The air in this room—it's heavier today, or maybe I'm just feeling it more. Like something invisible has slipped inside, wrapped itself around the walls, the ceiling, the floor, and settled right on my skin. The light above flickers—not like a bulb burning out, but like a memory fading, wavering in and out of reach.
I don't know how long I've been sitting here. My hands tremble. Not from cold. Something else.
A whisper crawls across my ears—barely there. You forgot something.
I jerk my head around. The others don't notice. Their faces blur, like I'm seeing them through water, distorted and unreachable. I tell myself it's the silence playing tricks.
Then—there's a smell. Sweet, rotten, sweet again. Like fruit left in the sun too long, the smell twists in my mind like a memory I can't place. A bowl of oranges on a table, sunlight falling unevenly, but the table is cracked, the light pale and sickly. I pinch my nose, trying to push it away, but it lingers, stubborn as a ghost.
"You were supposed to go back."
The voice is low, male, almost kind. Almost. My throat closes tight.
"Back where?" I hear myself whisper before I mean to.
One of them—a tall man with a face too long and too thin—turns toward me slowly. His eyes narrow, but his lips don't make a sound. Just move.
There's pressure at the base of my skull—not physical, but like the weight of something too heavy for my mind to hold. I close my eyes, hoping it'll stop.
And the room falls away.
I'm on a cliff now. Wind tears at my cheeks, carrying the salt of the sea. Below, the waves crash in a rhythm that sounds like words, but I can't understand them.
Behind me, five shadows stand in the mist, watching, waiting. I don't turn fully to see their faces, but I know who they are.
One steps forward—a woman with tangled wire hair. Her voice is both whisper and scream. "You shouldn't have left them."
Guilt crashes through me like a tidal wave. Faces flash—some I recognize, some I don't—each accusing without words.
I reach out to them, but the wind tears my hand away.
The cliff is gone.
I'm back in the waiting room.
The stale air presses in again. The weak hum of lights overhead.
The five others look at me now. Their eyes are too wide, their faces frozen and unreadable. They don't move or breathe.
The smell returns—stronger now. Wet, metallic. It coats my tongue. I gag, pressing a hand to my mouth.
A soft chuckle, too quiet to find.
We've been waiting for you.
I look to the wall. The wallpaper peels in long strips, revealing something dark and damp underneath. The smell grows stronger, sick and rotten.
I want to stand and run, but the chair grips me like chains.
The whispers come—layered voices, overlapping, impossible to untangle. Some laugh. Some cry. Some call my name.
My vision blurs. The edges of the room bend inward, as if the walls themselves lean closer to listen.
I shut my eyes.
The voices don't stop.
When I open them—no one is there.
Only warm chairs remain.