that.

"We're gonna die here."

"No signal, no windows-"

"There was something in the hallway....."

"Stop saying that!"

"I saw it!"

Their voices blended together into frightened noise.

I barely heard them. I still felt dazed, detached from my own body somehow. Like part of me had not fully returned after blacking out.

Because the cold pressure was still there. Resting on my shoulder. Invisible. Heavy.

My entire body went still.

The others were shouting now, their panic drowning out normal thought, but I could feel the Presence pressing against my back like freezing water.

No one else reacted. No one else noticed.

The terrible realization finally settled in: the others were trapped in the mansion. But I..... I was trapped with it.

Then, softly, directly beside my ear, the fractured voice returned. "You can still feel me." It sounded pleased.

A cold sensation slid down my spine as the invisible pressure on my shoulder tightened.

"I shall give you a gift." Its voice layered over itself unnaturally, each word arriving a fraction too late behind the last. "If you listen to me, I will let them go."

My eyes remained fixed on the floor.

"They are too noisy."

Around me, the others were still panicking, arguing, crying, trying to convince themselves there had to be an explanation for what was happening. None of them understood that something stood directly beside me, speaking into my mind like fingers pressing beneath skin.

"But if you refuse..." The air grew colder. "I will turn them into my playthings." Something brushed lightly against the back of my neck.

"They will die one by one."

Silence stretched afterward.

I did not answer immediately.

Not because I did not want them to survive. I did. But there is a cruel honesty that fear reveals inside people: the terror of belonging to this entity was overwhelming.

I could not just sacrifice myself for them. I was terrified. I did not want to belong to whatever this thing was.

And somehow, I felt it already knew that.

Slowly, I lifted my head. My expression stayed blank, detached, as if my mind were moving somewhere far away just to keep functioning.

"Guys," I said quietly, "we should keep searching for the exit."

The room fell silent enough for everyone to hear me.

"If we give up now, we might never get out of here."

No one argued. Fear had stripped away everyone's pride. Even the loudest among them only nodded weakly.

One by one, they stood.

I rose with them.

The moment I straightened fully, my vision blurred violently. The room tilted sideways. A wave of exhaustion crashed through my body so hard my knees nearly gave out. Someone caught my arm before I collapsed.

A girl standing nearby stared at me with frightened concern. "What happened to you?" she asked. "Why do you look so pale?"

Up close, I could see I probably terrified her almost as much as the mansion itself. My skin felt freezing. My breathing sounded shallow even to me.

How could I explain it?

How could I tell her something unseen was feeding on me while standing inches away?

I shook my head slowly. "Nothing," I lied softly. "I just felt dizzy."

She did not look convinced, but she let go carefully.

Together, we left the room. And realized the mansion had changed again. No...... transformed.

The old rotting interior was gone.

What stretched before us now resembled the corridor of an ancient castle buried beneath centuries of darkness. Massive stone walls rose upward into shadow. Rusted candle holders lined the passage. Long red carpets, faded nearly black with age, stretched endlessly ahead.

Rows of doors stood on both sides of the corridor. Too many doors.

The hallway extended farther than the mansion should physically allow, vanishing into dim distance like the inside of a labyrinth.

Some doors were slightly open. Others twitched faintly as if something behind them had just moved away from the crack.

Nobody spoke anymore.

Even breathing sounded too loud there.

I moved forward. Or maybe my legs moved on their own.

At some point inside that place, it became difficult to tell which thoughts belonged to me and which were being gently pushed into my head by something else.

The others followed closely behind. They had no choice anymore. Standing still felt just as dangerous as walking.

Door after door passed beside us in suffocating silence.

Nobody dared to peek inside.

Some doors trembled slightly after we walked past them. Others had strange marks carved deeply into the wood, symbols that hurt my eyes if I looked too long. Once, I heard scratching from behind one of them.

Nobody acknowledged it. We just kept walking.

Then my feet stopped. Not by choice.

I halted in front of a black wooden door at the center of the corridor.

Unlike the others, it had no handle visible from the outside. Thin cracks spread across its surface like veins beneath skin.

The cold whisper slid into my mind again. "Go on." The pressure on my shoulder deepened possessively.

"Open it. There is a surprise for everyone."

My hand rose trembling toward the door before I consciously decided to move it. The wood felt freezing beneath my fingers. Then I pulled it open.

Inside was not a room. It was another corridor. Narrow. Long. Dark. And at the very end stood a familiar front door. The same front door we had entered through earlier. Rain leaked faintly from beneath it. I could even hear distant thunder outside.

