Morning came.
A real one this time.
Not the heavy orange sky. Not the hushed stillness like something sacred was still holding its breath.
Just morning.
Sunlight spilled through the kitchen window. It looked normal. Honest.
Mason didn't trust it.
He stood in the center of his living room, barefoot, the soles of his feet sticky with wax. The table was bare now. The black candle was gone.
So was the box.
No ash.
No scent.
No trace.
It was like none of it had ever existed.
But he knew better.
His body ached in strange ways.
Not from exhaustion.
Not from fear.
From emptiness.
Like something had been pulled out of him—carefully, precisely—leaving space behind.
He moved through the house slowly, room by room. Each step felt like entering a museum built from his own memory. He noticed things he hadn't in years:
The crack in the baseboard behind the TV.
The water stain near the laundry room.
A photograph of him and his dad in the hallway—crooked on the nail.
He straightened it.
It fell off the wall an hour later.
He found the first note at noon.
It was taped to the fridge.
Plain white paper.
Four words:
YOU'RE NOT DONE YET
He stared at it for a long time.
No handwriting. Just thick block letters like from a typewriter.
He didn't move it.
Didn't touch it.
He just closed the fridge door and stepped away.
The dreams didn't stop.
They changed.
Now, he didn't walk hallways.
He floated through empty streets—his old neighborhood, silent and abandoned, doors all open, candles flickering in the windows of homes long torn down.
He passed people he once knew.
Some he didn't.
All of them wore his face.
None of them looked at him.
Except one.
Emily.
Standing barefoot in the street, lit only by the orange pulse of distant fire.
She didn't speak.
She just held up a single finger.
One.
He woke with a gasp, the imprint of wax on his palm.
The world outside hadn't changed.
Not visibly.
Cars passed.
Children played.
The mail came.
But Mason could feel it.
A difference.
Like the space he occupied wasn't quite synced with everyone else. Like he was moving through the same world, but one layer beneath it.
Close enough to see them.
Too far to join them.
The isolation wasn't physical anymore.
It was dimensional.
The mailbox began filling with letters.
All blank.
Plain white envelopes.
Unstamped.
No names. No writing.
He found one Monday morning. Then another Tuesday. Three on Wednesday.
By Friday, he had twelve.
He stacked them on the table. Didn't open them. Couldn't.
They buzzed when he touched them.
Not a sound.
A vibration.
Like holding something that was alive just enough to know it didn't want to be touched.
The neighbors noticed.
At least, he thought they did.
Mrs. Arlo across the street used to wave every morning. A nod. A smile. Routine.
Now she never looked up.
Mowed her lawn with her back to him. Took out the trash only when he wasn't visible from her windows.
Others were worse.
One man jogged past the house, stopped, looked directly at Mason through the window, and mouthed something.
Mason couldn't read his lips.
But it looked like:
"RUN."
He tried leaving once.
Packed a bag.
Filled the car.
Started the engine.
The radio turned on by itself.
Only static.
Then a whisper, buried deep in the noise:
"You still belong here."
He turned the key.
The car turned off.
Tried again.
Nothing.
He looked up at the rearview mirror.
His reflection was gone.
Just an empty driver's seat.
He got out.
Walked back inside.
The door closed behind him.
Soft. Like a sigh.
The second black candle appeared on his nightstand that night.
No box. No note. Just the candle.
Thicker than the first.
Wider.
No ribbon this time.
Just a single match laid across the top.
He stared at it until sunrise.
Didn't light it.
Didn't touch it.
But it smelled faintly of roses.
And the faintest, smallest, most awful part of him—
Missed the flame.
He started writing things down.
Just to prove they happened.
Filled notebooks with fragments.
"I heard her voice again."
"The fridge door was open at 3:14."
"The second mirror is back."
"The closet knows when I lie."
It didn't help.
Because the ink would fade overnight.
Pages torn out on their own.
Sometimes replaced with new words.
Ones he didn't write.
One morning he found:
"THE DOOR WILL OPEN AGAIN."
And on the next page:
"YOU'LL WALK THROUGH IT THIS TIME."
The mirrors stayed quiet.
Until the seventh day after the black candle burned out.
Then they all turned white.
Not foggy.
White.
Like snow pressed against glass.
He reached out to one.
Touched it.
It was warm.
And pulsing.
He leaned close.
Saw the faintest outline of someone on the other side.
It wasn't Emily.
It was him.
Smiling.
Holding another match.
Mason didn't scream.
Didn't run.
He just whispered:
"What do you want from me?"
And from the mirror came the softest voice.
His voice.
Saying:
"The same thing we gave you."
Silence returned.
But now, it wasn't empty.
It was full.
Buzzing with memory. With unseen breath.
With waiting.
Because Mason had survived the countdown.
He had lit the first candle.
And he had passed the test.
But survival wasn't the end.
It was the beginning of a new kind of flame.
And somewhere in the walls—
The matchbox whispered:
"Two more to go."