The atmosphere around me shifted, twisting into something dark, something wrong.

Panic gripped my chest as I looked around.

Everyone was acting normal—too normal.

They moved mechanically, like puppets on strings, their laughter and chatter eerily perfect.

It was unsettling, like watching a scene on repeat, over and over.

And then my gaze fell back on the figure in front of me.

The person who had been Sarah just moments ago.

But now I knew—this wasn’t Sarah.

This wasn’t human at all.

There was something far more dangerous standing before me, something I couldn’t explain.

But deep down, in the pit of my soul, I felt like I had met this thing before.

Like it had crawled straight out of the darkest corners of my nightmares.

"Who are you?" I demanded, trying to gather the courage to face it.

But the second those words left my mouth, I regretted them.

The creature smiled—a cold, mocking smile that sent ice through my veins. "I'm disappointed, my friend."

And then, before my very eyes, its face began to shift, its body twisting and morphing in ways that defied reality.

The features distorted and stretched until they settled into something horrifyingly familiar.

It was me. My own face stared back at me, grinning with a malice I had never seen in myself.

"Did you already forget me?" the creature taunted, its voice echoing in my head, a sickeningly twisted version of my own.

A manic laugh followed, reverberating inside my skull, shaking me to the core.

A wave of terror surged through me.

Every instinct screamed at me to run—to get as far away from this thing as possible.

And without thinking, I obeyed.

My legs moved on their own, carrying me away from the creature, from the nightmare it embodied.

I shoved through the crowd, pushing students aside as I bolted for the exit.

They barely reacted, their expressions still unnervingly vacant, like they were stuck in some kind of trance.

I kept running, my heart pounding, my breath ragged, until suddenly I stumbled.

I was about to crash to the ground when someone caught me.

"Are you okay?" Steve asked, his hand gripping my arm, steadying me.

For a moment, relief flooded my chest. I was safe. I wasn’t alone.

"Yeah... I’m okay," I gasped, still catching my breath, trying to calm the frantic beating of my heart.

But then I heard it—that voice.

"Hmm... but why are you running away, my friend?"

Steve’s tone changed, his voice colder, sharper, devoid of any warmth or concern.

My heart dropped.

Slowly, I looked up at him, and the terror I had just escaped came crashing back.

His eyes—those familiar eyes I had known for so long—were now as empty and hollow as Sarah’s had been.

No. No, this can’t be happening.

"You... you!" I stuttered, my voice breaking as I backed away.

The same eerie smile spread across his face, his gaze boring into me, as if he was nothing more than a reflection of the nightmare I was trapped in.

My mind raced, panic clawing at my throat, but there was nowhere to go.

“What happened, my friend?”

Steve’s voice rang out again, but this time it wasn’t his usual playful tone.

It was cold, almost mocking.

As I glanced back, I saw his body start to contort, bones cracking and stretching.

He grew bigger, his face warping into a grotesque version of itself.

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It wasn’t just Steve anymore—it was some twisted, adult version of him, towering over me, his eyes gleaming with something dark and inhuman.

I shoved him aside with a surge of adrenaline, heart racing, and took off running.

What the hell is happening?!

I sprinted through the chaos, gasping for air, my legs heavy as though I was dragging my entire body through quicksand.

The people around me were no longer familiar. Their faces began to change—elongated, monstrous, hollow-eyed.

Everything was wrong.

Even my friends, standing a little ahead, seemed alien, their eyes fixed on me with a strange intensity.

I wanted to scream their names, but something in me knew—knew they weren’t really them anymore.

They were something else.

I ran harder, lungs burning, heart pounding as fear clawed at my throat.

But no matter how fast I ran, it felt like the nightmare clung to me, pulling me deeper into it.

My breathing became shallow, ragged, and my vision blurred.

The world around me started to spin, and suddenly, my legs gave out.

I crashed to the ground, feeling the cold earth beneath my hands.

Every muscle in my body screamed, but I pushed myself up, fighting to regain control.

And then I saw her.

A small figure stood a few feet away, clutching a little toy in her hands.

She couldn’t have been older than six.

Her brown hair framed her delicate face, and for a moment, I felt an inexplicable connection.

