Danny jolted upright as the knock echoed again.Three slow taps.Perfectly timed.Unnaturally calm.
He looked at Claire, her face pale as wax, lips parted in a silent question neither of them could voice.
The child stood near the door now, tiny hand pressed against the wood.His eyes—unblinking.A strange smile played at the corner of his lips.
"Daddy, he's here."
Danny's pulse pounded in his ears.
He had barely begun to grasp his own unraveling, the shifting memories, the whispers from within… and now this?
A visitor who knew where to find them?
Who knew when to come?
Somewhere deep inside, a voice—the real him, maybe—screamed to run.
But the part of him that had crossed the Veil… that part?
It had already opened the door.
The door creaked open not like wood—but like a coffin lid being pried loose by hands that had no business moving.
And standing on the other side was a man in a black coat stitched with gold thread—eyes hollow like they'd seen too many timelines, too many endings.
In his hands, a scroll.
Ancient.
Unrolling itself as if alive.
And at the bottom, in fresh, red ink—Danny Wong's name was already there.
Signed.
Bleeding.
Alive.
The man didn't speak.
He simply handed Claire a second scroll—smaller. Tied with a white thread.
She untied it with shaking hands.
Inside, only one line:
"The child must choose by midnight."