That night, Thecla went to bed, more vigilant than ever, but even her heightened senses couldn't ward off the inevitable. She was scared and deeply nervous, her mind replaying the grotesque visions and the chilling message (of the Undying Man. )Sleep became a fragile concept, haunted by the cold realities she had uncovered. "I have to find a way out of this hotel," she muttered to herself, her voice a desperate whisper in the suffocating darkness of the room. After what felt like an eternity of restless tossing and turning, sleep eventually claimed her, a brief, uneasy truce with her fears.
But the Undying Man's power knew no locks, no closed doors, no waking resistance. In the deepest hours of the night, a cold, unnatural fog began to seep into the room through the slightly ajar window, snaking silently across the floorboards. It wasn't the gentle mist of a normal morning; this fog pulsed with an ethereal, icy glow, carrying the faint, metallic scent of ozone and dust. As it thickened, swirling around Thecla's bed, the spectral mist began to coalesce, to solidify. Faint outlines appeared, twisting and morphing into ethereal, vine-like tendrils of shadow. These shadowy vines, cold and insubstantial yet strangely binding, wrapped themselves around Thecla's sleeping form, gently but firmly lifting her from the bed. There was no sound, no struggle, no gasp of awakening. Just a silent, terrifying vanishing. She was simply gone.
The next morning, the innocent normalcy of their routine was shattered. Anne, Thecla's younger sister, ever the early riser, went into Thecla's room to wake her. She called out her name once, then twice, but received no reply. Puzzled, Anne approached the bed, her small frame dwarfed by the empty expanse of sheets. She couldn't find Thecla. A prickle of unease started in her, a feeling she couldn't quite name. Rushing back to her parents' room, she told them, her voice edged with confusion, "Dad, Mom, Thecla's not in her bed!"
John, Thecla's younger brother, was already awake, playing games on his smartphone . He stopped, looking up as his sister's worried voice cut through the morning's quiet. Their parents, Mr. and Mrs.Joeys, were jolted awake by Anne's urgent tone. Dread, a cold and unwelcome guest, began to creep into Susanne 's heart.
"Honey, this is strange," She uttered, her voice thin with growing apprehension. "I saw her before going to bed last night. Do you think it has something to do with this hotel? She had been throwing a trauma about it since we came here." The echoes of their recent dismissal of Thecla's fears, their casual attribution of her terror to mere "trauma," now hung in the air, a bitter irony. They were now faced with an impossible reality: their eldest daughter was gone.
Mr. Joe, trying to maintain a semblance of calm, despite the icy fear gripping him, said, "John, let's look for her." He tried to sound authoritative, but his voice wavered. They rushed into Thecla's room, their hopes plummeting as they found the bed indeed empty. The sheets were cold to the touch, and the window was, inexplicably, ajar, allowing a faint, unnatural chill to pervade the room.
John, observant for his age, quickly called his parents' attention to a more unsettling detail. "Dad, Mom, look!" He pointed to the pillow where Thecla's head should have been. There, etched into the fabric, was a small, glowing symbol—a vibrant, pulsating Triquetra. It was the exact symbol Thecla had seen in her visions, now burning brightly on her pillow, a malevolent calling card.
A gasp escaped Mrs Joeys' lips. "Our daughter is gone!" she cried, as tears, hot and frantic, streamed down her face. The front door of their suite was still locked from the inside, yet Thecla had vanished without a trace, leaving behind only the chilling glow of a symbol that defied all logic. The impossible had happened. They were no longer just concerned parents; they were terrified, panicked. Their child had been stolen by something they couldn't comprehend.
John, meanwhile, went back into the room, his expression a mix of disbelief and growing terror. He could only stare at the ominous glowing symbol, a silent witness to his sister's disappearance. "The Triquetra seems to be alive… glowing," he murmured, mesmerized by its malevolent beauty. The family stared at the symbol, their fear momentarily overshadowed by awe, as it brightened, pulsating with an inner light, before slowly fading and vanishing, leaving behind only a faint, lingering warmth on the pillowcase. It was a message, chilling and clear: He has her.
Meanwhile, far from the rising panic of her family, Thecla was stirring. She woke up not in a cold, damp dungeon, as one might expect from a kidnapping, but in a grand, ornate chamber deep within the hotel. This was no ordinary room; it was a testament to a forgotten opulence, a place preserved in time by unnatural means. The air was cold and still, carrying the faint scent of dust and something else—something ancient and ethereal. The only light came from a few flickering candles strategically placed around the room, casting long, dancing shadows, and the familiar, faint, ethereal glow of the Triquetra symbol, which pulsed softly from a large, unlit chandelier in the center of the ceiling.
The room was decorated with heavy, gilded furniture, their gold leaf tarnished but still magnificent, and faded tapestries depicting scenes of forgotten triumphs and mythical beasts adorned the walls. A large, velvet bed, draped in dark, heavy fabrics, dominated one corner, looking more like a ceremonial resting place than a comfortable sleep surface. The room had a single, tall, arched window, but it didn't look out onto the hotel grounds. Instead, it revealed a strange, timeless landscape of swirling mists and distant, shadowy peaks that was clearly not of the real world—a window into the Undying Man's personal, extra-dimensional domain.
The walls of the chamber were filled with numerous portraits of King Hermon in his past life – a king, a general, a great scholar, a figure of immense power and presence. Each painting depicted a man consumed by an insatiable desire for more – more power, more knowledge, more life. His eyes, even in painted form, seemed to follow Thecla, burning with an ancient, unyielding ambition.
Thecla's first thought was, naturally, to escape. A surge of adrenaline coursed through her as she processed this unfamiliar, terrifying scene. She rushed to the heavy wooden door, intricately carved and bound with what looked like ancient, rusting iron. It was locked, unyielding, and clearly impenetrable. She then dashed to the large window, pushing against its cold, solid glass, but it was fixed firmly in its frame. The ethereal, misty landscape beyond offered no real escape, no breathable air, no path to the world she knew. The immediate futility of her escape attempts was a chilling confirmation of her powerlessness, a tangible cage crafted by the Undying Man.
Despair, cold and sharp, threatened to overwhelm her, but the divine aid's unwavering message echoed in her mind: "You are not alone. Be strong. Look closer." Taking a shaky breath, Thecla decided to explore the room, to find a clue, anything that could help. Her gaze fell upon a large, ornate, dusty mirror propped against a far wall. Tentatively, she approached it and looked into its silvered surface.
Instead of her own reflection, she saw the Undying Man standing directly behind her, his form flickering and solidifying into a more menacing shape than she had ever witnessed. He was not a man, not truly—he was a towering figure composed entirely of swirling shadow and pulsing, glowing Triquetra symbols, a terrifying manifestation that existed between life and death. His eyes, twin abysses of ancient hunger, locked onto hers through the glass. He was a dark reflection of her own spirit, a malevolent counterpoint to her life force. He was a force of nature, a spiritual predator of immense power. He was not just physically present in the room; he was in the mirrors, he twisted the shadows, he permeated every cold corner of the chamber and, indeed, the entire hotel. He was a prison, and Thecla, in that moment, realized she could not escape him by conventional means. She was truly trapped.