By morning, the rain had stopped—but the silence it left behind was worse.
No birds. No city hum. No children laughing in alleys. Just the low hum of something waiting. Watching.
Amelia and Alexis sat in the back booth of a forgotten diner—one of those places that didn't have a name, just a buzzing neon sign that said EAT and a coffee pot that never ran dry.
Alexis stirred her cup slowly. "So. Let's count the apocalypse math."
She held up fingers. "One: the killer's carving spirals into victims' flesh to unlock a door that shouldn't exist. Two: each victim has a connection to memory or trauma. And three…"
She looked at Amelia.
"You think you were meant to be one of them."
Amelia's eyes didn't waver. "I was the first. But I didn't die. So now he's trying again."
Alexis leaned back. "Right. So our mystery murderer is what—some kind of cosmic locksmith?"
Amelia didn't answer. Her notebook sat open beside her. The spiral on the last page was changing again—unfolding into something almost like a map. No matter how many times she closed the book, it kept redrawing itself.
Then the waitress came over. Pale. Blank-eyed. Moving strangely.
She poured coffee without looking.
"You should hurry," she said, voice monotone. "The third one won't last the night."
Amelia grabbed her wrist. "What do you mean?"
The waitress blinked. "The third. The one who denies. He's still alive. For now."
Alexis leaned in. "Where is he?"
The waitress said nothing. She slid a napkin across the table.
On it:
Ashcroft Asylum. Room 306.
"The Dreamer Who Forgets."
Then the waitress walked away. When they turned back around, she was gone.
---
Ashcroft Asylum – Forty Minutes Later
The asylum had been closed for a decade.
Its windows were boarded, gates rusted, ivy like veins crawling up the walls. But the doors opened with a single push—unlocked, as if they'd been waiting.
Inside, the air was thick with mildew and static.
"I hate old hospitals," Alexis muttered.
They climbed three flights of stairs. Each hallway more decayed than the last. The signs were peeling. Room numbers faded.
But 306 was clear. Pristine.
And the door was open.
Inside: a man, mid-40s, seated in a chair facing the wall. His arms were covered in scratch marks. Spirals drawn in blood. Around him, Polaroids scattered—hundreds of them. Each one showed a different face. Different age. Different gender.
All of them with Amelia's eyes.
He turned as they entered.
"Finally," he whispered. "You've come back."
Amelia stepped forward. "Do you know me?"
The man's face twisted—somewhere between joy and terror.
"You were the first dream. The one who bled upward."
Alexis whispered, "Is he the third key?"
"No," Amelia said softly. "He's the lock."
The man began to shake. His voice dropped.
"He's coming. He's inside me. I kept him asleep, but he's so close now."
Amelia stepped closer. "Who?"
The man looked up. Tears streaked down his cheeks.
"The Hollow Man."
And then his back arched, violently.
The spirals on his arms began to glow.
Alexis shouted, "He's being activated!"
Amelia grabbed the nearest Polaroid.
It changed in her hand.
Now, the photo showed the man screaming—mouth open—
But no spiral.
She threw it to the ground and stomped on it.
The man gasped.
The light vanished from his skin.
And he collapsed.
Amelia knelt beside him.
He whispered, barely audible: "Don't let him finish the spiral…"
Then he was gone.
Not dead. Not unconscious.
Gone.
Just dust in the shape of a spiral.