A chilly wind swirled through the town. The streets felt silent and unnervingly empty.
A boy walked alone, holding a lamp in his hand. Each step echoed through the empty streets. His expression remained calm and unreadable.
The sound of his footsteps seemed to draw someone's attention.
A gust of wind snuffed out the flame in the boy's lamp, plunging the surroundings into instant darkness.
He fumbled for a match in his pocket and struck it. The small flame relit the lamp, and as the light spread, the darkness receded.
In the fading shadows, a tall, hat-wearing figure appeared behind him. Its nails were long and unkempt, looking as though they hadn't been cut in years.
The tall figure tapped the boy's shoulder from behind.
"Look behind," it said.
The boy froze, lost in thought for a moment.
The figure tilted its head, confused, and reached out to tap his shoulder again. But the boy snatched its hand before it could touch him.
Before the tall figure could react, the boy turned his head and looked it directly in the eyes. The figure panicked, then vanished into thin air, leaving nothing behind but a swirl of dust.
It appeared the figure had been afraid of someone,but who?
The boy remained expressionless. Without a word, he turned back and continued forward, his lamp casting a dim light on the empty street.
A nearby house window reflected the lamp's glow—and in the reflection, the boy had no face.
After walking for a while, the boy stopped and stared blankly at a house.
It was… pristine.
It was the kind of house the neighbors would praise without hesitation—grand, polished, almost unreal in its perfect design. Its windows glowed with a warm, steady light, the kind that signaled life:
Someone was home.
Someone lived there.
Someone breathed there.
Everything about it looked normal.
Too normal.
The boy slowly rotated his head toward the neighboring house. For the first time in a long while, an expression surfaced on his empty face -Not wonder, not fear, but puzzlement.
Because the neighbor's house sat in complete darkness. He didn't find it strange that the house was dark. Darkness had been everywhere in this town. Every house he passed had been empty, silent, lightless.
What puzzled him was that among all the dead homes, only this luxury house dared to glow. Behind him, stretching far into the misty distance, every house in the entire town sat hollow and unlit - abandoned shells of lives that no longer existed.
Yet this one house shone like a lighthouse in a graveyard.
The boy lifted his lamp, bringing the small flame close to his face.
A gentle gust of wind drifted through the empty street. Soft. Natural. Almost… intentional.
The flame flickered once, then vanished.
The lamp had fulfilled its duty.
He lowered it carefully to the ground, placing it with a strange tenderness, as though it were a companion he no longer needed. Then, he turned his faceless gaze toward the luxury house and began walking.
The door towered over him - crafted from wood that was anything but ordinary. This wasn't common timber; this was wood people whispered about, wood reserved for temples, palaces, and ancient rituals. Its surface was smooth, polished, nearly glowing under the dim streetlight.
He approached. And then… he stopped.
Something about the door made him pause mid-step, as though unseen fingers tugged lightly at his sleeve.
Slowly, he raised his hand to knock.
Just as his knuckles were about to strike the rare wood.
A voice spoke behind him.
Soft.
Close.
Too close.
"Don't."
The boy turned sharply toward the voice.
But the street behind him was empty.
No figure. No shadow. Not even the echo of a footstep.
Just the cold, motionless air.
For the first time, something flickered in his chest with unease. Perhaps it was only the wind, he told himself. A whisper carried along the empty houses. He faced the door again, this time with a bit more confidence, and raised his hand to knock. But before his knuckles could touch the wood -
BANG!
The door swung open with such force the sound exploded through the silent town, reverberating between the lifeless houses.
The boy froze. Slowly, he tilted his head, confusion breaking through his otherwise unreadable face.
Beyond the doorway… There was no room.
No hall. No furniture. No hint of the luxury that the outside promised. There was only pitch-black emptiness. A darkness so thick it felt like it was breathing. He decided to step inside. There was no hesitation in his movements, as if something inside the house was calling him, luring him forward. His foot hovered over the threshold, inches away from the darkness.
That was when a presence formed behind him. A chilling whisper slithered through the air. From the empty street, a floating eye and a twisted smile appeared -disembodied, demonic, hovering in the dark like a nightmare given shape.
"Don't."
The voice echoed inside his skull. "Or you will be trapped forever."
The boy stiffened.
But before he could react !.
A shape moved inside the void beyond the door. From there a girl stepped forward, emerging from the darkness as if she had always been part of it. Her face was beautiful -perfect, delicate, smiling faintly. A numb, eerie smile that did not reach her eyes. It was a cruel contrast to the boy, whose reflection showed no face at all.
For a moment, he wondered-
Who was she? And what was the voice behind him?
But he didn't get time to think.
The girl's arm shot forward. Her cold fingers wrapped around his wrist, and with unnatural strength, she yanked him into the darkness.
The world twisted -the street, the house, the smile, the eye, all melting into black.
And then,
THUMP.
A book fell onto a bed.
It landed perfectly on the boy's chest.
He jolted awake, gasping, drenched in sweat.