Chapter 3: The Second Descent

The blue crayon sat on Ethan's kitchen counter like an accusation.

He'd found it that morning, rolling around in his junk drawer between dead batteries and takeout menus—a single Crayola crayon in that exact shade of vivid blue that had haunted his dreams. The same blue as the warning note. The same blue that triggered memories he couldn't quite grasp, like trying to hold water in cupped hands.

He'd never owned crayons. Not as an adult, anyway. The last time he'd used one was probably in elementary school, decades ago. Yet here it was, waxy and slightly worn at the tip, as if someone had been using it recently.

As if someone had been using it to write him warnings about his phone.

The rational explanations were crumbling faster than he could construct them. Sleep deprivation didn't manifest physical objects. Stress-induced hallucinations didn't leave tangible evidence rolling around in kitchen drawers. Either he was losing his mind completely, or something impossible was happening in his apartment.

Ethan picked up the crayon, turning it over in his fingers. It felt warm, warmer than room temperature, and for just a moment he could swear he smelled something—not the waxy scent of crayon, but something else. Something like cinnamon and dust and the faint ghost of vanilla perfume that reminded him of his grandmother's house.

The memory hit him like a physical blow. He was seven years old, sitting at his grandmother's kitchen table with a coloring book spread before him. The afternoon sun streamed through lace curtains, casting everything in golden light. His grandmother was humming something soft and wordless as she worked at the stove.

And someone was sitting next to him. Someone small, concentrating intensely on staying inside the lines of a drawing. He could feel their presence like warmth against his side, could hear the soft scratch of crayon against paper.

But when he tried to turn his head in the memory, to see who was there, the image fractured and dissolved, leaving him gasping in his empty kitchen with tears on his cheeks that he couldn't explain.

The crayon clattered to the floor as his hands began to shake.

This was insane. He was thirty-eight hours without real sleep, emotionally shattered from the breakup, and apparently manufacturing childhood memories that had never happened. The smart thing—the sane thing—would be to make an appointment with a psychiatrist, get some sleep medication, and work through whatever breakdown he was having with professional help.

But the note's warning echoed in his mind: Phone kills you.

What if it was real? What if something had actually tried to help him, tried to warn him about some danger he couldn't see? What if dismissing it as mental illness meant ignoring a genuine threat?

Jake wandered into the kitchen and sniffed at the fallen crayon with interest. The cat's reaction was oddly intent, as if the simple drawing tool carried scents that Ethan's human nose couldn't detect. After a moment, Jake looked up at him with those unsettling green eyes and meowed once—a sound that seemed almost like agreement.

"You think I'm crazy too, don't you?" Ethan asked.

Jake just blinked slowly and padded away, tail held high with feline disdain for human confusion.

The day crawled by with agonizing slowness. Ethan found himself avoiding his phone, even as the rational part of his mind insisted the warning was meaningless. Every time it buzzed with a notification, he felt a spike of anxiety that made no sense. It was just a phone. A collection of circuits and silicon and glass, no more dangerous than his coffee maker or his alarm clock.

But he couldn't shake the memory of how it had died in that impossible hallway, leaving him stranded in infinite darkness with no way to call for help.

By evening, the need for answers had become a physical ache in his chest. He'd spent hours researching everything from carbon monoxide poisoning to rare neurological disorders, looking for anything that might explain his experiences. The internet offered plenty of possibilities, but none that accounted for the physical evidence—the note, the crayon, the lingering scent of cinnamon that seemed to follow him through his apartment.

As night fell, Ethan made his decision.

He was going back.

If this was all in his head, then deliberately trying to recreate the experience would prove it. Hallucinations weren't reliable—they couldn't be summoned on command. If he tried to find that impossible hallway again and failed, he'd know he was dealing with a psychological issue and could seek appropriate help.

And if he succeeded... well, then he'd finally have some answers.

The preparation felt ritualistic, almost sacred in its deliberate precision. Ethan methodically went through his apartment, unplugging every electronic device. The microwave, the coffee maker, his laptop, even the digital alarm clock by his bed. He covered the LED displays he couldn't unplug with towels, plunging his home into a darkness that felt expectant.

His phone went into a drawer in the kitchen, powered off and as far from his bedroom as he could manage. If the warning was real, if somehow his phone really was dangerous in that other place, then he wouldn't make the mistake of bringing it again.

Jake watched these preparations with growing agitation, following Ethan from room to room and vocalizing his disapproval with increasingly urgent meows. The cat seemed to understand that something significant was about to happen, and he clearly didn't approve.

"I have to know," Ethan told him as he pulled the blackout curtains tight across his bedroom window. "I can't live like this, wondering if I'm losing my mind or if something is really trying to help me."

Jake responded by jumping onto the bed and fixing him with a stare that seemed almost accusatory. As if the cat was saying: You know this is a terrible idea, right?

"Yeah," Ethan admitted. "Probably."

But he was past caring about terrible ideas. Sarah's departure had left him feeling hollowed out, emptied of everything that had given his life meaning. His job was a soul-crushing exercise in corporate mediocrity. His social circle had withered to a handful of acquaintances who texted him occasionally about grabbing drinks they never actually grabbed. If not for Jake, he could disappear tomorrow and it would be weeks before anyone noticed.

Maybe that's why he wasn't afraid anymore. When you had nothing left to lose, even impossible terrors became preferable to the mundane horror of loneliness.

The apartment was tomb-dark now, every source of light eliminated or covered. Ethan stood in his bedroom doorway, listening to the familiar sounds of his building settling around him. Traffic hummed in the distance. Someone upstairs was playing music too loud. A couple in the hallway was having a muffled argument about whose turn it was to take out the trash.

Normal sounds. Human sounds. The comforting chaos of people living their ordinary lives just beyond his walls.

He took a step into the hallway.

The darkness felt different immediately—thicker, more substantial, like stepping into water. The familiar creak of the loose floorboard was muffled, distant. The sounds from outside began to fade, as if the building itself was moving away from him.

Another step. The walls seemed to stretch, expanding beyond the confines of his small apartment. The air grew colder, carrying that strange scent of cinnamon and dust that had been haunting him all day.

A third step, and the ordinary world was gone.

The hallway stretched endlessly ahead and behind him, just as it had the night before. But this time, instead of panic, Ethan felt a strange sense of relief. This wasn't madness—or if it was, at least it was a consistent madness, something he could navigate and understand.

He walked forward with purpose now, his bare feet silent on floorboards that might not have been floorboards anymore. The darkness was absolute, but it no longer felt threatening. It felt expectant, patient, like a held breath waiting to be released.

"I'm back," he called softly into the void. "I got your message."

The response came immediately—a subtle shift in the quality of the silence, like someone turning to listen. The air stirred around him, carrying scents that had no place in his ordinary world. Vanilla and cinnamon, dust and old paper, and underneath it all something that smelled like childhood summers and forgotten dreams.

"I want to understand," he continued, his voice growing stronger. "I want to know what you're trying to tell me."

The darkness ahead of him seemed to thicken, and then—contact.

A small hand slipped into his, fingers cold but gentle, gripping with surprising strength. The touch sent a shock of recognition through him that he couldn't explain, like shaking hands with someone he'd known his entire life but never met.

The hand tugged gently, leading him forward into the impossible space between his walls. This time, Ethan didn't resist. Whatever was waiting for him in the darkness, whatever truth lay hidden in the spaces between reality, he was ready to face it.

Behind him, from what might have been his bedroom or might have been another world entirely, Jake's desperate meow echoed through the void—a sound of warning, or farewell, or both.

But Ethan was already too far gone to turn back.