Serenity…

I heard his whisper—a faint, chilling murmur. His mouth hadn’t moved, yet I was certain he’d spoken my name. Then, once more, the sound echoed inside my head.

Serenity…

A hushed whisper, as if slipping through the cracks of my mind. I glanced at Dr. Caldwell, but he was oblivious to the voices I was hearing. I swallowed, trying to ignore the fear bubbling up in my stomach. He was behind the glass… wasn’t he? He couldn’t reach me.

Then Pray did something that both startled and unnerved me. He pressed his body up against the glass, his eyes locked on mine with an intensity that felt uncomfortably intimate. I barely registered Caldwell saying something; my focus was fixed solely on Pray. His skin began to shift, undulating beneath his clothes. My heart pounded, anxiety cascading over me like a wave. I wanted to see something human in him, but in moments like this, it felt impossible.

A quiet gasp escaped me as black tendrils slithered from beneath his skin, coiling through the fabric of his turtleneck. They pressed against the glass like serpents, leaving thin trails of dark residue. Under the sterile lab lights, the tendrils gleamed, their texture uncertain—somewhere between oil and slime. I took a step back.

“Wait, Dr. Collins,” Caldwell’s voice rang out, sharp with excitement. “This is unprecedented. You can’t just back away now.” His tone was cold, urging me forward.

I didn’t look at him, my attention locked on Pray as he pressed harder against the glass, fogging it with his breath. The sight made my stomach twist.

“I don’t think I want to—”

“Touch the glass,” Caldwell cut me off, his voice laced with a clinical eagerness. “See what he does. You’re a scientist, Dr. Collins. Observing his reaction would be invaluable.”

Much as I hated to admit it, he was right. Scientifically, touching the glass could yield valuable data. But my instincts screamed at me to stay back, every fiber of my being resisting the idea.

Before I could make a decision, a sudden force shoved me forward, pressing me against the cold glass. A gasp escaped my lips, sharp and involuntary.

“W-what are you doing?” I stammered, my voice trembling with panic as I realized Caldwell’s hand was gripping the back of my neck, holding me there. His fingers dug in firmly, pinning me in place. That silver-haired devil was pushing me to the brink of my sanity, using my own curiosity against me.

Pray’s red eyes bored into mine from inches away. At that moment, the glass felt thinner, almost as if it weren’t there at all. This couldn’t be real, I thought, panic flaring in my chest as the boundary between us seemed to vanish. I tried to breathe but was suffocating in fear. 

That’s when it happened. 

Everything became darkness. 

It was sudden… something was shifting. I thought I was surrounded by darkness—total, impenetrable darkness—until I looked down and saw my hands, fully illuminated. What?

I glanced around, disoriented. The space was dark, almost solid, yet the ground beneath me glittered faintly. I knelt down, feeling the texture under my fingers. It was rough and coarse… sand. Black sand that sparkled as it slipped through my fingers.

Where was I? How did I get here?

I turned one way, then the other, and then back again, trying to make sense of my surroundings. That’s when I saw it. A massive doorway loomed ahead, like a giant keyhole carved into the darkness, with an eerie red glow emanating from within. The frame was ancient, inscribed with strange, alien markings—a language, perhaps—formed from intersecting vertical lines and squares.

As I looked closer, I realized the doorway was set into an enormous wall that stretched endlessly in both directions, as though there was no way around. My pulse quickened. The only path forward seemed to be through that ominous red mist within the keyhole shaped door.

I took a step forward, but then froze, my eyes widening. Out from the doorway, enormous tendrils snaked their way into the darkness, as if reaching, feeling, searching. Their texture was unsettling—twisting and pulsing, the dark veins visible beneath their strange, shadowy surface. They slithered along the massive frame, curling and spreading across the wall with a silent, predatory grace.

A chill swept over me, rooting me in place as the tendrils writhed, shifting with an eerie, unnatural life. My pulse hammered in my ears, yet the silence around me was absolute, like I’d stepped into a place beyond sound and light, where even my breath felt muted.

And then, breaking the silence, a voice echoed from the depths of the doorway. It was deep and resonant, filled with a weight that made the very air tremble. “Life within the thousandth year, the dawning of an age, the birth of time’s passing and the end of day’s first light. Only one remaineth.”

The words hung in the air, each syllable reverberating as though it was ancient, a prophecy spoken countless ages ago. And as the voice began to fade, it repeated that final line, growing softer yet somehow more haunting. “Only one.”

Only one?

The words echoed in my mind, cold and final, as if they carried a meaning I was just beginning to grasp. The red mist beyond the doorway swirled, and the tendrils shifted, inching closer, their dark shapes weaving into the oppressive silence that seemed to grow heavier with each heartbeat.

That’s when I woke up, my vision a blur of bright, shifting lights.

“Can you hear me?” a voice asked, muffled and distant.

I coughed, struggling to focus, hearing voices and seeing shadows. Two figures hovered over me—a woman and a man. Paramedics? The cool touch of gloved hands brushed against my skin as one of them administered a shot, the world slowly coming into sharper focus.

I realized I was on the floor, being lifted onto a stretcher. Blinking, I looked around, recognizing my surroundings. I was still in the lab. A small, dark pool of blood glistened on the floor near Pray’s glass containment unit. What had happened?