Chapter 2: The Blue Crayon

Morning light filtered through Ethan's blinds in harsh, geometric patterns that made everything look overexposed and fake. He'd been staring at the ceiling for three hours, watching the shadows shift and trying to convince himself that exhaustion could explain away the impossible.

The hallway outside his bedroom door looked perfectly normal now. Twelve feet to the kitchen, just like always. The loose floorboard creaked on cue when he tested it with his bare foot. His phone, which had been dead as a brick in that endless void, showed a full charge and seventeen missed notifications from his mother asking if he was "holding up okay, sweetie."

He wasn't.

Jake sat in the kitchen doorway, watching him with those unsettling cat eyes that seemed to see through bullshit. The orange tabby had saved him somehow, called him back from whatever that place had been. Ethan reached down to scratch behind Jake's ears, and the cat leaned into the touch with a rumbling purr that felt like the most real thing in the world.

"Thanks, buddy," Ethan whispered. "I owe you one."

Coffee first, then rationalization. He could explain this away with science and logic. Sleep deprivation could cause incredibly vivid hallucinations. Stress could manifest in all sorts of physical ways. The human brain, when pushed to its limits, could create experiences that felt absolutely real.

The coffee maker gurgled to life, filling his small kitchen with the comforting ritual of morning normalcy. Ethan pulled his phone from his pocket and scrolled through his notifications, letting the mundane wash over him. Work emails about quarterly reports. A text from his buddy Marcus about grabbing drinks sometime. A reminder that his rent was due next week.

Real life. Ordinary, boring, beautiful real life.

He was pouring his first cup when he noticed the smell.

Crayons. The waxy, childhood scent of fresh Crayolas, so distinct and out of place in his sparse kitchen that it made him freeze mid-pour. Coffee splashed across the counter as memories rushed back—coloring books at his grandmother's house, the way new crayons felt when you peeled away the paper wrapper, the satisfaction of filling in every corner of a drawing with perfect precision.

The smell faded as quickly as it had come, leaving him wondering if he'd imagined it too.

"Get it together, Collins," he muttered, wiping up the spilled coffee. "You're losing your mind."

But the scent lingered in his memory, triggering something he couldn't quite place. A familiarity that went deeper than childhood nostalgia, like a word on the tip of his tongue that refused to surface.

The shower helped. Hot water and steam, the mechanical routine of soap and shampoo, grounded him in his physical body. By the time he'd toweled off and thrown on yesterday's clothes, the events of the night felt more like a fading dream than a lived experience.

Until he walked back into his bedroom and saw the note.

It sat on his nightstand, right next to his alarm clock, written on a torn piece of paper in thick, waxy strokes of blue crayon. Child's handwriting, unsteady but deliberate, all capital letters:

PHONE KILLS YOU

Ethan's coffee mug slipped from nerveless fingers and shattered on the hardwood floor. Hot liquid splashed across his bare feet, but he barely felt it. His eyes were locked on those four words, written in a shade of blue so vivid it seemed to glow against the white paper.

Someone had been in his room. While he slept. While he'd been lost in that impossible hallway, someone had stood right here, next to his bed, and left him a message.

His hands shook as he picked up the note, careful not to smudge the crayon marks. The paper was ordinary—looked like it had been torn from a notebook. But the writing... there was something about the way the letters were formed, the pressure behind each stroke, that made his skin crawl.

This wasn't a prank. This wasn't some elaborate setup by his friends trying to cheer him up after the breakup. The writing had an urgency to it, a desperate quality that spoke of genuine fear.

Phone kills you.

His iPhone sat on the nightstand, innocuous and familiar. The same device that had died in the darkness, that had left him stranded in that endless void with no way to call for help. Was that what the note meant? Had someone been trying to warn him?

But warn him about what? And how could they possibly know what had happened to him in that place?

Ethan's rational mind kicked into overdrive, grasping for explanations. A break-in. Had to be. Someone had gotten into his apartment, seen him wandering around in some kind of fugue state, and left this cryptic message. Maybe they'd tried to wake him and couldn't. Maybe they'd been afraid he was having some kind of medical episode.

He checked the locks on his front door. Secure. The windows were all latched from the inside, and he was on the fourth floor—not exactly accessible from the street. The fire escape outside his bedroom window was old and rusted, and any attempt to climb it would have woken half the building.

No signs of forced entry. No indication that anyone had been in his apartment except him and Jake.

Which left only one logical conclusion: he'd written the note himself.

