The night was swallowed by silence. Wind howled through the cracks of the old wooden house. Lalin tossed and turned on her bed when the whisper came again—soft, drawn out, as though it seeped from beneath the floorboards… or from inside her skull.
> "Lalin…"
She jolted upright, heart pounding. The silence around her pressed down like a weight. She held her breath, listening—yes, the voice was still calling her name.
The lights flickered once, then died. Darkness consumed everything. She stumbled back until her spine hit the trembling wooden door. Footsteps echoed from the corridor—slow, deliberate, each one pulling closer.
And then he appeared.
A tall figure stepped out of the shadows. Moonlight from the window fell across his face—familiar yet unnervingly wrong. His eyes were dark, empty voids, unblinking as they locked onto her. His lips curved upward in a smile devoid of warmth.
The whisper came again, deeper now, not only in her ears but reverberating inside her bones.
> "At last… you've come."
The shadows around him writhed, alive, surging toward her with a freezing chill that sank into her skin. Lalin pressed against the wall, but the darkness crept closer still…