Chapter 2: The 3:03 Vigil

Chapter 2: The 3:03 Vigil

The drive back to his sterile city apartment was a blur of traffic lights and smeared neon. Alex remembered none of it. His mother’s shattered sobs were a feedback loop in his head, playing over and over until the sound had no meaning, only a raw, jagged texture. Leo was dead. Gone. Erased by a freak accident that coincided perfectly with a stupid, cruel sentence Alex had uttered into a phone.

Coincidence. The word felt like a lie, a flimsy shield against a truth so monstrous his mind refused to hold it.

Back in his apartment, the silence was a roaring accusation. He dropped his keys on the counter, the clatter unnaturally loud. His gaze fell on his hiking pack, slumped by the door like a fallen comrade. Inside it, he knew, was the book. He could feel its presence, a cold spot in the room. His first instinct was pure, primal revulsion. He had to get it out. He had to destroy it.

With trembling hands, he unzipped the pocket and pulled the leather-bound volume out. It felt heavier now, weighted with the gravity of what it had done. He carried it at arm's length, as if it were radioactive, out to the small, concrete balcony of his fourth-floor apartment. In the corner sat a rusted-out charcoal grill he hadn’t used in years. It would have to do.

He jammed the book between the grates, his breath coming in ragged bursts. He grabbed a bottle of lighter fluid from a supply closet, his movements jerky and uncoordinated. He doused the leather cover, the pages, soaking the ancient parchment until it was dark and glistening. The chemical smell was sharp, clean, a welcome assault on his senses after the phantom scent of forest loam and decay.

He struck a match. The flame wavered for a second before he tossed it onto the grill.

The book ignited with a whoosh, flames erupting in a hungry, orange plume. The leather blackened and curled, the edges of the pages turning to brittle, glowing embers. Alex watched, his knuckles white as he gripped the balcony railing. He felt a fierce, desperate satisfaction as the fire consumed it, turning the elegant script into ash and smoke. He stayed there until the last ember died, leaving behind a charred, unrecognizable lump.

For the first time since his mother’s call, a sliver of relief pierced his guilt. It was over. A cursed object, a terrible coincidence, but it was gone. He could mourn Leo, he could try to piece his family back together, and he would never, ever set foot in Whispering Pines again.

Shaking, he went back inside, locking the balcony door behind him. He collapsed onto his sofa, the adrenaline leaving him hollowed out and weak. He closed his eyes, but all he saw was Leo’s smiling face from a childhood photo, superimposed with the image of a falling steel beam. The guilt was a physical weight, crushing his chest. He must have drifted into a state of exhausted stupor, because when he opened his eyes again, the room was dark save for the glow of the streetlights outside.

He sat up, a disoriented groan escaping his lips. His gaze swept the room, and his blood turned to ice.

There, sitting perfectly centered on his coffee table, was the book.

It was pristine. Untouched. The dark leather cover showed no hint of scorch marks, no trace of the fire that had devoured it. It looked exactly as it had when he’d first lifted it from the stone in the forest clearing.

A choked, strangled sound escaped Alex’s throat. He scrambled back on the couch, away from it, his heart hammering a frantic, painful rhythm against his ribs. It was impossible. He had watched it burn. He had smelled the smoke. But the evidence of his own senses meant nothing. The curse wasn’t just real; it was persistent. It was inescapable.

As he stared, paralyzed by a fresh wave of horror, the book fell open. Not to the first page, with the rule that had killed his cousin. It opened to the second page, where the parchment had been blank only hours before.

New words had appeared, written in the same stark, elegant script. The ink was so black it seemed to wet, still drinking the dim light of the room.

Rule #2: At 3:03 AM, stand before the darkest window in your home. Do not look away until it has passed.

His phone screen lit up on the table beside the book. 2:51 AM.

Panic, cold and sharp, seized him. What if he refused? What would happen then? Would the consequences be his own? Or would the book lash out at someone else he cared about? Mark, his best friend? Sarah? The thought of putting anyone else in the path of this thing was a terror far greater than anything it could do to him. He was its player now. He had no choice but to obey.

The darkest window. That was his living room window, the one that overlooked the narrow, lightless alley between his building and the next. He stood, his legs feeling like lead, and moved towards it. The floorboards creaked under his feet, each sound a gunshot in the silent apartment.

He watched the clock on his phone tick over. 2:59. 3:00. 3:01. Each second was a lifetime. He was bracing for an unseen impact, just like he had in the woods, but this time he knew the blow was coming.

3:02. He positioned himself in front of the glass, his own pale, terrified reflection staring back at him. He planted his feet, locked his knees, and focused on the impenetrable blackness of the alley below. His only instruction was to watch.

At exactly 3:03 AM, it appeared.

It wasn't in the alley. It was on the other side of the glass.

It unfolded itself from the darkness with a silent, twitching grace that defied physics. A figure, tall and impossibly thin, made of something that looked like polished bone stretched over with pale, translucent sinew. Its limbs were too long, its joints bending at sickening, unnatural angles like a spider's legs. It had no face—just a smooth, white, egg-like expanse where features should have been. Its form seemed to glitch, to stutter in and out of focus at the edge of his vision, a living error in the code of reality.

Alex’s scream died in his throat, choked off by pure, unadulterated terror. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He could only obey the rule. Do not look away.

The creature, The Scribe, tilted its blank head, an inquisitive gesture that was profoundly, deeply wrong. It raised one long, skeletal hand and pressed its fingertips against the glass. No sound was made, but Alex felt a deep, vibrating hum in his teeth, in his bones. It was studying him, its eyeless face a canvas onto which he projected his deepest fears. It knew him. It knew his guilt over Leo, his terror of loss. It was feeding on it.

An eternity passed in a handful of seconds. Just as Alex felt his sanity beginning to fray, to snap like a dry twig, the creature retracted its hand. It folded back into the shadows with the same disjointed, silent speed, and was gone.

The alley was empty. The blackness was just blackness again.

Alex collapsed to the floor, gasping, sucking in air like a drowning man. His body trembled uncontrollably, slick with a cold sweat. Was that it? Was that the thing that had remembered Leo? Was that the author of this nightmare? He pushed himself up, crawling back to the relative safety of his couch, his mind reeling. A hallucination. It had to be. Stress, guilt, lack of sleep… his rational mind desperately threw up explanations, each one weaker than the last.

Then, his phone buzzed on the coffee table, the vibration making him jump. He flinched, expecting another rule, another torment. But it was a text message. From Mark.

He snatched it up, his thumb fumbling with the screen.

Dude, you awake? Craziest thing. I was driving home from my late shift, passed your building, and saw the weirdest fucking thing in your window. Looked like some tall, messed-up mannequin. You getting into weird art projects or something? Creeped me out.