Darkness.
It pressed against my skin like something alive, filling the air with a weight I couldn't shake. My breath came in short, ragged gasps. The sheets beneath me were damp with sweat. I didn't remember waking up—but something had pulled me from sleep.
And then, I heard it.
Knock. Knock.
A slow, deliberate sound.
My pulse spiked. My head turned toward the window.
There, barely visible in the gloom, sat an owl.
I recognized it.
For nights, it had been there—always watching, never moving. A silent presence, its unblinking gaze fixed on me. I had convinced myself it was nothing. A trick of the mind. A coincidence.
But tonight… tonight, I had planned to stay awake. To prove to myself that it was real.
Yet, somehow, I had fallen asleep.
My fingers fumbled for my camera, stiff and unresponsive. I raised it, aimed, and pressed the shutter.
Click.
The image was too dark. Nothing but a blur of indistinct shapes.
I adjusted the settings. More exposure. Click. Still nothing.
Frustration crept in. My hand moved on its own, flipping the flash on.
Click.
And then—I saw it.
A jolt of ice shot through my veins.
It wasn't an owl.
The thing perched on my window had a human silhouette—long limbs, hunched posture, broad shoulders. But its head… its head was unmistakably avian. An owl's face, stretched and twisted into something unnatural. Its too-large eyes reflected the sudden burst of light, hollow and endless. Feathers covered its form, but they weren't soft. They looked jagged, almost like scales.
It saw me.
Then it moved.
A screech tore through the silence. A sound so unnatural it made my teeth ache.
Its body twisted—too fast, too fluid—and in a blur of motion, it was gone.
I sat there, frozen. The room felt wrong, like the walls had shifted in the dark, like something had slithered into the empty spaces of my mind.
I didn't move for a long time.
Outside, the night remained silent.
But I knew, deep down—something had changed.
And whatever that thing was… it had seen me, too.
---
At first, it was subtle.
A faint vibration in the air, like the hum of something ancient stirring. But then—
The walls trembled.
The shift was slow at first. Almost imperceptible. But then it became undeniable. The ceiling pressed downward. The floor inched higher. The walls groaned, their angles warping into something wrong.
The room was closing in.
No.
I scrambled to my feet. My breath hitched. My chest ached with something primal—something that whispered, Run.
Outside, the sky turned red. Deep, violent, bleeding. The heavens themselves looked torn apart.
Shadows slithered into the room. Grotesque and wrong, their formless limbs twisted in ways that defied reason. They had no faces, no eyes—only the suggestion of limbs stretching toward me.
The walls kept pressing closer.
I gasped for air, but it felt thin, suffocating.
Then—
The world shattered.
A deafening crack split the air. The walls splintered like fragile glass. The ceiling dissolved into the void. And then—
I fell.
Down.
Down.
Into nothing.
Wind roared past my ears, yet I felt nothing. No weight. No gravity. Just an endless descent into an abyss darker than death.
The air trembled. The void pulsed. My mind fractured.
And then—
Oblivion.
The first thing I noticed was the smell.
Thick. Overpowering.
The stench of blood.
I opened my eyes.
I was lying on cold stone. My body ached. My head throbbed. The air was suffocating, metallic with the tang of something I didn't want to name.
And then—I saw it.
Perched atop a pile of corpses.
Its talons dug into torn flesh. Feathers slick with something dark. Its too-large eyes gleamed with twisted amusement.
The owl.
But it wasn't just an owl.
It was wrong.
Its body was too long, its limbs too human. Feathers covered its form, but they looked diseased—patches of decay stretching across its frame. Where its beak should have been, something sharp smiled.
It cocked its head.
And then, in a voice that wasn't a voice, distorted and inhuman—
It spoke.
"Pitiful."
A shiver ran through my bones.
The thing moved.
Too fast.
It lunged, its body twisting, stretching, expanding.
Towering over me. Shadowing the world. Its massive hand, covered in ragged feathers, reached out.
I ran.
The corridor ahead stretched endlessly. Flickering, broken lights lined the walls. My lungs burned, my legs screamed, but I didn't stop.
Behind me—it followed.
Its screech tore through the air, warping into something that didn't belong in this world. Its form twisted with every step.
Ahead—light.
Salvation.
I pushed forward. Every nerve in my body screamed.
But just as I reached the threshold—
It shrieked.
The air split apart.
It grew.
Towering, monstrous, its form eclipsing the light. Its massive hand shot forward, aiming to consume me whole.
I leaped.
The moment I touched the light—
---
I woke up.
Gasping.
Drenched in sweat.
Back in my bed.
The room was silent. The walls were solid. The air was still.