The air in the room had grown thinner.
Yan Zhi stood still, eyes locked on the half-open door. The black eye still stared—silent, as though weighing something only it could understand.
Then he realized.
He was breathing… but it wasn't his breath.
The rhythm was too heavy, too slow. Each inhalation felt drawn out of him, only to return colder—air that had never belonged to him, as if exhaled from the depths of an ancient well.
"Don't… look away," the voice whispered again. But this time, he heard something new—a second tone, layered beneath the first. Two voices… from one mouth.
Yan Zhi shifted his stance, gauging the distance to his sword on the table. Three steps, maybe four, if he moved fast. But instinct warned him: the moment he broke eye contact, something would enter—either the room… or him.
The shadow on the floor moved.
Not his own this time.
Taller. Thinner. Its head tilted, like it was studying something fragile.
His arm throbbed again, deeper than before. From within that pain came another rhythm—not his heartbeat, but a knock echoing from the far side of his bones.
Tap… tap… tap…
He knew—if that door opened, there would be no way back.
Suddenly, the black eye blinked. And in the space between blinks, he saw it—
A corridor stretching without end, its walls draped in black fabric that shifted gently, as if breathing. At the farthest point, something waited. He didn't know what it was, but he knew… it knew him.
When the blink ended, the eye was closer.
The gap in the door was almost gone—swallowed by a darkness that erased the frame.
The voice spoke again, soft as prayer:
"If you let me in… I will show you who watches you from beyond the sky."
And for a moment, Yan Zhi almost said yes.
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