Chapter 05: The Waking Dream
Evelyn stumbled back, her heart pounding, her breath ragged as she struggled to steady herself. The room felt suffocating, the walls seemingly closing in around her. Her vision blurred, and the floor seemed to shift beneath her feet. The eyes in the mirror, those glowing, malevolent eyes, seemed to follow her every move, burning into her soul with an intensity that left her weak and trembling.
She reached for the door, her hand shaking as she tried to turn the knob, but it wouldn’t budge. The door, once a symbol of escape, now felt like a trap, holding her in place, keeping her from the sanity she so desperately sought.
She pulled and twisted the handle in frantic desperation, but the door remained stubbornly closed. The darkness of the room seemed to press in on her, thick and oppressive. The flickering candlelight danced erratically, casting grotesque shadows that stretched and contorted like dark figures clawing their way toward her.
The mirror was no longer just a reflection. The figure within it, the shadow that had once been a mere outline, had now solidified into something far more tangible. It was no longer distant, ethereal, as if a part of her own waking dream. No, now it was a presence—an entity—its form obscured by shifting shadows, but its eyes, those glowing, luminous eyes, pierced through the darkness like twin beacons.
Evelyn gasped, her pulse quickening as her thoughts spiraled, unable to make sense of what was happening. The lines between dream and reality had begun to blur so completely that she no longer knew what was real.
The air grew colder, impossibly cold, and her breath came in visible clouds. She reached out again, but this time, it wasn’t to the door. Her fingers hovered, trembling, over the surface of the mirror. She could feel something—something almost electric—beneath the glass, as though it were alive, waiting for her touch.
Her reflection shifted. Her own face in the glass began to change. Her eyes grew darker, her expression twisted into something unfamiliar, something that wasn’t her. The skin around her mouth curled upward in a grotesque grin, sharp and twisted, and her own voice—her own whisper—echoed in her mind.
“You cannot escape.”
The whisper reverberated in her skull, echoing in waves. Evelyn’s body went cold, her heart a heavy, suffocating weight in her chest. She backed away from the mirror, stumbling, her hands pressed against the walls for support. Her breath hitched, her mind spiraling into a cacophony of racing thoughts, but one thought remained, clear and unrelenting.
She needed to wake up.
Everything was wrong. This house, the nightmare, the creatures—it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. She had to be dreaming. This couldn’t be happening.
She squeezed her eyes shut, praying for the nightmare to end, but when she opened them, nothing had changed. The room was still dark, still pulsing with that otherworldly energy. The mirror still stood before her, and the figure behind it was no longer just watching. It was moving.
The shadow in the glass began to writhe, stretching and bending in unnatural ways. It reached toward her, its arms long and contorted, clawing at the mirror as if trying to escape. Evelyn’s heart hammered in her chest as she stumbled backward, her vision spinning.
She turned and ran, her footsteps echoing in the silence as she raced up the staircase, her breath shallow and panicked. She could hear the shadows following her—no, feel them, as though they were brushing against her skin, grazing her every step. She dared not look behind her, but the sound of her own footsteps, now joined by something darker, was enough to make her stomach churn with fear.
She reached the top of the stairs, her legs heavy and trembling, and bolted through the basement door. But as she crossed the threshold, she stopped dead in her tracks.
The door had disappeared.
It was gone, replaced by an unbroken wall of stone. The darkness behind her pressed closer, colder, suffocating her, and her pulse raced as she turned in every direction, trying to find a way out.
There was no way out.
The house had shifted.
The walls, the floors, the very foundation had twisted and warped as though the house itself had become a living, breathing thing, a nightmarish entity that could not be outrun. Evelyn’s breath came in ragged gasps as she stumbled backward into the dark void of the basement, her eyes wide with terror.
She was trapped.
The shadows now surrounded her, thick and impenetrable, seeping into her mind, her thoughts, like a disease. They whispered, their voices low and sinister, pulling at the edges of her sanity. She was no longer just fighting for her life; she was fighting for her soul.
And somewhere deep within the house, she could feel it—a presence, ancient and cold, watching her, waiting for her to break. It was the same presence that had been in her nightmares. The same figure whose eyes had haunted her every waking moment. It was here, now, in the room with her. In the house.
It wasn’t just a nightmare. It was real.
Evelyn’s chest tightened as her mind struggled to comprehend the impossible. This was no ordinary house, no ordinary dream. This was something far darker, far older than anything she had ever imagined.
And the creature that had been stalking her dreams was real, too. It had crossed into her world.
The darkness grew thicker, consuming everything, until Evelyn was swallowed whole.
She could no longer feel the ground beneath her feet, could no longer hear the whispers in her mind. The shadows took over, melding with her very soul, and the last thing she saw before she succumbed to the abyss was the figure from the mirror. Its glowing eyes, now impossibly close, staring into her very essence, pulling her into the nightmarish void.
And then… nothing.
