The apartment smelled of damp plaster and old sickness.
A stale, suffocating blend—like rain trapped in rotting walls and breath exhaled too many times without hope.
Levi sat on the edge of his sagging mattress, elbows braced on his knees, staring at the wall as though it might finally give him something back.
It never did.
The paint had blistered years ago, curling away in long yellowed strips that hung like dead skin. Beneath them, older layers showed through—faded floral patterns from some long-gone tenant's desperate attempt at cheer. The flowers were bruised now. Half-rotted. Petals warped into shapes that reminded him uncomfortably of open wounds.
He was twenty-eight.
The mirror across the room told a different story.
The glass was cracked corner to corner, a spiderweb fracture that shattered his reflection into jagged fragments. In every shard he saw the same thing: a man who looked forty. Maybe older. Hollow cheeks. Eyes sunken into permanent shadow. Skin so thin it seemed translucent, blue veins mapping his temples and the backs of his hands like a morbid cartography.
His collarbones jutted sharply beneath a threadbare T-shirt. When he breathed—slow, shallow, careful breaths—the outline of his ribs shifted beneath his skin like prison bars behind wet paper.
SFX: tick… tick… tick…
The illness had no name.
Not one the doctors bothered to give him after the tests came back inconclusive. One resident—young, exhausted, already dead inside—had muttered "progressive systemic failure" as if that explained the way Levi's body was quietly shutting down, organ by organ, piece by piece.
Painkillers. Anti-nausea meds. A prognosis measured in weeks.
Maybe less.
On the windowsill sat a row of orange prescription bottles, labels peeling, caps clouded with age. Levi counted them every morning.
Seven bottles.
Forty-three pills total.
Enough for twelve days—if he stretched them.
Beside the window, a cheap calendar was nailed crookedly into the wall. Each night he marked the square with a red X.
The page was nearly full now.
Angry slashes crowded the dates like bloodstains.
Outside, the city moved on without him.
Through the grimy pane he could see the street five stories below—delivery trucks idling, people rushing past with grocery bags or earbuds in, shoulders hunched against the cold. None of them looked up.
Why would they?
He was just another shadow in another window. One more forgotten soul in a building full of them.
Night sharpened everything.
Sleep had become impossible. Every time he drifted close, a cold tug bloomed behind his ribs—like fingers made of ice hooking into his heart, pulling gently… insistently.
He would jolt awake gasping, sweat slick on his skin, convinced something had been leaning over him in the dark.
Watching.
He'd heard the stories.
Everyone like him had.
They circulated in hushed fragments—free clinic waiting rooms, soup kitchen lines, the darker corners of online forums where the terminally ill gathered to trade black humor and worse hopes.
The Midnight Spell.
A curse that didn't hunt the healthy or the lucky.
It only came for the already marked.
Those whose bodies were failing.
Those living on borrowed time.
It arrived at the stroke of twelve.
And it took you somewhere worse than death.
Levi remembered the first time he'd heard it clearly.
An oncology ward. Curtains drawn. A skeletal woman whispering to her neighbor through the divider. Two nights later, her bed was empty. Security footage showed nothing—no one entering, no one leaving.
Weeks after that, a nurse swore she'd seen the woman wandering a highway miles outside town. Barefoot in the snow. Eyes solid black. Muttering about mountains that stretched forever beneath a red sky.
Then there was the veteran at the downtown shelter.
Old Marine. Lungs ruined by something he'd breathed in overseas.
He vanished at midnight.
Came back three days later.
Different.
Scars crossed his arms and chest—long pale lines that hadn't been there before. They glowed faintly when the lights went out. He was stronger too. Lifted a dumpster one-handed just to retrieve a dropped wallet.
When people asked where he'd been, he only shook his head.
"Don't fight it when it comes," he said once, voice flat.
"Just… don't."
Most never came back at all.
The common thread in every story was the same.
The Spell offered a bargain.
Cruel. Impossible.
Real.
Survive whatever waited on the other side—its trials, its nightmares made flesh—and you might earn more time.
Might live.
Fail… and you stayed there forever.
Levi hated that the stories gave him hope.
A tiny, treacherous flicker he couldn't stamp out.
Night fell hard, the way it always did in late autumn.
The single bulb overhead flickered—once, twice—then steadied, casting weak yellow light across the room.
Levi paced the narrow strip of floor between bed and sink.
Six steps forward.
Six back.
His heart stuttered mid-stride.
He froze, palm pressed flat to his chest, counting breaths until the rhythm stabilized.
He hadn't slept deeply in a week.
Caffeine helped—but the good stuff was long gone.
On the counter sat his last resort.
A dented can of off-brand cola. Warm. Two years past expiration. The label had faded into illegible smears.
He picked it up anyway.
Anything to stay awake past midnight.
SFX: pssshhk—
The hiss was too loud in the quiet room.
The smell hit first—overly sweet, metallic, like pennies soaked in syrup. He grimaced but drank anyway, forcing down thick, sludgy swallows. Artificial cherry. Chemicals. Regret.
His stomach churned, acid rising, but he kept going until the can was empty.
He crushed it in one hand.
SFX: crrk—clang
It bounced off the trash pile and rolled under the bed.
The clock on the wall ticked louder as the evening dragged on.
Each second echoed.
To fill the silence, Levi talked to himself.
"Just one more night," he muttered.
"One more and maybe it skips me. Maybe I'm not desperate enough yet."
He recited half-remembered poems—Frost, Dickinson, fragments torn loose from memory. When that failed, he slapped his cheeks hard enough to sting. Splashed cold water on his face.
The mirror showed bloodshot eyes. Pupils blown wide.
11:47
He sat on the mattress again, back against the wall, knees drawn tight.
11:53
The city outside seemed to pause—as if holding its breath.
11:58
His eyelids sagged. Pain felt distant now.
12:00
The minute hand clicked over—
SFX: CRACK
Like a bone snapping.
The room exhaled. Air pressure shifted. His ears popped.
The bulb dimmed for a heartbeat.
Then—
Whispers.
Soft at first. Like wind threading through cracked glass.
Then closer.
Intimate.
Voices he almost recognized.
Levi…
Come…
It's time…
His vision tunneled. Darkness crept in from the edges.
The clock face glowed faintly red.
Frozen at 12:00.
The cold tug behind his ribs became a yank.
He didn't remember standing.
Didn't remember opening the door.
Suddenly he was outside.
Barefoot on cold pavement.
The street was empty—not quiet, but wrong.
No cars. No sirens. No life.
Every streetlight burned a sullen blood-red, painting buildings in rust and shadow.
And in the center of the road—
A door.
Tall. Impossibly tall.
Crimson as fresh arterial blood.
No walls. No frame.
Its surface writhed with carved serpents and thorned vines that shifted when he looked away.
Red smoke seeped from beneath it, curling like living things around his ankles.
The whispers swelled.
Promise and threat entwined.
Levi tried to step back.
His body refused.
The door creaked open on silent hinges.
Beyond it lay darkness—shot through with pulsing crimson light.
Like the heart of something vast.
Something hungry.
He opened his mouth to scream.
No sound came.
The smoke surged.
The world vanished.
And Levi was taken.