Sleepwalking. That had to be it. He'd been under tremendous stress since the breakup, barely sleeping, and his subconscious had taken over. He'd somehow found a crayon—where the hell had he gotten a crayon?—and left himself a message he couldn't remember writing.

But even as he tried to convince himself, doubts gnawed at him. The handwriting didn't look like his, even accounting for the awkward medium. It was too small, too careful, like a child concentrating very hard on getting the letters right. And the blue—where had he seen that exact shade before?

The smell of crayons drifted through the room again, stronger this time, and with it came a flash of memory so vivid it made him stagger. A small hand gripping a blue crayon, tongue poking out in concentration as it traced letters on paper. But the memory felt wrong somehow, like looking at a photograph through frosted glass.

Jake meowed from the kitchen, a plaintive sound that cut through his spiraling thoughts. The cat was probably hungry, probably wondering why his human was standing frozen in the bedroom, staring at a piece of paper like it contained the secrets of the universe.

Ethan folded the note carefully and slipped it into his wallet. Evidence. Whatever was happening to him, he needed to document it. Maybe when he talked to a doctor—and he was definitely going to talk to a doctor—this would help explain his condition.

The day passed in a haze of forced normalcy. He called in sick to work, something he rarely did, and spent the morning cleaning his apartment with obsessive thoroughness. He needed to move, needed to do something productive that would crowd out the questions multiplying in his head.

By afternoon, the need for answers had become overwhelming. He called the police.

"Non-emergency line, this is Officer Martinez."

"Hi, I... I think someone might have broken into my apartment last night."

"Are you hurt? Is the perpetrator still on the premises?"

"No, nothing like that. I just... found a note. Someone left me a note."

The pause on the other end was telling. "Sir, was anything stolen?"

"No, but—"

"Any signs of forced entry? Broken locks, damaged windows?"

"No, but someone was definitely in my apartment. They left me a message."

Another pause. "What kind of message?"

Ethan hesitated. How could he explain without sounding completely insane? "A warning. About my phone."

"Your phone?"

"Look, I know how this sounds, but I think someone was trying to help me. They left a note telling me my phone was dangerous."

The silence stretched long enough that Ethan wondered if the call had dropped. Finally, Officer Martinez cleared his throat. "Sir, are you currently experiencing any mental health issues? Are you taking any medications?"

Heat flooded Ethan's cheeks. "I'm not crazy."

"I didn't say you were, sir. But breaking and entering to leave a note about someone's phone... that's not typical criminal behavior. Are you sure you didn't write this note yourself? Maybe during a period of stress or confusion?"

"I... no. Maybe. I don't know."

"Sir, I'm going to give you the number for a crisis counseling service. They have people who can help you work through whatever you're dealing with. But unless you have actual evidence of a crime—"

Ethan hung up before the officer could finish. The apartment felt smaller somehow, the walls pressing in like a trap. Even Jake seemed to be watching him with something approaching concern, and cats weren't supposed to be capable of that level of empathy.

He spent the rest of the day researching sleep disorders, stress-induced psychosis, and early warning signs of schizophrenia. The internet was happy to provide dozens of explanations for his symptoms, none of them particularly comforting. Message boards full of people describing similar experiences—lost time, mysterious notes, the feeling of being watched by unseen presences.

Most of them seemed to be on medication now.

Evening crept in like a tide, and with it came the familiar dread. Ethan found himself avoiding his bedroom, camping out on the couch with Jake curled against his side. The cat's warmth was reassuring, a anchor point in a world that suddenly felt far less solid than it had twenty-four hours ago.

When exhaustion finally forced him toward bed, he paused at the threshold of his bedroom door. The hallway beyond looked perfectly normal—twelve feet of worn hardwood leading to his kitchen. But in the back of his mind, he could feel it waiting. That impossible space that had swallowed distance and logic, where his phone had died and something in the darkness had watched him stumble through infinity.

The note crinkled in his wallet as he shifted his weight. Four words in blue crayon, written by someone who couldn't have been there, warning him about something that made no sense.

Phone kills you.

Maybe the answer wasn't in medical websites or police reports. Maybe the only way to understand what was happening to him was to go back. To deliberately step into that impossible space and face whatever was waiting there.

The thought terrified him. But as he stood in his doorway, staring into the familiar darkness of his apartment, Ethan realized that terror might be the only thing left that felt real.

Tomorrow, he decided. Tomorrow he would find out what lived in the spaces between his walls, and why it cared enough to warn him.

Jake purred against his leg, as if approving of the decision.

Or maybe saying goodbye.