Alex left the crypt with the weight of vague thoughts that seemed to weigh more heavily than the night air over the cemetery. The marble tombstones, perfectly arranged in symmetrical rows, shone in the moonlight like cold, almost ominous monoliths. All around stretched old trees, whose tangled branches stretched toward the sky, resembling hands searching for answers in the darkness. The air was filled with the quiet hum of the wind, which, shifting between the graves, carried with it the echo of long-forgotten whispers.
Walking along the paths, Alex looked at the names and dates engraved on the slabs. He wondered what stories lay behind each of these names. Did these people who rested here also have to deal with something unexplainable? Were their lives as puzzling as what was happening now in his own?
Leaving the cemetery, he entered a world more familiar but no less surreal - a park where the sizzle of crickets mingled with the distant hum of the night city. The light of lanterns cast shadows of trees on cracked benches, and their shapes seemed to dance to the rhythm of a nonexistent melody. Alex felt that someone - or something - was following his every step.
As he walked through the deserted alleys of the old district, he had the impression that the walls of the tenements bore the marks of untold stories. The dilapidated facades of the buildings seemed to stare at him through empty windows, and each turn revealed more shadows. Every sound - from the clatter of his own footsteps to the random meow of his cat - seemed to pierce the silence, as if the night itself was watching his movements.
"What if everything I saw in the lab is just the beginning?" - he wondered.
Memories of the disappearing girl, the pulsating light of the Chronotron and Penelope's anger swirled in his head. As he continued his journey, the lines between reality and illusion seemed to become increasingly blurred.
As he walked past the closed store, he looked at his reflection in the dusty display window. His own shadow, stretched and twisted, seemed almost separate, as if it were trying to leave his body. For a brief moment, he felt that he was not alone - that something he did not understand was moving right behind him.
When he reached the house, he was overwhelmed by a fatigue so deep that he barely managed to turn the key in the lock. Stepping inside, he slammed the door behind him, as if trying to ward off the shadows that still seemed to be right behind him. But even within the four walls of his own home, the feeling of being watched did not go away. Every creak of the boards under his steps seemed too loud, too distinct.
He stopped in front of the mirror in the hallway. His reflection was familiar, and yet something about him seemed different. His eyes, usually sharp and full of curiosity, were now deep, dark wells in which echoes of recent events were reflected. Fatigue had etched fine lines into his face, and the stubble, which he had hardly noticed before, suddenly seemed heavier, as if it carried the memories of the past few days.
His jacket, with its worn cuffs, was a reminder of every moment he spent in the lab. The material seemed steeped in mystery - a fragment of something larger that he was trying to understand. He moved his hand through his hair, which was standing up unruly, and breathed heavily, feeling that his chaotic appearance reflected the storm that was raging in his head.
He stood still, looking at his reflection, as if searching for answers in it, but all he saw was the boy, who was slowly losing his sense of reality.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something in the reflection - a shadow that shouldn't be there. He shifted his gaze to the side, but there was nothing behind it. The mirror trembled slightly, as if touched by a non-existent gust of wind.
He felt an icy shiver run down his back. Was it his mind playing tricks on him, or had what he had seen in the lab begun to seep into his own world?
He trembled.
- Look behind you... - he heard a whisper, barely perceptible, like an echo of his own thoughts.
He did not dare to turn around.
As he looked at his reflection in the mirror in this way, something inside him trembled - a barely perceptible movement, almost illusory, as if a fragment of reality hovered on the edge of another dimension. He stood still, yet his reflection seemed to act independently of him, flickering in some disturbing dance of time. For a split second, it seemed to him that he was seeing not himself, but another version of his self, distant, distorted, alien. When he looked again, everything was back to normal. The reflection stood still, as if trapped in a smooth sheet of glass.
Trying to calm his raging thoughts, Alex smiled gently to himself, but the gesture brought no solace. The mirror world seemed to take on a life of its own, and his senses hinted that something had changed - that the reality he knew was only a thin layer overlaying something deeper, impenetrable. A memory of a notebook found in the kitchen flashed through his head, and with it a wave of unease, as if those symbols and notes were the key to understanding what was playing out around him.
The room was gravely silent, but his heart was pounding, as if to fill the void. He sat on the couch, supporting his head with his hands, and tried to collect his thoughts. Images from the lab appeared before his closed eyes - the light of the Chronotron, pulsing like a living organism, and Penelope, whose possessed gaze pierced like needles. Who really were William and Penelope? Their faces seemed distant, as if they belonged to another era or another reality.
Suddenly the silence was broken by a swish, quiet and almost unnatural. Alex raised his head, holding his breath as the sound took the form of whispers that seemed to come from the kitchen. The voice of the wind? Or something more tangible? He froze for a moment before rising from the couch and heading toward the kitchen door.
The room was silent, but on the table lay a notebook - the same one he had discovered earlier. Its pages, filled with strange symbols and complicated diagrams, seemed to pulsate with energy, as if they were part of something bigger. On the last page, he noticed a new notation that had certainly not been there before.
