The door slammed shut behind Evelyn, sealing her inside the darkness.
No light.
No shadows.
Just nothing.
The whispers had changed.
Before, they had been an eerie background noise shapeless, distant, like echoes from the past.
Now
They were speaking to her.
"You were never supposed to come this far."
"You don't belong here."
"Turn back."
She clenched her jaw.
"I don't have a choice."
The whispers laughed.
Soft, hollow, but filled with something else.
Something that made her chest tighten.
"You still think this is about choice?"
A flicker of light pierced the dark.
Not from a lamp.
Not from a source she could see.
It just... was.
A soft, pale glow spread outward, illuminating the space around her
A corridor.
Narrow.
The walls here weren't stone like before.
They were different.
Not smooth.
Not solid.
They moved.
Shifted.
Like something was breathing beneath them.
Evelyn swallowed hard.
She wasn't sure she wanted to know what.
The Wall of Faces
The whispers grew louder as she walked.
She moved carefully, one step at a time, her breath shallow.
The corridor stretched on endlessly, but the walls
The moving walls
They weren't just shifting.
They were forming.
Shapes.
Indentations.
Faces.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Pressing through the walls, as if something was trapped inside them.
Their mouths opened and closed.
Their eyes
They followed her.
Not blank.
Not empty.
Watching.
One face closer than the others whispered something clearer than the rest.
"Why are you here?"
Evelyn's stomach twisted.
She didn't stop.
Didn't answer.
She couldn't afford to.
This place
It wasn't asking.
It was testing.
And she refused to fail.
The Path Splits
The corridor widened.
Two paths.
Both stretching into the darkness.
The whispers shifted.
Some came from the left.
Some from the right.
But they weren't saying the same things.
The left whispered in warnings.
"Don't go that way."
"It's not real."
"It's a lie."
The right whispered in pleadings.
"Help me."
"This way."
"Please."
Her heart pounded.
This was deliberate.
A choice she was meant to question.
One path warned her away.
One begged her to enter.
Neither felt safe.
Evelyn inhaled sharply.
Then
She stepped forward.
Into the left path.
The whispers screamed.
And then
Everything went silent.
The Silence That Sees
The moment Evelyn stepped into the left path
Everything stopped.
No more whispers.
No more shifting walls.
Even the faces those tortured, watching faces had vanished.
She stood in a long, empty corridor, the silence pressing in from all sides.
Her own breathing sounded too loud.
Her heartbeat, an echo in her skull.
The absence of sound should have been a relief.
But it wasn't.
It was wrong.
Because she knew
Something was still watching her.
The First Mistake
Evelyn took a slow step forward.
Her boot barely scraped the floor
But the sound still didn't come.
Not even a whisper of fabric.
Not even the tap of her own foot.
Her entire existence had been swallowed by the silence.
Her hands curled into fists.
She had chosen this path because it warned her.
But what if that was the trap?
What if this was where people disappeared?
No.
She shook the thought away.
That kind of thinking would get her killed.
She had to move forward.
Had to keep going.
The Eye in the Dark
Another step.
Another.
The corridor stretched into the distance, its walls narrowing.
Or were they?
The silence made it impossible to judge.
The further she walked, the tighter it felt.
Like the air itself was pushing against her.
Then
A flicker.
A shadow where there shouldn't be one.
Her breath caught.
She turned
And froze.
Because just ahead, the darkness itself seemed to shift.
A ripple.
A movement.
And then
It opened.
A single, massive eye.
It didn't blink.
Didn't move.
Just watched.
And in its reflection, she saw
Herself.
Standing still.
Trapped in the moment before she was noticed.
The moment before everything went wrong.
The Door That Shouldn't Be
Evelyn's pulse pounded.
The eye was not just watching.
It was waiting.
For what?
For her to move?
For her to choose wrong?
Her fingers twitched.
She knew better than to assume this thing played by any rules she understood.
But she also knew
Standing still was not an option.
She needed an exit.
And as if responding to her thought
Something appeared in the darkness.
A door.
Not locked.
Not hidden.
Just... there.
Beckoning.
Wrong.
Everything in her screamed that this was a trap.
But the eye
It hadn't moved.
It was still waiting.
Was she supposed to take the door?
Was that the test?
Or was that what it wanted?
Her mind raced.
And then
The silence shattered.
A voice deep, cold, and ancient.
"You should not be here."
Evelyn's body tensed.
Her fingers itched toward the door handle
But the moment she did
The eye blinked.
And the entire corridor collapsed.
The Descent
The floor vanished.
Evelyn fell.
Not down.
Not up.
Just
Fell.
The air twisted around her.
Shadows curled.
And in the distance, the whispers returned
"Why did you come here?"
"You don't belong."
"You should not have chosen."
And then
Darkness swallowed her whole.
The Place Between
Evelyn fell.
Faster.
Farther.
There was no bottom.
No walls.
No air.
Only the endless descent.
She tried to scream, but the sound was stolen from her throat.
Her arms flailed, reaching for something anything to hold onto, but the void offered nothing.
Nothing but the cold.
Nothing but the whispers.
"You were not meant to wake up."
"You were not meant to choose."
"You are not one of us."
Her stomach twisted.
She had made a mistake.
Not by choosing the left path.
Not by ignoring the door.
But by thinking there was a way forward.
This game
It wasn't meant to be played.
It was meant to be lost.
The Crash
The fall ended without warning.
No slowing.
No transition.
Just
Impact.
She hit solid ground, but there was no pain.
No broken bones.
No bruises.
She simply... stopped falling.
As if the world had decided she was done.
Evelyn sucked in a sharp breath, her hands pressing against the surface beneath her.
It was wet.
But not water.
Not blood.
Something else.
A thick, ink-like substance that clung to her skin.
The air smelled wrong.
Like rot and something ancient.
Something dead.
Or worse
Something waiting to wake up.
She pushed herself up, her limbs trembling.
The darkness around her wasn't just empty.
It was alive.
Moving.
Shifting.
And in front of her
A single light.
Dim.
Flickering.
A lantern, hanging from nothing, glowing with a sickly green hue.
Beyond it, the darkness swirled.
Shapes twisted within it.
Figures too tall, too thin just out of reach.
Watching.
Waiting.
And then
The lantern spoke.
"Why are you still here?"
Evelyn's breath caught.
The voice didn't come from behind her.
It didn't come from the darkness.
It came from the light.
She took a step back.
The figures in the darkness shifted.
Moving closer.
"You should not exist."
The words sent a chill down her spine.
Not because they were threatening.
But because
For the first time since she had woken up in this nightmare
She realized they were afraid of her.