The Motel Wasn't Quiet. It Was Waiting.
Not the kind of quiet where sound had disappeared—
But the kind where sound had been stolen.
Mike stood by the window, fingers twitching at his side. His reflection didn't move when he did.Too slow. Too delayed.
"We shouldn't be here."
Jessica wiped more blood from her nose. "No kidding." Her voice was strained, golden equations flickering in her vision, shifting before she could grasp them.
The numbers weren't just breaking apart anymore.
They were rewriting themselves.
Leo stared at the wall where the door had been.
His own handwriting still scrawled across it:
"It saw me."
He didn't remember writing it.
But he knew it was true.
Something had looked back.
Something knew he existed now.
And it wasn't letting go.
Jessica turned to Leo. "What exactly happened when you touched the door?"
Leo's mouth was dry. "I... was somewhere else."
Mike exhaled sharply. "Yeah, well, we saw you go nowhere. You just—" He gestured vaguely, expression tight. "Disappeared. For exactly seventeen seconds."
Leo's skin went cold.
"Seventeen?" Jessica whispered. Her fingers moved through empty air as numbers swarmed around her, flickering like dying fireflies. "That's not random."
Chen didn't look up from her device. "No, it's a pattern."
Jessica's gaze sharpened. "What kind of pattern?"
Chen tapped something. Her device flickered, momentarily displaying dozens of overlapping timestamps, all exactly seventeen seconds apart.
Leo felt his heartbeat hammer in his skull.
Because he remembered.
The girl—she had been there.
Watching.
Warning.
Before reality collapsed.
A Wrong Reflection
Mike turned toward the bathroom mirror.
His face stared back at him—pale, sweat clinging to his skin.
"We need to—"
He stopped.
His reflection hadn't moved.
Jessica froze. "Mike...?"
The mirror Mike stared at him, head tilted too far to the side.
A second too late—
It grinned.
And the lights cut out.
A sharp breath—Jessica's. A hissed curse—Chen's.
Then—
The sound of glass cracking.
Something's Inside
The motel lights flickered back.
The mirror was shattered.
And something moved behind the cracks.
Mike stumbled backward, heart pounding. "That—what the hell—"
Leo didn't move.
Because his own reflection hadn't shattered.
It was still standing there.
Watching.
And smiling.
A slow, unnatural expression. One that didn't belong to him.
Leo's breath turned to ice.
His reflection raised a hand.
Leo didn't.
The thing in the mirror waved at him.
And whispered something.
His own voice—
But wrong.
A sound with too many layers, like a chorus of himself speaking from different points in time.
"You're still bleeding into the wrong reality, Leo."
The air snapped around him.
And suddenly—
The girl was standing in the mirror, too.
No reflection.
Just her.
Standing behind the thing that was supposed to be him.
Leo's throat closed.
Then—
She turned her head.
And looked straight at him.
No words.
Just a single shake of her head.
A warning.
Again.
And then—
Everything collapsed.
The Motel No Longer Exists
Leo opened his eyes.
The air was wrong.
Not the motel.
Not the room.
Not reality.
A black expanse stretched infinitely in all directions.
Not darkness—
Something deeper.
Something that had never known light.
Something that had been waiting.
Jessica, Mike, and Chen were there—
But they weren't moving.
Frozen in place.
Like time had forgotten them.
Leo took a slow, shallow breath.
The girl stood ten feet ahead, barefoot on the nothingness.
Watching him.
This close, she was real.
But something about her presence felt… unfinished. Like she was still fading in.
Leo's voice came out hoarse. "Who are you?"
She didn't answer.
But she didn't disappear this time, either.
She just stood there.
Like she was waiting.
Like she was listening.
And then—
Somewhere in the abyss—
Something breathed.
A sound so vast, so deep, that it didn't touch his ears.
It pressed against his bones.
Leo went cold.
The girl's gaze flicked past him.
Her expression shifted.
For the first time, her face showed emotion.
Fear.
She turned—fast.
And ran.
The Presence That Watches
Leo barely had time to react before a shadow rose from the void.
Not a shape.
Not a figure.
Something that had no form.
Something that wasn't supposed to be seen.
Something that had been watching long before they ever noticed it.
And now—
It was aware.
The thing reached for him.
Leo moved.
Instinct. Survival.
He turned—and ran.
The Others Find Him
Jessica's voice snapped back into existence.
"Leo—what the hell just happened?!"
They were back.
The motel room.
The broken mirror.
The scrawled words on the wall:
"It saw me."
Jessica was panting. Mike looked like he wanted to throw up.
Chen's hand was on her weapon. "Leo, talk."
Leo's chest rose and fell—too fast, too sharp.
He turned.
The girl was gone.
But something was still here.
Something had followed him back.
Something was waiting.
And now—
It knew his name.