The ticking was louder tonight.
Too loud for a clock that didn't exist.
Hale sat on the edge of his bed, photo in hand, mind splintered at the edges. Ivy lay curled under the sheets, her breathing too steady. Too measured.
He watched her for a long time.
She didn't move.
The photograph slipped from his fingers and landed face-down on the floor.
Tick.
Silence.
Scratch.
Something dragged behind the walls.
It didn't echo like wood or nails.
It sounded wet.
Bone like.
Hale stood.
His throat was dry. He reached for the glass of water on the nightstand.
But when he touched it—
Warm.
Like someone had held it seconds before him.
He stared into the mirror above the dresser. At first, it was just his face.
Then it glitched.
The jaw twitched too far to the left.
The eyes blinked out of sync.
His smile curled even though his lips hadn't moved.
Room 9.
It flickered behind his reflection—one frame, two frames, gone.
A whisper filled his skull like static rising:
"It's not your time yet."
He turned sharply.
Two Ivys.
One at the door. One in the mirror.
He blinked.
One was gone.
The walls behind him pulsed. A slow rhythm.
Scratch.
Scratch.
He pressed his ear against the drywall—no sound. But he still heard it.
Not from the room.
From inside his head.
Inside his bones.
He staggered back.
A pressure bloomed behind his eyes. A memory that didn't belong to him. A hallway he'd never walked. A sentence he never spoke:
"They're not all you."
He gasped.
His forearm stung. He yanked up his sleeve.
A mark was forming. Slowly.
Like skin remembering something too old to be real.
He wasn't dreaming.
Something was breaking through.