When I opened my bedroom door, the hallway wasn't my hallway.
It should've been narrow, lit by the flickering lightbulb that had been dying for months. Instead, it was impossibly long—an expanse of dim corridor that seemed to stretch into a vanishing point. The walls were too smooth, too dark, like wet stone.
I hesitated, then stepped forward.
My bare feet met something that was not carpet, nor wood, nor even stone—more like flesh stretched tight over bone. The floor had the faintest give to it, and I had to swallow the urge to gag.
Every few steps, there was a door. The first one I passed had a brass number nailed into it—"301"—but the metal was tarnished, eaten away at the edges. The handle was wet when I touched it. I didn't open it.
Somewhere far down the hall, I heard a faint knocking. Not frantic—steady. Deliberate.
I kept moving.
The knocking grew louder, closer. But when I looked behind me, the hallway was gone. There was only darkness, thick and absolute.
Panic swelled in my chest. I turned forward again—and froze.
The hallway didn't end.
It folded.
That's the only way I can describe it. Like paper creasing in on itself, the corridor bent and reformed, the distant vanishing point suddenly right in front of me. And standing there, on the other side of the fold, was a figure.
Tall. Thin. Wearing what looked like a black suit that didn't quite fit right, as if it was stitched together from the wrong pieces.
The knocking stopped.
The hum in my skull became a roar.