Chapter 1

Let me start by saying I've always considered myself a skeptic. I don't believe in the paranormal or that dreams have meanings or anything, but I've never quite understood why we dream or how dreams work.

So this happened this evening. I work in IT, and I'm on the night shift this month. My shift starts at 10 PM and ends at 6 AM. I usually sleep from 8 AM till 1 or 2 PM, then take another 1 or 2-hour nap in the evening before work.

This evening I did the same. My scheduled cab pickup was at 8:30 PM, so I set an alarm for 7:30 PM and went to sleep around 6. It was raining outside and it was incredibly cozy, so I fell asleep almost immediately.

I woke up to my 7:30 alarm, but my head felt extremely heavy and my body was exhausted. I decided to sleep for just 10 more minutes, so I set another alarm for 7:40. When the 7:40 alarm rang, something felt wrong.

My room was pitch black. It's usually dark, but this felt different. I grabbed my phone to check the time and my cab details, but the screen wouldn't turn on. The strange part was that I could see the phone's brightness reflecting on my hand, yet the screen itself was completely black. I got up and tried turning on the lights, but nothing happened. I thought maybe there was a power cut, but I could hear the fan running. I even tried my bedside lamp, but that didn't work either. Even my bedroom door wouldn't unlock.

At this point I knew I was going to miss my cab, and what scared me the most was that I felt completely conscious. I wasn't confused. I was genuinely worried about being late for work. I stood there trying to think of what to do before finally giving up. "If I'm late, I'm late," I thought. "There's nothing I can do."

That's when a light passed across my curtains like a car driving by. The strange thing is… my apartment is on the 9th floor. For a brief second, illuminated by that light, I saw myself lying on my bed.

I pulled the curtains open expecting to see my balcony.

Instead, there was a brightly lit wooden elevator.

I stepped inside and pressed the Ground Floor button.

When the doors opened, I wasn't outside my apartment building anymore. I stepped into a vast town made entirely of wooden houses. Everything felt wrong. The streets bent at impossible angles, and the buildings seemed to ignore geometry altogether.

The second I stepped out of the elevator, I heard it. Heavy footsteps… followed by an inhuman scream. Something impossibly loud was walking downstairs just beside the elevator. I ran and hid beneath a desk near one of the houses, staying there for what felt like hours while I listened to those footsteps wandering through the empty town. The whole time, I never actually saw the creature. I only heard it.

Eventually I gathered enough courage to leave my hiding spot. Near the edge of the town, where it opened into empty fields, I saw someone wandering. I wanted to ask them how to get out, but first I needed to distract whatever was hunting the town. I picked up a rock and threw it through a distant window. Glass shattered somewhere far away, and the footsteps immediately changed direction.

I crouched and slowly made my way toward the wandering figure. As I got closer, I recognized him instantly.

It was my uncle.

His head hung low as he wandered aimlessly, whispering something I can still hear even now. Flies circled above his head.

My uncle died by suicide earlier this year, and my family has taken it incredibly hard. But standing there… it didn't even occur to me that he was dead. I was simply relieved to find someone I knew.

Just as I reached him, he accidentally knocked over a mirror. The instant it shattered on the floor, that thing screamed as if it had heard it too. I grabbed my uncle's hand and rushed him into the nearest room. The room had four doors, one on each wall. I started closing them one by one while asking him, "What is this place? How do I get out?"

The footsteps were getting closer.

I don't remember most of what my uncle whispered back.

Only one sentence.

"You shouldn't be here."

At that exact moment my alarm went off.

I found myself standing in my bedroom, holding my room door. I immediately switched on the lights. They worked. I checked my phone.

7:45 PM.

Only five minutes had passed.

Five minutes… but it felt like hours.

I've experienced sleep paralysis before, but nothing remotely like this. What terrified me wasn't the creature or seeing my uncle. It was how real everything felt. Not like a dream, but like I'd somehow slipped into another reality for five minutes.

I sat on my bed and cried for a while. Then I washed my face, got dressed, and went to work.

I'm sitting in the office typing this now.

I'm exhausted.

I don't think I ever want to fall asleep again.