The air inside was heavier than the night outside. It smelled of dust, old paper, and something faintly metallic. I looked around, expecting a church but there was none of that. No pews, no altar, no statues. Nothing familiar.
Instead, it looked like a study, or maybe a library. Shelves lined the walls, filled with books in cracked, worn leather, with symbols I didn't recognize on their spines. Some leaned against each other, some were stacked, as if someone had left in a hurry.
i let my eyes wander across the room, searching for something, anything that could explain what this place was for.
Then, something in the center of the room caught my attention. At first, I thought it was a trick of the light. But as I stepped closer, I saw them.
Dozens of hourglasses, floating silently in the air. They were all different sizes. Some small, some almost as tall as I was, and inside each, sand drifted slowly, like it had forgotten how to fall.
I approached the nearest one. It hovered just above the stone floor. I held out my hand, letting my fingers brush against the glass. It was smooth and cold, lighter than I expected, and when I lifted it slightly, the sand inside shimmered but made no sound.
That's when i saw it. There, directly under the glass, were carvings etched into the hourglass's stand itself. Strange, looping symbols that shimmered faintly in the dim light.
I knelt down to look closer. The writing was unlike anything I had ever seen. It wasn't letters from any language I knew, but it clearly had a meaning.
I lifted another hourglass and saw the same intricate carvings beneath it. Each one was slightly different, but all carried the same energy. The sand inside continued to flow quietly, endlessly, while the symbols seemed to pulse softly, marking each moment as if time itself had slowed inside this room.
Suddenly, the writing shifted, the symbols warping as a dull glow spread through the surface in my hands. What I had been reading moments before dissolved, rearranging itself into something else. The light steadied, and the meaning changed.
Seventy-six. Malnutrition.
What could that mean? Nothing about this made sense. The room itself seemed to react, the atmosphere tightening as if the air had grown heavier.
My eyes continued to drift across the room, and I found myself drawn to the far wall.
On the wall hung a portrait, unusually large, taking up most of the space. A young man looked back at me from the canvas.
Beneath the portrait, a notebook sat alone on a small wooden table. Its cover was strange, unlike anything I had seen before. The edges of the pages had a faint golden patterns, shining lightly when the light touched them. In the middle of the cover was a heart-shaped detail pressed into the leather. It looked like a lock, but there was no keyhole, no opening, nothing that showed how it could be opened.
I reached out slowly and lifted it from the table. The leather felt cool and smooth under my touch.
I tried to open it.
Nothing.
I pressed along the spine, eased the cover gently, tilted it, shook it slightly, even tried pushing with a little more force. The notebook didn't budge. The pages remained stubbornly shut, the heart fixed firmly in place as if it were guarding its secrets.
I held the notebook tighter, my fingers tracing the edges of the golden pages and the small heart pressed into its cover. Carefully, I tried again, easing the cover with slow, deliberate pressure.
It didn't budge.
A shiver ran down my spine. The notebook seemed almost alive in my hands, resistant, as if it were testing me or waiting.
Then, a noise.
A soft shuffle across the stone floor.
I froze instantly, the notebook clutched against my chest. My eyes darted toward the shadowed corners of the room. At first, I thought it was just my imagination, but then the sound came again. It was clearly someone footsteps echoing through the room.
And then I saw them.
Horns.
Panic surged through me, sharp and immediate. I didn't have time to think. My eyes caught on an old rug hanging loose against the wall, its edges frayed, uneven, as if it were hiding something. I ran for it, barely daring to breathe, and slipped behind the fabric, pulling myself into the narrow space beyond. Cold stone pressed against my back as I squeezed into the cramped darkness. My body trembling as I tried to make myself as small as possible.
My heart thundered in my chest. I forced myself to slow my breathing, afraid even the sound of it might give me away. Carefully, I leaned forward and peered through a thin gap in the rug.
What I saw made my stomach twist.
Two figures stood in the room.
One wore polished leather shoes, spotless and gleaming, the kind only someone wealthy or obsessively careful would own. The other stood barefoot.
His feet were gray and misshapen, the toes bent at unnatural angles, skin stretched tight over bone. It was wrong. Inhuman. Less like a person and more like something dragged out of a nightmare.
"Are you sure making a bargain won't anger him?" The voice was low and rough, clearly belonging to the creature with the twisted feet.
"That's the fun of it," replied the man in the polished shoes. "Proving him wrong. He still has faith in them, yet they're all the same."
"Not all of them," the other muttered, tension creeping into his voice. "Not since... she—"
"That's enough!" the man snapped, the sharpness in his voice cutting through the room like a blade.
"I-I didn't mean to mention it again, my lord, it just that it seems as if it still bothers you." the creature stammered, bowing slightly.
