The boy awoke with a start.
Not from a nightmare. Not from pain.
Just that slow, creeping sensation of having arrived somewhere unfinished.
The room was dim, its corners blurry with dust. Light bled through the curtain in that familiar not-quite-morning hue. He blinked slowly, trying to gather his bearings, but they slipped like water between fingers. Something about the air felt… thinner.
He sat up. The bed creaked.
There was a mirror in the room, uncovered this time. That was new.
It stood in the same corner as always, but now it reflected the space without hesitation—bed, curtain, desk, the boy himself. For a moment, he stared at his own image. It looked right. Mostly. But his eyes lingered on the face looking back, unsure if it was correct or just consistent.
On the desk, a folded paper waited.
Not an envelope this time.
Just a page.
He didn't recognize the handwriting, but he didn't expect to. No name signed it. Just one sentence, written carefully and underlined twice:
Do not trust the swing.
He read it once, then again.
The words held no meaning—but they echoed. Somewhere deep in his chest, they knocked against something hollow.
Had he seen a swing?
He tried to remember. His throat tightened.
The girl. Wasn't there a girl?
He stood quickly, too quickly, and the sudden rush made the floor feel unstable. He gripped the edge of the desk and breathed.
There were no footprints in the dust this time.
No letters pinned to the wall.
Only this room. The mirror. The single warning.
He opened the door.
Beyond it was a hallway, unfamiliar and too narrow, lined with picture frames whose glass had been painted over. The lights flickered above him, but there were no sounds—not even his own footsteps, though he swore he was walking.
He whispered into the silence.
"Where am I now?"
And in the back of his mind, a voice—not the Archivist's, not the girl's, but maybe his own—answered:
Wrong place. Right pattern.
He turned the corner.
And the hallway ended in a swing.
Suspended.
Empty.
Swaying.