Chapter 1: 2:58 AM

Chapter 1: 2:58 AM

The ringing in Leo’s ears had finally subsided from a roar to a dull hum, the ghost of the final guitar solo still thrumming in his bones. He slumped onto the edge of the lumpy mattress, the springs groaning in protest. Through the thin wall, he could hear the faint, thumping bass from a party somewhere in the building, a pathetic echo of the concert they’d just left.

“You know,” Pam said, her voice muffled as she rummaged through her duffel bag, “for a place called the ‘Crimson Lofts,’ I was expecting less… brown.”

Leo grunted, surveying their temporary home. The Airbnb listing had used words like ‘historic’ and ‘character’. The reality was stained carpets, peeling paint, and a single, grime-caked window that looked out onto a lightless brick wall. A single bare bulb hanging from a frayed cord cast long, dancing shadows that made the cramped room feel even smaller. He was wearing a faded Metallica shirt, threadbare from a thousand washes, and he felt as old and worn out as it was.

“Historic just means no one’s bothered to fix anything since the invention of electricity,” he grumbled, kicking off his boots. “And ‘character’ means it’s haunted.”

Pam emerged from her bag, brandishing a toothbrush like a victory flag. Her face, usually a canvas for chaotic and joyful expressions, was smudged with day-old eyeliner, but she was still grinning. “Oh, don’t be such a grump. It’s cheap, it’s a bed, and it’s two blocks from the venue. We, my friend, are winning.”

She was right, of course. She usually was when it came to things like this. Pam was the chaos to his order, the spontaneous burst of color in his monochrome, nine-to-five IT support life. He lived by code and logic; she lived by impulse and feeling. It’s why they worked. He kept her grounded, and she kept him from fossilizing.

“Fine,” he conceded, a small smile finally cracking his tired face. “We’re winning. But if a single cockroach offers me a timeshare, I’m sleeping in the car.”

Pam laughed, a bright, genuine sound that briefly made the room feel less oppressive. She sat on the other side of the bed, her much smaller frame barely making a dent. “Deal. Now, are we talking about how that encore ripped a hole in the fabric of reality, or are we passing out immediately?”

“Reality-ripping, then passing out,” Leo decided, stretching back onto the questionable floral comforter.

They talked for what felt like minutes but was probably closer to an hour, dissecting the concert, mocking the opening band, and planning a greasy breakfast for the morning. It was their ritual, the comfortable post-event debrief that made everything better. The fatigue was a warm, heavy blanket, and Leo’s eyelids were starting to feel like lead weights. He was just drifting off, lulled by the murmur of Pam’s voice and the distant city sounds, when he heard it.

Help…

It was faint, so faint he thought he’d imagined it, a wisp of sound caught on the wind.

“Did you hear that?” he asked, his eyes still closed.

Pam’s rambling trailed off. “Hear what? The world’s saddest party next door?”

“No… something else.” He sat up, straining to listen past the muffled music. The city was a constant symphony of noise—sirens, horns, the rumble of the subway—but this was different. It was sharp. Piercing.

Help me…

There it was again. A woman’s voice, thin and reedy with desperation. It sounded like it came from the street below.

“Someone’s in trouble,” Pam whispered, now sitting bolt upright beside him. Her earlier cheerfulness had evaporated, replaced by a tense concern. She was already moving toward the grimy window.

“Pam, wait,” Leo said, grabbing his phone from the nightstand. The screen flared to life, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. 2:57 AM. “Don’t go to the window. Let’s just call the front desk… if there is one.”

Please… help…

The voice was closer now. Much closer. It wasn’t coming from the street anymore. It sounded like it was in the hallway, right outside their door. A cold dread, heavy and suffocating, began to settle in Leo’s stomach. The party music next door had stopped. The only sounds were his own ragged breath and that pleading cry.

“Leo,” Pam said, her voice trembling. She pointed a shaking finger not at the door, but at the darkest corner of the room, where the shadows thrown by the bare bulb were deepest. “It’s… it’s in here.”

He followed her gaze. The corner seemed to pulse, the darkness there unnaturally thick, as if it were drinking the meager light from the room. And from that patch of absolute black, the whisper came again, no longer a distant cry but an intimate, chilling plea that seemed to slither directly into his ear.

Help.

Leo froze, his blood turning to ice. Every logical circuit in his brain short-circuited. This wasn’t possible. Sound didn’t just move like that. Shadows didn’t thicken.

He watched, paralyzed by a primal fear he’d only ever read about, as the shadow in the corner elongated. It stretched upwards, taking on a vague, humanoid shape—a tall, impossibly thin silhouette that seemed to bend the very air around it. It was a void, a hole in reality standing in the corner of their cheap hotel room.

But that wasn't the worst part. The true horror began when Pam made a sound.

It was a soft, wet gasp, followed by a sickening crack.

Leo tore his eyes from the shadow and looked at his best friend. She was getting to her feet, but not in any way a person should. Her body was contorting, her limbs moving at angles that defied anatomy. Her spine bowed backwards, her head lolling, and the sound of popping joints filled the sudden, dead silence. For a terrifying second, he thought the shadow had broken her, that it had reached across the room and snapped her like a twig.

She straightened up, her movements becoming unnervingly fluid, impossibly smooth. The whole horrifying event had lasted only a second. She stood before him, perfectly still, her hands clasped demurely in front of her.

“Pam?” he breathed, his voice a choked, pathetic thing. “Pam, are you okay?”

She turned her head to face him. A placid smile touched her lips, a serene, empty expression that was a horrifying mockery of her usual grin.

And her eyes.

Oh god, her eyes.

Where her warm, brown irises should have been, there was only a flat, stark, milky white. They were the eyes of a porcelain doll, vacant and dead, yet they were looking right at him. The digital clock on his phone flipped over.

2:58 AM.

The shadow in the corner was gone. But Leo knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the marrow of his soul, that it hadn't left the room. It was wearing his best friend’s skin.