For one terrible second, hope rippled through the group behind me.

"We found it..."

"Oh my god..."

"We're saved..."

The atmosphere changed instantly. Panic transformed into desperate excitement. Some people nearly cried from relief.

But the moment I looked deeper into that corridor, my body went cold.

Because I could see them.

Two shadows standing silently on either side of the front door. Tall. Thin. Motionless. Each held something long and metallic in their hands. Something sharp enough that even looking at it made my stomach twist instinctively.

The whisper returned immediately, almost delighted. "They are hungry."

The shadows did not move.

"They want blood."

The darkness around them seemed to pulse slowly.

"But not yours." The pressure around my shoulder tightened gently. "You belong to me."

My heartbeat became uneven. I opened my mouth, but my voice barely worked at first. Fear made it come out cracked and strained. "Don't go in there..."

Nobody listened. Hope is louder than fear when people are desperate enough.

The first two students ran toward the door without hesitation. In an instant, the shadows converged. The movement was a blur, a sudden distortion of darkness.

One second they stood beside the doorway. The next second they were inside the students. Through them. Around them. Long black shapes slicing through flesh like paper.

There was a wet sound. Then screaming. Bodies burst apart violently across the corridor. Flesh, blood, shattered bone- pieces of them hit the walls before sliding downward in thick red streaks.

One head rolled across the floor and stopped facing us with eyes still open.

The others froze instantly. Then came the screaming. Real screaming. Not frightened yelling. The kind of sound human beings make only when the mind breaks completely.

Some stumbled backward. Some collapsed. One girl vomited onto the carpet while sobbing uncontrollably.

I did not scream. I could not. My eyes stayed fixed downward toward the floor because I already knew what would happen the moment I saw those shadows.

And because I could hear it. The chewing. Slow. Wet. Mouths tearing through meat somewhere inside the darkness near the door. Crunching bone.

It made nausea rise violently into my throat. My entire body trembled while the sound continued calmly, almost politely, as if the things feeding there were enjoying a quiet meal.

Then the cold voice whispered beside my ear again. "You warned them." A soft pause followed. "That was kind of you."

Silence followed.

Long enough for the screaming to stop. Long enough for exhaustion to crush panic into numbness. Nobody moved toward the false exit again.

And slowly, horribly, the corridor began correcting itself.

The blood vanished first. Dark stains soaked backward into the floorboards as if absorbed by thirsty wood. Fragments of flesh dissolved into shadow. The metallic smell faded little by little until only the cold damp scent of the castle remained.

Then even the memory of violence started feeling unreal.

Within minutes, there was no trace that two students had died there at all.

No remains. No blood. Nothing.

Just the two silent shadows standing patiently beside the door once more.

As though they had never moved.

As though the people they tore apart had never existed in the first place.

That frightened everyone more than the deaths themselves. The realization that this place did not merely kill people. It erased them.

One by one, their attention shifted toward me.

Toward my silence.

Toward my lowered gaze.

Toward the fact that I had warned them before anything happened.

"You knew," someone whispered shakily.

Another stepped backward from me slightly. "You saw something, didn't you?"

Their fear changed shape. It was no longer aimed only at the mansion. Now part of it was aimed at me.

"Can you see things we can't?"

I did not answer. Slowly, I lifted my eyes toward them for a moment before lowering them again.

That alone was enough.

The atmosphere changed instantly.

Hope appeared in their faces again but this time it was ugly. Desperate. Sharp.

"Then you can guide us, right?"

"You know which places are dangerous."

"You can help us get out."

One of them spoke louder now, almost demanding it. "Show us the safe path."

The invisible pressure behind me seemed to grow colder. Waiting. Listening.

I understood the truth already.

If I agreed to lead them, I would only be obeying the thing attached to me. And somehow, instinctively, I knew what that obedience meant.

The mansion would spare them. But not me.

I stayed silent.

A boy suddenly grabbed my shoulder hard enough to hurt. "Don't just stand there!" he shouted, panic cracking through his voice. "Two people already died!"

His fingers trembled violently against me. "You can see dangers ahead, can't you? Then get us out of here!"

His face twisted with terror and anger. "Don't be so selfish!"

Selfish.

The word echoed strangely inside my head. Something ugly and honest rose inside me so suddenly it almost escaped my mouth.

I want to be selfish.

The thought burned through me violently.

Why should I die so all of you can live? I'm scared too. I don't want to stay alone in this place.

My mind screamed the words over and over.

If I cannot get out... then at least stay here with me.

