Episode 05:
The alarm clock screamed into Alok Fanando's dreams like a cruel joke.
Another Monday. Another week. Another march into the same gray routine that had been quietly killing him for years.
The apartment felt colder that morning. Not from the weather something else. The silence between the walls seemed to listen, as if the entire building was holding its breath.
Alok sat up, rubbing his temples.
The faint headache from yesterday still lingered the man in black, the flickering streetlamp, the pendant that had turned to ice against his chest.
He told himself it was nothing.
Stress. Sleep deprivation. Maybe both.
Maybe.
He shuffled to the kitchen. Mina was already there, sitting cross-legged at the table with her phone in hand. A single strand of hair fell across her cheek as she looked up and smiled one of those rare, quiet smiles that made the world feel a little less cruel.
"You look tired," she said softly, handing him a mug of instant coffee. "Did you dream again?"
Alok froze mid-sip.
She didn't know about the dreams. He hadn't told her.
"What do you mean?" he asked, his tone too careful.
Mina frowned, her brow knitting. "I don't know… You've been talking in your sleep lately. Calling someone's name. Freya, I think?"
The coffee suddenly tasted bitter.
"I don't know anyone named Freya," he lied.
But the name lingered on his tongue like an echo familiar, ancient. A memory that shouldn't exist.
The factory day crawled by in the same monotonous rhythm: metal grinding, machines whirring, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.
But something was off.
Every time Alok looked up, he caught a glimpse of someone a figure at the far end of the factory floor. A man in a long black coat, face hidden in shadow. Always too far to see clearly. Always gone when he blinked.
By lunch, Alok's hands wouldn't stop shaking.
He left early, claiming a headache, and decided to take the long way home through the back streets of Westbridge.
But as he walked, the city felt… wrong.
Buildings seemed taller. The air felt heavier. The streets looked rearranged, like someone had rewritten the map while he wasn't looking.
And then he noticed it.
The man in black was following him.
Alok turned into an alley, his pace quickening. His heartbeat thudded in his ears, each step echoing louder than the last.
He looked back.
The man wasn't chasing him. He just stood there motionless, watching.
And then, without moving his lips, the man spoke.
"She's not who you think."
The words weren't heard.
They were inside him filling his skull like a static wave.
The world tilted.
The alley bent and twisted, swallowed by darkness.
For an instant, Alok saw a sky that wasn't Earth's black and vast, pierced by unfamiliar stars.
When he blinked, everything snapped back.
The man was gone.
The alley was just an alley again.
But the pendant around his neck burned hot alive.
And somewhere in the distance, faint and trembling through the city noise…
A woman's voice whispered his name.