The sheets of paper didn't fall apart.
They wouldn't let Ken go.
The "canvas" suddenly trembled, and new frames of images floated up from the darkness. The air cooled, as if memories weren't just sights, but also carried temperature, smell, and weight.
Ken's breath caught.
This…
this was from earlier.
He was eight years old.
The picture showed a quiet, dark New York house. Not a castle. Not a ruin. A completely ordinary home—and that was what made it all the scarier. No light filtered through the windows. The faint ticking of the wall clock echoed in the darkness.
Ken was a child. Alone awake.
His parents were sleeping upstairs.
Too deep.
Only his dog was with him in the room, lying on the floor. The dog's ears suddenly moved.
And then…
A bell rang.
Not loud.
Not urgent.
A single, metallic sound.
The child Ken flinched.
The dog lifted his head.
Another ring.
This time, longer.
The images suddenly twitched, as if the canvas itself did not want to show any more. But the book did not spare him.
Ken—the child—slowly stood up. He walked barefoot toward the front door. The house was too quiet.
Too empty.
The door opened.
Someone was standing at the gate.
It did not move.
It did not speak.
And it had no face.
It was not blurred.
It was not shadowy.
It was simply… missing.
The dog began to bark. Wildly. Desperately.
Its voice echoed off the walls of the yard. The child Ken's heart nearly jumped out of its seat.
Then the creature knocked on the gate.
Not once.
Not twice.
Rhythmically.
Strongly.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
The metal shook. The sound was not human—not anger, not impatience. More like… demand.
Ken looked back at the picture upstairs.
Nothing.
His parents hadn't woken up.
As if they weren't there.
Ken moved closer to his dog, bending down with trembling hands.
"Calm down… calm down… it's okay…" he whispered.
And then the dog fell silent.
Not slowly.
Not uncertainly.
In a single moment.
He froze.
His tail flattened.
His body trembled.
There was a loud crack on the canvas of the book—a jump scare-like crack that made Norman flinch in the present. Courtney involuntarily stepped back.
The dog… felt it.
He felt something Ken couldn't yet name:
the intent emanating from the faceless stranger.
The creature leaned closer to the gate then.
And whispered.
Not words.
Not language.
Some incomprehensible, staccato, distorted sound that seemed both close and very far away.
As if the sound didn't come from his mouth but from the air around him.
Ken wanted to cry like a child.
But he couldn't.
His legs didn't move.
His voice didn't come out.
And then…
The stranger disappeared.
He didn't walk away.
He didn't fade.
He wasn't there for a single frame.
As if he had never existed.
The gate was still.
The yard was empty.
Ken and the dog stood there.
Frozen.
The screen remained dark, but the book wouldn't let go of time: half an hour passed like this.
The child Ken and the dog did not move.
They did not cry.
They did not bark.
They only began to breathe again when they felt the aura—that intangible, oppressive presence—disappear for good.
The images slowly disintegrated.
The pieces of paper fell back.
In the present, Ken collapsed to his knees.
Norman immediately knelt beside him.
Courtney's hand trembled as she placed it on Ken's shoulder.
Martin was pale.
This was not a "bad memory."
This was not a "childhood fantasy."
This was an encounter.
And the book…
it was no coincidence that it showed him now.