Mira didn't sleep.
Not because she didn't want to, but because the house felt like it had eyes. The silence was too tight. The air too still. And when she finally drifted, the dream yanked her down like a hook.
She stood in her school's hallway again. Empty. Dim. The walls pulsing like veins.
Ahead of her, the door to Room 2B was open.
No. Not open. Waiting.
Mira stepped forward, but her shoes didn't make a sound. The floor didn't feel like tile anymore, it felt like stone. Like the earth had cracked and left a corridor carved into the belly of something ancient.
She pushed the door open. Slowly.
Inside, the classroom had changed.
It was deeper than before. Colder. The windows were gone, replaced by obsidian mirrors. The chalkboard dripped something black and alive. Desks floated, some upright, others twisted in unnatural angles, and at the center of the room, the same scorched spiral glowed faintly on the ground.
Mira walked toward it, drawn by some thread she couldn't name.
The second her foot crossed the symbol's edge, her ears rang.
She dropped to her knees.
Everything twisted, the walls, the light, her breath. And suddenly, the floor cracked beneath her, breaking apart like glass.
She fell.
And fell.
And fell.
Right into the eyes.
Too many.
They blinked in unison.
Then, all at once, they spoke, not with voices, but with thought.
"You are not ready."
Mira shot upright in bed, soaked in sweat.
The morning light that filtered into her room felt sour, like it didn't belong. Her fingers twitched again, alive with that same strange warmth.
Her sketchpad lay open beside her. The spiral she'd seen in her dream was now burned into the paper. The lines were perfect. Sharp. Inhuman.
But this time, she hadn't drawn it in sleep.
She'd never touched the pen.
She was sure of it.
School was closed that day. They called it a "hazard sweep," claiming there'd been a chemical leak near the gym and some faulty electrical wiring. All classes suspended until further notice. Mira would've laughed, if the lie weren't so poorly stitched.
Zeke texted her:
"We need to talk. Meet me at the tracks. Noon."
She didn't respond immediately. The idea of seeing him again felt like both a lifeline and a lead weight.
Still, when noon came, she was already there.
The tracks sat behind the industrial side of town, old and forgotten. Trains hadn't passed through in years. It was the place they used to sneak off to when skipping class, when the world still felt normal. Zeke waited near the old signal box, hands stuffed in his jacket, dark hair ruffled by the wind.
"You came," he said.
"I always do," she answered.
For a second, he looked like he might smile. But it didn't reach his eyes.
"What's going on, Zeke?"
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he crouched and traced a finger in the gravel. Mira saw what he was drawing, and her stomach flipped.
It was the spiral.
"Where did you see that?" she demanded.
"I didn't. I remembered it."
"Remembered?"
He stood. "Mira, I think this is bigger than just us."
"No kidding."
"No, I mean... it's ancient. It's not a symbol. It's a gate."
She stared at him. "A gate to what?"
"To whatever's trying to get through."
His words hung in the air like fog. Heavy. Ominous.
She took a step back, suddenly cold. "How do you know that?"
He didn't meet her eyes.
And she noticed, for the first time, that his hands were trembling.
Later that night, Mira sat on her bedroom floor with every light turned on.
Her laptop refused to load anything except one blank white screen. Her phone wouldn't charge. Her plants were wilting, even though she'd watered them two days ago.
Something was draining the life out of everything.
Except her.
She was starting to feel more awake than ever.
Restless. Alert. Buzzing.
She touched the sketchpad again, dragging her fingers over the symbol. It didn't spark this time. Instead, a soft echo pulsed in her ears, like a heartbeat far beneath the floorboards.
Suddenly, a knock.
Three short taps against her window.
Her breath caught. The curtains shifted slightly, just enough for her to see
Nothing.
But she had heard it.
Another knock.
She moved slowly, pulling back the curtain, and saw nothing again.
Until the third knock came.
From inside the room.
Mira turned.
Her closet door was open.
She hadn't left it open.
And at the back of the closet, behind a wall of clothes, the darkness stretched too deep. Too long. As if the back wall had been pulled away and replaced with something... hollow.
A tunnel.
No. Not a tunnel. A throat.
Before she could move, before she could breathe—
A hand reached out.
Not human.
Not alive.
It glowed. Faintly. Blue like lightning trapped in veins. Its fingers were too long, and where its wrist should've been, the arm faded into mist.
Mira didn't scream.
She couldn't.
Because the second the hand touched her, she remembered something that didn't belong to her.
A girl. Crying. Fire all around. Her hands alight with that same glow Mira had seen in her own. And a voice, stern, panicked, but protective saying:
"She must forget. Until it's time."
Then everything shattered.
Mira woke up on the floor.
This time, the spiral wasn't on paper. It was on the carpet. Burned. Perfect. Still smoking.
Her closet was empty.
But her fingers?
They were glowing again.
And she didn't feel afraid anymore.
She felt ready.