"You are not alone. You are being followed. Discover the truth before you are lost forever."
A cold shiver ran through his body, and the notebook seemed suddenly heavier, as if it hid a secret that he should not touch. This sentence sounded like a warning, and at the same time an invitation to enter even deeper layers of mystery. Alex felt a presence - invisible, but clearly present, as if something was watching him from behind the shadows.
A sudden knock on the door snapped him out of his trance. He froze, feeling his heart pounding in his throat. Who could have come at this hour? Trying to remain calm, he walked to the door and opened it, meeting his father's gaze.
- Alex, are you all right? You look like you saw a ghost," said his father with a slight smile that was meant to reassure, but only heightened the tension.
- Something strange was happening in the laboratory," Alex began, searching for words. - And then in the kitchen ... I found something.
His father looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
- A laboratory? At the school? - He asked, motioning for his son to follow him into the kitchen.
Alex pointed to the notebook, and his father picked it up, leafing through the pages with apparent lack of understanding.
- Scribbles, son. Someone is making fun of you. Probably the kids in the class. Don't take it seriously. - He rubbed Alex's hair and sighed. - You're new, you'll get used to it.
Nevertheless, Alex felt a momentary sense of relief. His father's presence, his straightforwardness, was like an anchor that for a moment allowed him not to drift off into the depths of the unknown.
- Aha, Emma and Max were looking for you," chuckled his father, walking away towards the living room.
- Thanks. I'm going upstairs," Alex replied.
Climbing the creaking staircase, he felt the tension build up with each step. The door to his room was ajar, letting in a soft stream of moonlight. He paused for a moment, as if expecting to find something beyond the threshold that he wasn't supposed to see.
He entered slowly. The room looked familiar, yet alien at the same time. The furniture seemed to have been moved a few inches, and the books on the shelves - though still in their place - looked as if someone had been looking through them. The warmth that had always filled the place had given way to a cool aura, suffused with something indefinable.
He stood in the middle of the room, sensing that something was wrong. His gaze fell on the mirror by the desk. For a moment it seemed as if something flashed in its depths, but when he looked more carefully, he saw only his reflection.
Are you sure?
There was an uneasy feeling in the air, as if his room, his house, and perhaps the entire town had become part of a larger puzzle - one of which he was now an integral part.
He looked at his reflection in the mirror, but instead of a familiar face, he saw something altered - as if the image was twitching, warping in ways he could not comprehend. For a moment he had the impression that he was looking at himself from another dimension, where the world was governed by completely different laws. The reflection seemed to live a life of its own, wobbly balancing between his reality and the unknown. He rubbed his eyes and looked again - everything looked normal. For a moment, however, he felt as if something from behind the surface of the mirror was watching him, as if a disturbing shadow of his own consciousness was trying to break through the glass.
Alex's gaze shifted around the room. The bedside table, always so orderly, seemed to exude anxiety. The flashlight and notebook lay in place, but the shadows cast by the trinkets seemed too elongated, too vivid. It was as if they hid something more than just empty space behind them. The walls, on which hung old photographs and charts of his interests, reminded him of a long-lost peace. They were a testament to who he was before he embarked on this path - a path full of puzzles that seemed to consume him.
He closed the door, and the sound of the lock, though firm, did not bring him relief. The silence that fell seemed even deeper, as if there was something waiting for him in the room that he could not see, but which he felt with every nerve in his body. He sat on the bed, watching the shadows that danced on the walls to the rhythm of the invisible wind. He covered himself with the quilt, seeking refuge in that thin layer of material, as if that would protect him from something whose existence he couldn't even name.
In that moment, hidden under the quilt, he recalled his childhood fears. Every step, every movement outside the safe shelter meant risk - the risk of exposing oneself to the mercy of dark creatures lurking in the corners of the room, ready to seize an exposed foot or hand. These irrational fears now returned with renewed force, as if they were more than a figment of the imagination.
Gentle moonlight peered in through the curtains, casting grotesque shapes on the walls. Alex glanced from under the quilt at the familiar elements of the room. However, at this moment they were no longer familiar. They began to resemble ominous stage sets - the contours of the desk, chair and lamp seemed to move, as if they had gained a life of their own for a moment.
Finally, he dared to put his head out. The piercing coldness of the air hit his face, but that's not what scared him. In the mirror his gaze fell on, he saw something that froze his blood in his veins. At first glance it was his reflection, but as he stared at it longer, the image began to change. The face was his, but the expression of the eyes - a cold, almost dead stare - belonged to someone else.
He reflexively looked away, his heart pounding like a hammer.
"It's just your imagination," he tried to convince himself, but he knew that something in the room had changed.
Something that was beyond the limits of his reason.
He threw off the quilt and rose from the bed. Each step he took seemed piercing, as if the floor beneath him came alive and reacted to his weight. He headed for the bathroom, feeling that if he didn't do something to bring himself under control, he would lose his grip on reality.
