The word "In" hangs between us like a whispered secret, fragile and trembling, barely there but impossible to ignore. It seeps into the air, thickening it, weaving into the silence that presses down on my chest like a weight I can't lift.
The waiting room feels colder, though the overhead lights hum with the same dull, indifferent drone. The pale cream walls seem to breathe—slow, shallow inhales, as if the room itself is alive and watching. Shadows gather in the corners, pooling like spilled ink, creeping just beyond sight.
I blink, trying to focus. The others sit stiff and quiet, faces drawn and pale, eyes wide with exhaustion and a flicker of something like dread. The woman in the long black coat folds her hands tightly in her lap, her gaze flickering to the empty chair beside me, as if expecting someone to appear.
The tall one's fingers drum an uneven rhythm against his knee, the sound sharp in the thick silence. His voice breaks through, low and cautious.
"This place… it's a trap. A kind of no-time, no-place. 'Within the shadow where time sleeps'—it means we're caught in the dark spaces between moments, where time forgets to move. We're… shadows here. Ghosts waiting for something that may never come."
His words echo in the hollow room, swallowed quickly by the thick air. The edges of the walls ripple like a heat haze, blurring, shifting, as if the room resents being watched.
The woman leans forward, voice dropping to a near whisper, her eyes sharp and haunted.
"If time sleeps here, then this message is a warning. We're trespassers—lost in some forgotten space that shouldn't hold us. Something ancient and restless stirs just beyond our sight, and it doesn't like intruders."
A sudden chill slips down my spine, raising goosebumps beneath my skin. The waiting room feels smaller, walls closing in with every heartbeat. The clock on the wall remains motionless—the hands frozen, the silence stretching out like a vast, empty ocean.
The boy's voice trembles, breaking the fragile calm.
"Maybe it's all in our heads. The message, the shadows… Maybe it's just our minds unraveling."
"No," the old man answers, voice gravelly and sure. "This is something else. Something that's here, watching, waiting."
My throat tightens, the room blurring further. Shadows lengthen and twist, pooling like dark water beneath the flickering light. The faint scent of damp earth and decay rises, heavy and suffocating. I cough, the odor thick and metallic, pressing against my lungs.
But the others seem unfazed, or perhaps they hide their discomfort better.
Then it comes again—soft, a breath brushing against the back of my neck.
"…Watch…"
Not a command. Not a word. More a shiver in the air, a whisper carved from shadow and silence.
The tall one's eyes narrow, voice low and tense.
"Watch for what?"
I barely breathe.
"Watch the shadows."
The woman's eyes dart toward the corners, where darkness pools like ink spilled on paper, edges shifting and curling as if alive.
"They move," she says softly. "Sometimes… like they're waiting for us."
I swallow hard, a cold knot tightening in my stomach. The walls seem to pulse now, slow and deliberate, as though breathing in time with some unseen beast lurking just out of reach.
My mind races, caught between terror and a fragile thread of hope. The message is a riddle, a key wrapped in nightmare.
A prison of silence and shadows.
And we are the prisoners.
The clock remains frozen—silent and unmoving—an eternal witness to our waiting.