I could not say it aloud. So instead, still staring at the floor, I whispered quietly: "Follow me."

Then I turned and walked back into the corridor. The others hesitated only briefly before following behind me.

I could hear uneven footsteps, quiet crying. Nobody trusted me fully anymore, but fear of staying behind was stronger than fear of following.

And the truth was... I did not actually know the way. I simply understood the rules now. If I chose wrong, I would be corrected. So I kept moving.

At the far end, the corridor split into two paths. I chose the right side.

My body continued walking naturally. No freezing pain. No whisper in my ear. No invisible force stopping me.

So I understood.

Correct.

The path twisted endlessly afterward.

Sometimes we crossed through corridors lined with ancient portraits whose eyes subtly followed movement.

Sometimes through rooms too large to physically fit inside the structure we entered.

Once, we walked through a dining hall where rotten plates still sat on the table, untouched meals covered in moving insects.

And through all of it, my body kept knowing where to go.

Not my thoughts. Not my instincts.

My body.

Like invisible hands were gently steering me forward.

Finally, we reached a staircase descending into darkness. Countless stairs spiraled downward beneath us until they disappeared completely from sight.

It made no sense. We had never climbed upward after entering the mansion. There should not have been anything this deep below us.

But nobody questioned it anymore.

Nothing in that place obeyed reality.

We started descending carefully. The darkness below felt endless.

Then the stairs changed.

The instant everyone stepped fully onto them, the stone surface became slick beneath their feet like melting ice.

Screams exploded around me. Bodies lost balance instantly. People slammed into one another before tumbling violently downward through the spiral staircase. Bones cracked against stone. Someone screamed loud enough to tear their voices apart.

But I did not fall. My feet still touched the stairs. I simply... remained standing. Something held me upright.

Invisible arms around my waist. Cold pressure at my back.

Gentle guidance kept my balance perfectly steady while everyone else rolled helplessly into darkness.

So I walked downward normally while they crashed below me. Step after step.

The screaming slowly quieted into groans of pain.

When I finally reached the bottom, the others lay scattered across the floor in broken disarray. Blood streaked across stone. Some clutched twisted limbs. Others could barely sit upright.

But none of them looked at their injuries first. They looked at me.

And the fear in their faces has changed completely now.

"You..." One boy tried to crawl backward away from me. "How did you do that?" His voice shook violently. "You weren't scared at all."

Another stared at me with widening eyes. "You knew every path... You brought us here. What are you?"

I opened my mouth slightly. Nothing came out. Because I truly had no answer.

One of the girls suddenly spoke up weakly from the floor. "Don't blame her..." Her breathing sounded painful.

"She didn't even want to enter the mansion in the first place..."

But another interrupted immediately, staring at me with a horrified realization. "It's with you, isn't it? The thing doing this to us."

Slowly, I lifted my eyes for the briefest moment. Then lowered them again.

"It is."

The words left my mouth softly. But inside that place, they felt irreversible.

A confession. A betrayal.

A death sentence.

The atmosphere changed instantly.

I could feel their terror pressing against me from every direction now. Not only fear of the castle. Fear of me.

In their eyes, I was no longer another victim trapped beside them. I was connected to the thing hunting them.

Behind their eyes, the Presence reacted. The cold whisper sharpened instantly into something crueler.

Invisible fingers pressed slowly against my throat. Sharp pressure dragged across my back beneath my clothes. Scratching. Cutting.

Pain bloomed hot beneath the freezing cold. I was certain blood now ran down my skin.

"Are you truly that brave?" The voice sounded amused. "To speak of me..."

A claw-like pressure traced upward along my neck. "...while I am standing here?"

My hands clenched tightly at my sides. My eyes burned with tears I refused to let fall. My entire body trembled from pain, but I forced myself to stay still.

Because reacting would only make it worse.

The others misunderstood everything.

To them, I looked detached. Calm. Heartless. A selfish girl leading everyone deeper into danger without remorse.

None of them understood that I was suffocating every second just standing there.

Everyone broke after that.

Not slowly. Completely.

The fear they had been forcing down since entering the mansion finally tore through them all at once.

Their voices overlapped in desperate pleading directed at me now instead of the castle.

"Please..."

"Let us go..."

"We never hurt you..."

One girl's voice cracked apart entirely. "We didn't do anything to you..."

Another pressed trembling hands together like prayer. "Please just let us leave..."

Their words stabbed deeper than blame ever could. Because they truly believed I had power here.

I looked up at them silently.

I wanted to say I'm trapped too.

