Sudden Ahaan hadn't slept in three days.
Every time he closed his eyes, he wasn't alone.
Something stood behind him in his dreams.
Breathing.
Smiling.
Waiting.
He tried to stay awake.
But it was getting harder.
His body was tired.
His mind was worse.
Sometimes, he'd blink… and hours would pass.
He'd wake up in random places — the park, the school bathroom, even outside the cemetery once.
He couldn't remember how he got there.
One morning, he woke up and found himself sitting on the rooftop of his house.
The sun had just risen.
And there was blood on his hands.
Not much.
But fresh.
He checked his body — no cuts.
So…
Whose blood was it?
Ahaan ran downstairs in fear.
His mother was in the kitchen.
But she didn't look like herself.
She stared at him too long.
Her eyes were wide. Her lips trembled.
"Ahaan," she whispered, "where were you last night?"
He tried to answer — but something in his throat choked the words.
"I—I don't know," he said finally.
She nodded.
But her face looked more scared than before.
Not of someone outside.
Of him.
Later that day, Ahaan looked in the mirror again.
He stared at his own face.
But something felt wrong.
He blinked once.
And in the mirror, his reflection didn't blink back.
It just stared.
Smiling a little.
Its eyes were too black.
Too hollow.
And then the reflection moved its lips:
"You're just skin now.
I'm the blood inside."
Ahaan screamed and smashed the mirror.
But there was no glass on the floor.
No cracks.
The mirror was still perfect.
Like it never happened.
That night, the journal flipped open again.
New words appeared:
CASE THIRTY-SEVEN: The Thing Wearing His Face
"The Sleeper does not need to walk.
He walks through others.
One mind at a time.
One skin at a time.
Until the real one forgets who he was."
Ahaan touched the page — and saw a flash:
A hallway made of skin.
People hanging upside down.
All of them had his face.
He ran to his friend Zara's house — the only person he could trust.
Zara opened the door and gasped.
"Ahaan! Where were you? We looked for you for two days!"
Ahaan stared at her, confused.
"Two days? No. I just saw you yesterday—"
"No," she said, her voice shaking. "You… you sent me a video."
"What video?"
She pulled out her phone and showed it to him.
The screen lit up.
There he was.
Ahaan.
But not normal.
In the video, his eyes were pitch black. His mouth was stitched shut.
He stood still in the dark, then raised his hand and wrote on the wall:
"I AM NOT HIM ANYMORE."
The video ended with a scream.
His scream.
Zara looked at him with tears in her eyes.
"What's happening to you, Ahaan? What are you becoming?"
He couldn't answer.
Because inside his head, he heard breathing.
Deep. Heavy. Not his own.
Then came the whisper:
"Why run?
I'm already wearing you."
Ahaan dropped the phone.
His hands were shaking again.
His skin felt too tight, like it didn't belong to him.
His voice inside was getting smaller.
And something else was getting louder.
He ran.
To the woods. To be alone.
He screamed at the trees:
"GET OUT OF ME!"
But only his own echo answered.
Until…
A second voice whispered back.
"You called me.
Now I'm here.
Why pretend you don't want this?"
He fell to the ground.
Crying.
Shaking.
The journal flipped open one last time that night.
The words bled onto the page like fresh wounds:
"He is not coming for you anymore.
He's already inside.
And soon…
you will forget you were ever Ahaan at all."
Now...