He turned off the tap and dipped his face in the cool water. Drops ran down his skin, bringing momentary relief. For a moment, he was able to focus on the rhythmic sound of the running water. He hoped it would allow him to reset his mind.
But even in the bathroom, he felt the presence of something elusive. The murmuring of the water was beginning to take the form of whispers - quiet, almost imperceptible, but clear on the edge of audibility.
He looked in the mirror above the sink. For a second he thought there was a shadow behind him, but when he turned around, the room was empty. He returned his gaze to the mirror. This time his reflection seemed normal, though deep in his eyes he saw something that reminded him of a notebook. The same incomprehensible horror that appeared in the notes, in the marks, in the mystery.
He rested his hands on the edge of the sink and breathed deeply. He knew that the line between reality and illusion was beginning to blur. Thoughts of Penelope, the lab and the experiments swirled in his head like an endless movie. At that moment, Alex realized that his life had changed irrevocably - that the world he had known had fallen apart, and he had been drawn into something he would never be able to fully comprehend.
The moonlight died out behind the clouds, leaving him in almost total darkness. He stood for a moment, listening to the silence, which was now more frightening than any sound. When he looked in the mirror again, he felt a cold shudder - this time his reflection was smiling, though his own face remained motionless.
As he turned to dry his face, he suddenly froze in stillness. Right in front of him, almost at arm's length, stood a girl. Her presence was like a shadow that unexpectedly emerged from the darkness, as if she had existed there all along, waiting for the right moment. Alex stepped back violently, letting out a shrill scream that echoed through the small bathroom.
- Find it! Find it! Now! - shouted the girl. Her voice, infused with desperation and pain, hit him like a wave of icy wind.
Her eyes were full of indescribable horror, as if bringing a view of another world, and her hair floated gently, as if moved by an invisible wind. She was unreal, almost spiritual, but at the same time too clear to be considered a hallucination. Alex settled his back against the cold tiles, staring at her with growing horror. Something about her - that strange, pulsating contour - made the reality around him seem to melt away, and time lost its meaning.
The girl fell silent, but her expression still screamed - with questions, despair, demanding answers. She took a step toward him. No sound could be heard. Her movements were fluid, immaterial, as if she were treading on a sheet of water. A subtle mist spread around her, the chill reached all the way to Alex's skin, causing goosebumps on it.
- I know you can see me," she whispered, and her voice was quiet, but it carried through space, as if bouncing off the walls of his mind. - You have to help me. I'm trapped. You have seen.
Her gaze, though intense, took on a shadow of desperation. Alex, still pressed against the wall, tried to swallow his saliva, which suddenly seemed too thick. Everything he saw and felt was beyond his comprehension.
- Yes, I saw... - he managed to mouthed, his voice trembling. - I saw... experiments. I don't understand it yet. I don't know how I can help you.
The girl nodded, and her hazy outline began to ripple, as if reacting to Alex's words.
- I am here and there at the same time. My existence has been moved by something that transcends the boundaries of space-time. It is no longer just my body. I am trapped.
Her every word echoed in his head. The boundaries between reality and dream began to blur, and Alex felt he was standing on the edge of something that could not be reversed.
- What can I do? How can I free you? - He asked, feeling both uncertainty and a strange determination.
- You have to find what connected our worlds. It is in this city. You must discover it. But be careful... - her voice faltered, as if something was taking away her strength. - They are looking for it too.
Alex furrowed his brow.
- They? Who are they? Who are They?
The girl looked at him with a shadow of sadness in her eyes.
- They are everywhere. Even here. - She pointed to his room, and her hand blurred in the air.
Suddenly her figure began to disappear, as if dissolving into a thick fog. The faint scent of floral perfume remained the only evidence that she had ever been there. Alex stared into the empty space, too stunned to move.
He stood still for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts.
"They are everywhere... Even here..."
Her words reverberated in his head like an endless refrain. As he left the bathroom, he felt his body tremble with emotion, and the air around him seemed to thicken.
He returned to the room and closed the door. The shadows in the corners seemed to pulsate to the rhythm of his accelerated breathing. The smell of flowers still lingered in the air, bringing back vague memories.
- They are everywhere... - he whispered to himself, as if trying to settle the thought.
He sat on the bed, clasping his hands on the sheets. His mind was working at full speed, trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. Who were these "they"? What was watching him? And what was the "something" he needed to find?
He looked at the smartphone lying on the desk. The thought that he could call for help crossed his mind, but he quickly dismissed it.
"I can't get them into it. Not yet."
The light in the room flickered, as if struggling to resist the darkness that seemed to be pushing in from everywhere. Alex breathed deeply and got up. He knew he would not sleep that night. It was time to start looking for answers.
"If they are watching me, it's time to look them in the eye."
He took the flashlight and moved toward the bed, ready for the next step in this unknown, dark journey.