I wanted to scream that I was being torn apart from the inside every second this thing touched me.

But the Presence behind me remained wrapped around my body like freezing chains.

Before the panic could rise further, something shifted beside us. The stone groaned softly. A section of the wall slowly unfolded inward.

And there it was.

The front door.

Open.

Beyond it lay the outside world- gray rain, wet grass, distant trees bending beneath the storm exactly as they had before we entered the mansion. Fresh air drifted faintly through the doorway.

Nobody moved. The memory of the false exit still lived too vividly inside them.

The silence stretched painfully.

Then the cold whisper returned beside my ear. "Tell those noisy ants to leave." Its voice sounded almost irritated now. "I want a private moment with you."

I said nothing.

I did not want them to go.

I was terrified of being left alone with it.

If they stayed, perhaps I could pretend I still belonged to the world of living people.

If they left... Then maybe I truly belong here now.

The invisible pressure around my throat tightened immediately. Sharp claws pressed deeper into my skin.

"Now."

Pain shot through my neck hard enough to blur my vision. My breathing hitched sharply.

Finally, in a strained, shaking voice, I whispered: "Go..."

Nobody moved at first. They stared at me uncertainly, trying to decide whether this was another trap.

Then one boy stepped cautiously toward the door. He hesitated for a very long time before crossing the threshold. Every muscle in his body looked prepared for death. But nothing happened. He made it outside.

The moment the others realized the exit was real, restraint shattered completely. They ran.

Not one or two. All of them.

Injured bodies stumbling desperately through the doorway back into rain and freedom.

No one stopped beside me.

No one asked if I was coming too.

No one looked back.

Within seconds, they were gone.

I stood there alone watching the open doorway while my vision slowly blurred out of focus. The rain outside looked distant somehow, fading at the edges like an old memory already slipping away.

And for a moment, I could not tell what was happening anymore.

Maybe they were truly escaping.

Maybe the mansion had released them exactly as promised.

Or maybe I was the one fading instead.

The one sinking so deep into this place that the outside world no longer belonged to me.

The doorway began looking impossibly far away. Darkness gathered softly around the edges of my sight.

And behind me, the Presence let out a low sound almost like satisfaction. "Mine."

The word echoed through my skull more than my ears. "You are mine now."

My vision blurred completely afterward.

The doorway. The rain. The outside world. Everything dissolved into shapeless darkness.

My legs finally gave out beneath me. I felt myself falling backward into something endless, then suddenly my back struck against a surface that felt soft and cold at the same time, like sinking into frozen flesh.

Before I could move, pressure slammed down on top of me. My body locked in place instantly.

Hands touched me.

No.... not hands.

Things pretending to be hands.

I felt cold touches all over my body. It was as if my clothes had ceased to exist. They weren't gentle; they were violent, searching, gripping, clawing, pressing hard enough to hurt. It felt invasive in a way deeper than physical pain, like something was trying to peel me apart layer by layer to see what existed underneath.

A large, hard hand squeezed my throat, tightening until I was suffocating, my lungs burning for air that wouldn't come.

My hands flew up, struggling to pry the pressure away, but nothing softened. If anything, the assault became more frantic.

The Presence did not feel angry. That was the worst part. It felt curious.

Possessive. Like it had finally obtained something it wanted for a very long time.

Then, I felt it entering me.

Something cold. Gooey. Like living sludge. It forced its way into my mouth when I gasped for air. More slid into my nose, my ears.

It felt freezing beyond temperature itself, as though liquid darkness was being poured directly into my body.

I choked violently. But it did not stop.

The sensation spread deeper, sliding deep into my core, invading every hollow space in my body.

My stomach twisted painfully. My entire nervous system screamed in revolt.

My eyes snapped open fully.

I didn't care about shadows anymore; there was only the raw, blinding fear of death.

I started struggling with everything I had left, a desperate, animal instinct to escape. My limbs thrashed violently. My body twisted desperately trying to escape whatever held me down.

Nothing changed.

If anything, the Presence became rougher in response to resistance. The pressure against my throat deepened until bright flashes exploded across my vision.

My strength started fading frighteningly fast. Each movement became weaker than the last.

My thoughts slowed beneath overwhelming exhaustion and pain. Even thinking hurts now. Like my mind itself was being crushed beneath something ancient and enormous.

And through all of it, one thought screamed louder than everything else.

If this is real, let me die.

Another desperate plea followed immediately after.

If this is only a nightmare... then wake me up. I can't tolerate this any longer.

My chest spasmed painfully trying to breathe. Tears blurred my vision completely.