The man in the polished shoes turned and walked away, his footsteps speeding. The other followed, shuffling awkwardly across the stone floor. I watched until both of them disappeared from view.
I stayed hidden long after they were gone, pressed into the darkness, my chest aching as I clutched my notebook tightly. I didn't move until the room fell completely silent.
Only then did I let myself breathe.
When I finally stepped out from behind the rug, my legs felt stiff and unreliable, as though I had been crouching there for hours instead of minutes. I stayed close to the wall at first, listening carefully, half-expecting the strange figures to reappear.
Nothing moved.
Slowly, I loosened my grip on the notebook, though I didn't dare put it down. The leather was warm now from my hands, the small heart-shaped detail pressing faintly against my fingers.
I took a tentative step forward.
Then another.
My eyes scanned the room automatically, the floating hourglasses, the towering shelves, the dim light that had no visible source. Everything looked exactly as it had before, perfectly arranged, perfectly still. No sign that anyone else had been there.
My gaze eventually drifted toward the far wall.
Toward the portrait once again.
I stopped walking without realizing it. Something about it pulled at my attention again, the same way it had earlier. At first, I couldn't place what was bothering me, and then I understood.
The curtain.
Before, the painting hadn't been fully visible. A heavy sheet of dark fabric had partially covered it, hanging like a veil across the center. I hadn't thought much of it at the time, this entire place was strange, but now the detail felt deliberate.
Why hide a painting?
The question lingered in my mind as I found myself moving toward it. Part of me insisted this was a terrible idea. Another part, stronger and far more curious, refused to turn away.
Up close, the curtain looked older than I expected. The material was thick, almost velvety, with faint creases running through it. Dust clung to the folds. It didn't look decorative.
It looked like it was meant to conceal.
I hesitated, staring at it for several seconds. There was no real reason to touch it. No rational explanation for the uneasy feeling building in my chest.
And yet…
Before I could talk myself out of it, I reached out. The curtain slid away easily.
I looked at the painting for several heartbeats.
A sharp, unfamiliar pain bloomed in my chest, sudden enough to make me flinch. My hand flew instinctively to my heart, fingers pressing hard against my ribs as if I could physically stop whatever was happening inside me.
It didn't feel like fear.
It felt like… pressure. Ache. Something tight and heavy that made it difficult to draw air into my lungs.
My eyes remained fixed on the painting.
He was beautiful. Not the casual kind of beauty one simply noticed, but something far more unsettling. The kind that demanded attention. The kind that made looking away feel almost impossible.
His hair, impossibly pale, framed his face in soft waves that seemed far more natural than before. Earlier, there had been something distant about him, something rigid and cold in his expression.
That was gone.
Now, his features looked softer, more human. There was a faint curve to his lips, not a smirk or cruel smile. Something that looked almost sincere. Almost vulnerable.
And his eyes…
They were still red, but they no longer seemed harsh or intimidating. Light caught in them in a way that didn't make sense for a painting. Tiny reflections, shifting as I moved, giving the unsettling impression of depth.
I frowned slightly, my hand still pressed to my chest.
I don't know how long I stood there.
At some point, the discomfort in my chest became too noticeable to ignore, a dull, persistent ache that made it difficult to think clearly. The longer I looked at him, the worse it seemed to get, as if something inside me were being pulled tight.
I looked away, or at least forced myself to do so before it was too late.
I turned my body slowly, scanning my surroundings again, trying to orient myself. The floating hourglasses continued their silent drifting, sand sliding in unnatural slow motion. The shelves remained still, their cracked leather spines watching like rows of closed eyes.
Everything was exactly the same.
Everything except the one thing that mattered.
The exit.
I froze.
For a second, my mind refused to process what I was seeing. The far side of the room, the place I clearly remembered entering from, looked wrong in a way that was difficult to immediately define.
No doorway.
No arch.
No opening of any kind.
Just an unbroken stretch of wall.
My heart gave a sudden, hard thud against my ribs. I blinked, certain I was mistaken. I took a hesitant step forward, then another, my eyes narrowing as if focus alone could correct the image.
This isn't possible.
The wall loomed closer. Smooth stone, faintly illuminated by the same sourceless light that filled the room. No seam, no frame, no sign that a passage had ever existed there.
But it had.
I knew it had because this was the exact wall I came from.
I couldn't stay still.
My gaze dropped to the object in my hands.
The notebook.
Up until now, I had been holding it without thinking, my fingers wrapped tightly around the leather cover. After a brief hesitation, I pulled the notebook closer to my chest and opened my jacket with my free hand. The inside pocket was barely large enough. I tried sliding the notebook in and immediately met resistance.
