He didn't fall.
He didn't land.
He simply ceased to be in one place and found himself in another.
It began with light—blinding white, so bright it scorched his eyes shut. Then cold. Then silence. No sound. No air. Nothing. His lungs convulsed. He opened his mouth, but it was like screaming underwater. The world pressed against him from all sides, invisible but crushing.
And then—
A flash of headlights.
A car horn.
Metal slammed into metal, his body hurled forward, bones snapping—
Darkness.
He jolted up, gasping—
—and found himself drowning. Arms flailing. Pressure crushing his chest. Bubbles rising. Light far above, unreachable.
Then darkness again.
Then burning.
Then choking in smoke, fire eating his skin.
Then being stabbed—over and over in an alley.
Then drowning again.
They came endlessly. One death after another. No pause. No reason. No escape.
Each scene more vivid, more grotesque. Each death more painful than the last. It didn't stop.
It didn't let him stop.
Alex wasn't the only one.
He saw others. Not clearly—just flickers between transitions. Bodies writhing, eyes wide open but empty. Screams muffled under the illusion. Some had already gone still. Too many. Their minds snapped long before their bodies could.
Some cried. Some laughed.
Most just froze.
He couldn't even find his voice anymore. His throat was raw, but no sound came out.
And then—
A sound.
A whisper. Familiar. Distant.
But it wasn't guiding him. It wasn't calling to him. It merely watched.
Enjoyed.
"How many deaths before you let go?" it asked in amusement, not sympathy.
He fell to his knees—somewhere between hallucinations—sobbing without sound, tears smearing across his trembling face.
"I don't want this…" he mouthed.
He wanted to go home. To rewind time. To disappear. Anything but this.
"I want it to stop…"
But it didn't.
The world bled around him. His surroundings twisted—now he was falling from a building. The wind howled in his ears, and just before hitting the ground, it snapped—
Darkness.
Over and over.
He clutched his head.
"STOP!"
His scream was voiceless. Silent. Like shouting into the void. The world refused to hear him.
Until something did.
Something noticed.
Something turned its eyes toward him.
Not the whisper.
Something darker.
It stepped into the illusion—not to break it, but to become part of it. The monster. Not imagined. Real. Wearing the illusion like a skin.
It had no name. No face. Just a grinning mask, eyes hollow, dagger glinting with impossible shadows. The shadows around it weren't shadows—they were alive, slithering, choking the space.
It drifted toward Alex.
Past the others.
Drawn to the weakness.
To the moment of near-surrender.
Alex stared at it, helpless.
He couldn't move.
Couldn't breathe.
And still, the deaths continued.
Behind him, someone was muttering. A voice that cracked like dried leaves.
"They said I was broken," Lysandra whispered, curled up a few feet away, arms wrapped around her knees. "Family doesn't abandon you. Family doesn't abandon you. Family doesn't…"
She rocked back and forth, eyes wide and wet. The world shattered around her too, but she clung to that one sentence, like a child clutching a memory of warmth.
Alex's heart ached.
And then it broke.
All the pain, the fear, the helplessness—everything he'd buried—it erupted. He screamed, truly screamed this time, but only on the inside. His face contorted, eyes pouring tears, fingers clawing at the phantom air.
He wanted to die.
He meant it.
And that… that's when it answered.
"There you are."
The whisper returned.
Low. Deep. Like a lover's breath behind the ear. Amused. Delighted.
"You've broken beautifully."
In that moment—he felt something slip into him.
A shudder. A surge. Like cold lightning snapping through his spine.
His eyes opened.
And for the first time—he could breathe.
The hallucinations stopped.
Not because he resisted.
But because he gave in.
He lay on the floor, panting. All around him, the others still writhed in their nightmares. Their minds trapped. Their eyes vacant. One girl scratched at her face. A boy curled in fetal position, murmuring nonsense.
Lysandra still rocked.
"Family doesn't leave you… doesn't leave you…"
Alex tried to rise, but his limbs were dead weight. Whatever he'd just endured had wrung everything from him.
The monster was still there.
Watching.
It tilted its head.
A low rasp echoed from its throat.
Then the shadows around it thickened—black mist poured from its body like tar, curling through the room. The floor cracked beneath its feet.
It didn't speak.
It didn't need to.
It wanted him to struggle.
To squirm.
To crawl.
It took a single step forward.
Alex's body trembled. He could feel it coming.
He wasn't ready.
He had no strength.
He had no idea what the whisper had done to him—only that he was awake now.
Awake, and alone.
And as the mist crept toward him, the thing lifted its dagger.
Lysandra whimpered beside him.
"Family doesn't abandon…"
The light dimmed further.
No power surged in his veins.
No divine weapon fell from the heavens.
Just the monster.
And the cold.
And the dark.