A sharp, searing pain ripped through my chest.

I know her... I’ve always known her.

She opened her mouth, her voice soft but piercing through the chaos.

“Daddy!”

The word hit me like a sledgehammer.

My blood turned to ice.

But then—her face twisted.

That sweet smile melted away, replaced by something dark, malicious.

Her eyes turned hollow, and her grin stretched too wide, too unnatural.

I stumbled back, a wave of terror crashing over me.

My body trembled uncontrollably as I crawled away, my hands desperately searching for something—anything to ground myself.

And then I felt it.

Cold. Unmoving.

I turned and found myself face-to-face with the lifeless body of a woman.

Her eyes stared blankly into nothingness, and her skin was pale, drained of life.

My stomach twisted in horror as I recognized her face.

It was Sarah.

But not the Sarah I knew. She looked older—an adult, lifeless and still.

I scrambled back, a strangled scream caught in my throat as panic surged through me.

But when I looked up again, the horror only deepened.

Bodies. Everywhere. Strewn across the ground, lifeless, blood pooling beneath them.

The stench of death filled the air, suffocating me.

The bodies piled up like mountains, their faces contorted in pain and fear.

Blood poured out in streams, like rivers of red, and I couldn’t tell where one body ended and the next began.

I stood frozen, my mind unraveling, my sanity fraying at the edges.

This can’t be real. This can’t be happening.

But it was. The nightmare was swallowing me whole, and there was no escape.

I staggered, my thoughts spiraling, unable to comprehend the horror that surrounded me.

The pain, the confusion, the terror—it was all too much.

I saw the exit door just a little away from me.

I stumbled forward, grasping for it as if my life depended on it.

My breath was ragged, and my heart hammered in my chest.

I yanked the door open with trembling hands, desperate for an escape.

But as soon as I stepped through, the world around me shifted violently.

The chaos, the bodies, the blood—all of it disappeared.

The scene changed so abruptly that I froze in place, my mind struggling to comprehend what I was seeing.

I found myself standing in a narrow alleyway, the ground beneath me slick with ice.

The cold bit into my skin, sharp and unforgiving.

I looked around, disoriented.

The door behind me, the school, the party, all of it—gone.

The sky was a deep, steel gray, and the air was heavy with the weight of silence.

My breath fogged in front of me, and the sound of crunching ice beneath my shoes was the only thing that filled the empty space.

Suddenly, a voice sliced through the stillness, soft yet clear.

"You stay here, I’ll be back soon, okay?"

I whipped my head toward the sound, my heart racing again.

A woman stood at the edge of the alley, her face gentle but tired, her clothes simple and worn.

She knelt down in front of a small boy—no older than seven, his tiny body shivering beneath a threadbare coat.

"Okay, Mama!" the boy replied, his voice laced with innocence and trust.

He smiled up at her, his eyes bright despite the cold.

I watched, frozen, as the woman gently kissed the boy’s forehead and walked away, her footsteps fading into the distance.

The boy, obedient, sat down on the icy ground, his knees pulled up to his chest, waiting patiently for her return.

A cold, detached voice echoed in my mind, one I recognized instantly but dreaded hearing again.

"The little boy waited for his mother."

My heart sank. I knew this voice. I knew it too well.

But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the scene in front of me.

The hours passed slowly, the sky darkening as night settled over the alley.

The boy’s breath came out in small, visible puffs, and his tiny frame trembled more violently with each passing minute.

He hugged himself tighter, trying to fight off the biting cold, but his mother never returned.

The voice spoke again, hollow and emotionless. "He waited and waited."

The days passed in a blur, time folding in on itself.

The snow melted, and the harsh winter faded into a soft, blooming spring.

The boy was still there, sitting in the same spot, his eyes duller now but still filled with hope.

The flowers bloomed, the air warmed, and yet he remained.

As the seasons shifted, the boy’s clothes grew more tattered, his skin paler, his small body weaker.

Summer came, followed by the drenching rains of autumn.

The boy’s hair became matted, his face gaunt and pale, yet he stayed in that same spot, waiting, always waiting.

"And still, he waited," the voice whispered.

