I never spoke to her.
I didn't know her name, what music she liked, or if she had ever glanced my way. But every day after college, I left a few minutes behind her. I kept a distance that wasn't quite followings, but never lost sight. She took the same route home, weaving through the crowded streets near the main road. So did I.
It wasn't courage. It wasn't obsession. It was a quiet, unquestioned rhythm.
That day started no different.
The street was loud with engines and footsteps. She stood near the curb, waiting to cross, her bag slung over one shoulder. I paused a few steps back, phone in hand, watching from the edges.
Then the light appeared.
At first, I thought it was a trick of the sun—a reflection from a window or a car mirror. But this light was wrong. It spilled from the ground like pale liquid, curling around her ankles, then her legs, climbing silently. It cast no shadow. People walked through it without noticing. Cars passed as if it weren't there.
But *she* noticed.
She looked down, confusion softening her features, and lifted a hand as if to touch the glow.
That's when I heard the horn.
A truck, barreling too fast. The driver hadn't seen the light. She hadn't seen the truck.
Time didn't slow—it stretched, thin and fragile.
I didn't think.
I ran.
My shoulder struck her side, shoving her back onto the sidewalk. She stumbled, falling hard, the light peeling away from her like a second skin tearing free.
The truck roared through the space where she had stood.
I didn't see where she landed.
Because the light—her light—now closed around *me*.
There was no impact. No sound. The world didn't fade so much as *unclick*.
***
I woke on cold stone.
The air was sharp, metallic, scraping my throat with each breath. I pushed up, my heart drumming against my ribs. The sky was gone. Above me stretched a cavernous ceiling of jagged rock, threaded with veins of faint blue light that pulsed like dormant arteries.
I was in a hall—immense, ancient, endless. Walls of carved stone rose into shadow. Beneath me, symbols glowed faintly on the floor, pulsing once, twice, before beginning to fade.
Then words hung in the air before my eyes. Not written. Floating.
**[Dungeon Entry Detected]**
The words felt cold. Impersonal. Like a sign for someone else.
They flickered.
Stuttered.
And changed.
**[ERROR]**
**[ENTITY NOT REGISTERED]**
Then, nothing.
The symbols on the floor died completely. Silence pressed down, thick and waiting. No voice greeted me. No explanation came. The hall felt unfinished, abandoned, as though I'd arrived after the purpose of the place had already ended.
From the darkness ahead came a sound.
Slow. Wet. Shuffling.
Something moved just beyond the reach of the fading blue light.
I rose slowly, muscles tense, breath held.
This place had not asked for me. It didn't know me. And as the fear settled deep, cold and certain, one thought echoed clearer than all the rest:
*I was not supposed to be here.*