Chapter 2: The Wrong Kind of Morning

Chapter 2: The Wrong Kind of Morning

Leo woke up with a gasp, his body drenched in a cold sweat that had nothing to do with the stuffy air in the room. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. For a disorienting second, he didn't know where he was. The grimy window, the peeling paint, the faint smell of mildew—it all came rushing back. The Crimson Lofts.

He shot a terrified glance at the corner of the room. It was just a corner, filled with the flat, innocuous light of early morning. No shadow. No void. No whispering.

A dream. It had to have been a dream. A waking nightmare brought on by exhaustion, too much loud music, and this god-awful, oppressive room. He’d let Pam’s joke about the place being haunted get into his head. His frantic mind clung to that explanation like a drowning man to a splinter of wood.

He turned his head slowly on the stiff pillow. Pam was still asleep on her side of the bed, facing away from him. Her breathing was even and deep. He could see the familiar chaos of her dark hair splayed across the pillow, the line of her shoulder under the cheap comforter. She was okay. She was fine.

Relief, so potent it was dizzying, washed over him. He sank back into the mattress, his muscles screaming with tension. A dream. Just a goddamn dream. He scrubbed a hand over his face, the memory of her body contorting, of that sickening crack, already starting to feel hazy and surreal, the way nightmares do when exposed to daylight.

He reached for his phone. The screen read 8:15 AM. He’d been out for five hours. He must have passed out from pure fear. The last thing he remembered clearly was the clock turning to 2:58 AM.

A floorboard creaked.

Pam stirred, stretching with a soft groan. “Morning, sleepyhead,” she murmured, her voice still thick with sleep.

“Morning,” Leo croaked, his own voice raw. “You sleep okay?”

“Like the dead,” she said, and Leo flinched at her choice of words. She rolled over to face him, a lazy smile on her face. “Man, I was out. What a night.”

And then her eyes opened.

The fragile relief inside him didn't just break; it atomized. It was vaporized by the sight of two flat, perfect, milky-white orbs staring at him from his best friend's face.

There was no recognition of their wrongness. No confusion. Just a calm, placid cheerfulness that was a thousand times more terrifying than any scream. The nightmare wasn’t over. It had followed him into the daylight.

“Pam,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Your… your eyes.”

She blinked slowly, the white lids sliding over the white orbs. She brought a hand up and delicately touched the skin beneath one eye. “Ugh, I know. My eyes feel so dry this morning. Must be the weird air in this place. Ready for that greasy breakfast we talked about?”

She swung her legs out of bed, her movements precise and efficient, completely unlike her usual clumsy morning shuffle. She moved to her duffel bag—the same one she had rummaged through chaotically last night—and began to pack.

Leo could only stare, his brain screaming. She wasn't acknowledging it. She was acting like this was normal. But this wasn’t Pam. Pam would be freaking out. She’d be running to the mirror, screaming, crying, calling for an ambulance. This calm, collected stranger was not Pam Miller.

He watched, horrified, as she folded the clothes she’d worn yesterday with a crisp, military precision he’d never seen her use in her life. Her colorful, chaotic style was being packed away by a creature of unnerving order. The real Pam left a trail of beautiful messes wherever she went. This thing, this it, was tidying up.

“We need to go,” Leo said, his voice tight. The desperate need to get out of this room, out of this building, was a physical force. “Now.”

“I’m almost ready,” she chirped, not looking at him. “Just need to brush my teeth.” She glided into the tiny, grimy bathroom.

Leo scrambled to his feet, throwing his own clothes into his bag with shaking hands. His Metallica shirt from last night was crumpled on the floor. He didn't bother folding it. He could hear the tap running in the bathroom, the sound of rhythmic brushing. He glanced at his reflection in the cracked mirror above the dresser. His face was pale, his eyes wide with a terror he knew was written all over him. When he looked at his own reflection, he could see the memory of the shadow in the corner, superimposed over the room behind him.

The entity had used the cry for ‘help’ as a lure. It was a predator. And last night, it had found its prey. The worst part wasn't the shadow or the voice. It was the fact that the horror hadn't ended. It had checked out of the Crimson Lofts with them. He was about to trap himself in a car with it.

“All set!” Pam announced, emerging from the bathroom with that same vacant smile. Her white eyes swept over the room, a final, proprietary glance. “Much better. I feel human again.”

The drive home was the longest ninety minutes of Leo’s life. He gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were as white as her eyes. He focused on the road, on the traffic, on anything but the thing sitting in his passenger seat.

It hummed. A strange, melodic, tuneless sound that grated on his nerves. It wasn't a song he recognized, and Pam had always been hopelessly tone-deaf. It looked out the window, its head tilted at a slight, curious angle, as if seeing trees and cars and blue sky for the very first time.

He risked a glance at her. She was perfectly still, her hands folded neatly in her lap. The morning sun streamed through the window, catching the unnatural white of her eyes, making them seem to glow faintly. He looked away, his stomach churning. Where was the real Pam? Was she in there, trapped behind those terrifying eyes, watching him? Was she screaming for help from inside her own head?

His gaze flickered to the passenger-side mirror. For a single, heart-stopping moment, the reflection wasn't Pam. It wasn’t a person at all. It was a distorted smear of shadow, a tall, thin silhouette crammed into the passenger seat, its form dark and indistinct despite the bright sunlight.

He blinked, his heart leaping into his throat, and the reflection was normal again. Just Pam, with her placid smile and her dead, white eyes.

But he had seen it. He knew what was sitting next to him.

The humming stopped.

“Everything okay, Leo?” she asked, her voice smooth as glass. “You seem tense.”

He couldn't answer. He just tightened his grip on the wheel and pressed his foot harder on the accelerator. He had thought leaving the Crimson Lofts would be the end of it. He now understood, with chilling certainty, that he had made a terrible mistake. He hadn’t escaped the horror. He had just brought it home.