I could feel my chest tightening as I watched the scene unfold, my stomach twisting into knots.

The endless passage of time, the boy’s silent suffering—it was unbearable.

Winter returned, harsher and more unforgiving than before.

The boy’s lips were blue now, his tiny hands nearly frozen solid.

His eyes, once bright and full of hope, had become hollow, like the life had slowly been drained out of him.

His breath came in shallow, painful gasps as snowflakes began to fall once again, covering him in a thin layer of frost.

But even as the winter raged on, he sat there, waiting for a mother who would never come back.

Tears stung my eyes as I watched him suffer in silence, unable to help, unable to change anything.

The voice returned, cruel and mocking.

"He still waits, doesn't he? For someone who will never come back."

"Mama..." the boy whispered, his voice fragile, barely louder than the wind that cut through the alley.

I watched, my heart heavy as he sat there, watching the other children run and play, their laughter echoing down the street as they held their parents' hands, faces full of joy and warmth.

The boy’s eyes followed them, longing etched into his small, innocent face.

He never moved, never spoke, just waited, as if frozen in time.

"Hunger, loneliness, cold," the voice whispered, slicing through my thoughts. "Despite all that, he continued to wait for his mother."

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the boy.

He was me.

I felt it in my bones.

Every ounce of his pain, every moment of his hopeless waiting, I knew it like I knew my own heartbeat.

And yet, there was nothing I could do.

I was stuck, watching his endless suffering unfold before me.

"The only thing that kept him alive," the voice continued, its tone detached, almost mocking, "was his dream. The dream in which his mother came back for him, where he had friends and a life beyond this alley."

I felt the sting of tears in my eyes as I took a shaky breath, my chest tight with grief and confusion.

The boy still sat there, his small body frail and trembling, but he never moved.

His eyes were filled with nothing but hope, the hope of a child who didn’t understand that he had been abandoned, that his dream would never come true.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

I took slow, careful steps toward him, my heart pounding as I drew closer.

Each step felt heavier than the last, as if the weight of his pain was pressing down on me, suffocating me.

"What do you have to say to this boy, my friend?"

The voice returned, cold and distant.

I knelt down in front of the boy, my breath catching in my throat as I looked into his eyes.

He stared back at me, curious, innocent, and somehow unaware of the immense sadness that clung to him like a shadow.

He didn’t recognize me, but I saw myself in him.

I didn’t know if this was reality or some twisted illusion, but I couldn’t let him suffer anymore.

If this was a dream, I wanted to change it.

I wanted to give him something—anything—to ease his pain.

I reached out, my hand trembling as I brought it toward his tear-streaked face.

His skin was cold under my fingers, colder than ice, but I pushed through the overwhelming sorrow in my chest.

"Don’t worry," I whispered, my voice barely holding together.

He blinked at me, confused at first.

But then, slowly, a smile began to spread across his face.

It was small, tentative, but it was real.

And as his lips curled up into that fragile smile, something within me cracked open.

But just as I thought I had given him a piece of happiness, something shifted.

His body began to shimmer, and before I could understand what was happening, the boy started to turn into dust, drifting away on the cold wind like he had never existed at all.

"No... no, wait..." I reached out, trying to hold onto him, but my fingers passed through the dust, unable to grasp anything.

Memories—his memories, my memories—poured into my mind, filling it with fragments of a past that I couldn’t fully comprehend.

Images flashed in my head—of laughter, of pain, of dreams, of waiting and waiting until everything faded.

And then the world around me began to disintegrate too, as if the entire universe was collapsing into dust, evaporating into nothingness.

"Finally..." the voice murmured, closer now, as though it was right beside me. "The last step is done, my friend."

I spun around, wanting to confront the being, to ask what it meant, what it had done.

But I didn’t get the chance.

I felt my own body begin to crumble.

My skin dissolved into the same fine particles that had claimed the boy, my hands fading before my eyes.

Panic surged through me, but there was nothing I could do.

Everything was turning to dust—me, the alley, the sky, even the cold that had clung to me so fiercely.

In my last moments, I could still feel the echo of that boy’s smile, fragile yet real.

And then, there was nothing.