She didn't receive a reply, so Aurora tossed her phone aside and began to pace. Her thoughts spun frantically. Was this some cruel prank? Had a student at school seen her, or perhaps noticed the bruise? Or was Ben simply trying to mess with her? Her gaze drifted to the mirror across the room, but she quickly turned away, choosing to walk to her desk instead.
As she settled into her chair, she attempted to gather her scattered wits. She looked down at her wrist. The mark had deepened in color, now a much darker shade. It had also split, forming three ragged lines that looked distinctly like claw marks.
She picked up her sketchpad and started drawing. Her hand moved with a mind of its own, capturing every curve, every angle, recreating the mark perfectly from memory.
When she finally finished, she could only stare. There was an ancient quality to the symbol, and it struck her as unsettlingly familiar.
A sudden, sharp knock on the door made her jump.
"Aurora?" a soft voice inquired. "It's Karen."
Karen was her roommate, and she wasn't due back until the weekend.
Aurora frowned, her heart still pounding in her chest. "You're home early," she called out.
A brief silence followed. Then, "Yeah, thought I'd surprise you," the voice replied.
Aurora reached for the doorknob, then hesitated. Something about Karen's voice was wrong. It was too calm, too unnaturally sounding.
Then she heard it again, a soundless whisper that seemed to echo inside her own mind:
"The boundary is thinning."
She stepped back from the door immediately. Every fiber of her being told her that something was profoundly, terrifyingly wrong.
As she retreated, every survival instinct honed by years of playing horror games screamed at her to freeze, to shrink, to become invisible. But this wasn't a game. There was no pause button, no access to an inventory screen.
"Aurora?" The voice pressed, insistent. It sounded exactly like Karen. It was the same pitch, the subtle lilt. But it lacked her roommate's warmth and messy human nuance. It was like a flawless, endless loop, flat, and mechanical.
"Come on, open up. I forgot my keys."
Aurora's eyes darted to the digital keypad above the handle. Karen never used physical keys; their security system used keycards and a four-digit code. A code Karen knew by heart.
"You know the code," Aurora managed, her voice trembling despite her effort to control it. She gripped the edge of her desk until her knuckles turned white.
A heavy, suffocating silence descended upon the hallway. Then the doorknob jiggled, not a frantic shake, but a slow, determined twist. The deadbolt held, but the metal began to groan under intense, serious pressure.
"Open it," the voice commanded.
The airy quality was gone. The voice had dropped like an octave, sounding thick and wet, like throat muscles struggling against something caught in the windpipe. Aurora scrambled backward, her hip slamming against the corner of her dresser. The sharp, grounding pain barely registered over the deafening roar in her ears.
Fumbling for her phone on the bed, she unlocked it and frantically scrolled through her text messages with Karen. The last one was from three hours ago: a photo of a sandy beach and a massive margarita glass.
Karen: Just arrived! Remember to sleep early, don't wait up! And don't stay up all night playing games again.
Aurora stared at the timestamp. It was 4:12 PM. Karen was two states away, sunbathing in Florida.
The thing outside the door knocked again. Thud. Thud. Thud.
The rhythm was deeply wrong. It was too slow, too heavy. It sounded less like human knuckles and more like something dense and raw like meat knocking on wood.
Her phone vibrated in her hand, making her gasp. It was the unknown number again.
UNKNOWN: Do not look into the peephole.
The message flashed on the screen, bright and accusing. Aurora couldn't draw a breath. The most terrifying part wasn't the warning; it was the impeccable timing. Whoever, or whatever, was texting her was watching her right now.
She looked at the peephole. The tiny glass circle seemed to emit a faint, sickly light. The urge to look was magnetic, an overwhelming pull of curiosity. If she looked, she would finally know. If she looked, she could put a face to the horror.
"Aurora..." The voice outside was now a whisper, a cold draft sliding beneath the door. "I can hear your heart. It's so loud."
The jagged mark on her wrist suddenly felt like it was set ablaze, a searing heat as if a branding iron had been pressed into her skin. Aurora bit down hard to stifle a scream, clutching her wrist to her chest. The pain was not merely surface-deep; it felt like it was drilling into her bone. In the corners of her room, the shadows began to stretch and lengthen.
It was no illusion. The heavy curtains blocked the late-afternoon sun, but the shadows under the bed and behind the wardrobe were expanding, crawling across the floor like dark, spilled ink. They were not retreating from the light; they were actively moving toward her.
The air temperature plummeted instantly. Her breath came in ragged, frantic gasps. The moisture on her window instantly froze, forming jagged, fractal patterns.
Thud. Thud. CRACK.
The wood surrounding the lock splintered. The deadbolt was visibly bending. Panic consumed her. She snatched the heavy metal lamp from her nightstand, yanking the cord free from the wall. It was a pitiful weapon against something that could warp steel, but it was all she had. She backed up until her legs hit the windowsill.
"Go away!" she shrieked, the sound tearing at her throat. "I know you're not Karen!"
The pounding ceased immediately. The silence that followed was far worse than the noise, it was the profound stillness of a predator holding its breath just before the pounce. Then, a new sound came from inside the room.
Drip. Drip.