"Seriously…?" I muttered quietly.
With a final push, the notebook slipped into place.
I pressed my palm against the pocket, flattening the jacket to make sure it wouldn't fall out.
Then I started moving.
There had to be another way out.
Rooms like this didn't exist without more than one entrance. That was a simple, logical fact, and logic was the only thing keeping me from completely going insane.
I circled the space once, then again, scanning every wall more carefully. The shelves loomed above me, packed tightly with their strange, unreadable volumes. The floating hourglasses drifted silently as always, their slow, unnatural movement now deeply unsettling.
Nothing.
Frustration began to creep in, sharp and restless. I turned sharply, my eyes sweeping toward the far end of the room, toward the large wooden desk I had barely paid attention to before.
And then I saw it.
Behind the desk, partially obscured by shadow, was a door.
It blended into the wall almost perfectly, its dark surface nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding stone. No ornate frame, no handle that immediately caught the eye. It looked less like an entrance and more like something intentionally concealed.
My pulse quickened.
Without allowing myself time to overthink, I moved toward it. Hope, thin but desperate, pushed me forward. A door meant a passage. A passage meant a possibility.
An escape.
As I rounded the desk, the air felt subtly different, cooler somehow. Up close, the door's outline became clearer. The surface was smooth, dark, and strangely reflective, though not enough to show a true reflection.
I reached out and pushed.
It opened without resistance.
Relief surged through me, but only for a fraction of a second.
Because this was not an exit.
Beyond the doorway stretched a long hallway, swallowed in darkness.
The floor beneath the threshold was polished marble, so dark it almost resembled a void. The ceiling rose high above, lost in shadow, yet shapes caught my eye, dozens of chandelier crystals suspended overhead.
None of them lit.
They hung like frozen shards of glass, catching what little light spilled from the room behind me. The faint reflections shimmered weakly across the black marble floor, creating the unsettling illusion of movement where there was none.
I hesitated.
Every instinct told me this was a terrible idea.
But staying in the room wasn't an option.
Swallowing my unease, I stepped forward.
The marble floor was colder than the stone I had left behind. I immediately adjusted my pace, placing each foot down with deliberate care. The silence here was even more oppressive, every tiny shift of my weight threatening to echo endlessly through the corridor.
As I moved farther from the doorway, faint shapes began to emerge ahead. The darkness did not lift, but subtle points of warm light gradually revealed themselves.
Stairs.
A wide staircase descended into the depths of the hallway, its edges barely visible against the black surroundings. Along the base of each step, small lights glowed softly.
Like candles.
They were arranged with perfect precision, lining the staircase in two symmetrical rows. Their flames or what resembled flames flickered gently, casting weak pools of golden light across the glossy marble.
I approached cautiously and began descending, my steps slow and measured. The lights remained steady, their glow reflecting faintly beneath my feet. I kept my gaze forward, my entire body tense with the single desperate hope that this path might finally lead somewhere.
I had barely taken four steps when something changed.
One of the lights shifted.
At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. But the warm golden glow suddenly drained away, replaced by a deep, unnatural blue. The color was vivid, almost electric against the darkness.
I stopped.
The blue light flickered once.
Then moved.
A sharp jolt of fear shot through me as the small flame, if it even was a flame. It slid smoothly from its place beneath the step. It detached soundlessly, drifting into the air like a weightless ember.
My throat tightened.
The light hovered for a brief second.
Then glided toward me.
I staggered back instinctively, my heart lurching painfully. The blue glow followed, floating at a steady pace, neither fast nor slow.
It tracked me.
Step for step.
My breathing grew shallow as I watched it, frozen between disbelief and rising panic. The rest of the candle like lights remained unchanged, their soft golden flicker now feeling disturbingly distant.
Only this one had moved.
Only this one had turned blue.
And it was coming closer.
My controlled descent collapsed into a run.
My footsteps echoed loudly now, sharp cracks of sound that shattered the heavy silence of the hallway. I barely noticed. Adrenaline had taken over, drowning everything else beneath a surge of urgency.
No matter how fast I moved, it remained there, hovering just behind me, its blue glow sliding across the marble floor like a living shadow.
My lungs burned. My pulse thundered in my ears.
"What are you?!" I shouted, the words tearing out of my throat before I could stop them.
The light did not respond.
But something else did.
"The right question…"
The voice came from directly behind me.
Close.
Far too close.
My entire body locked in shock. My feet stumbled mid-stride, shoes skidding slightly against the slick marble. The sound of the voice was not distant, not echoing from the far end of the corridor.
It was at my back.
Near enough that I could feel the presence of it.
"…is who are you?"