Duskmoor, 3:03 AM.
Duskmoor never truly slept.
Even in the quietest hours, when the streets emptied and the mist curled thick along gutters, the city seemed to breathe. Like something beneath the concrete still stirred, whispering through rusted pipes and half-lit alleys. Elias Cross had lived here all his life — or most of it, anyway — but there were still corners of Duskmoor he didn't dare wander. Not because they were dangerous. But because they remembered.
The cracked window in his apartment shivered under the wind's breath. He sat beside it, one leg tucked up, watching the streetlight flicker just beyond the glass. The same bulb that had been broken since winter. The city never fixed it, and he never complained. Its irregular blinking was the only thing keeping time anymore.
The clock on the wall behind him ticked softly.
3:03 AM.
Again.
It was always 3:03 when the dreams stopped.
Not ended. Stopped. Like someone had yanked the film reel from the projector. He'd jolt upright, breath ragged, palms damp, the taste of ash in his mouth.
And always — always — that voice.
A child's voice. Familiar, though he couldn't place it. Whispering:
"Let me speak."
He didn't know what it meant. Didn't want to know. Every night it came closer. Every night he felt less like himself and more like something someone else had imagined.
He took a sip of the coffee on the table beside him, only to find it cold. He hadn't remembered making it. That happened often now. Lost time. Fogged thoughts. Whole hours gone, like something had borrowed his body and returned it slightly out of place.
He forced himself to his feet and walked to the bathroom, passing the hallway mirror that always seemed half a second too slow. In the dark, he could almost see two versions of himself — one real, one watching.
The bathroom light buzzed overhead. He switched it on.
His reflection was waiting.
---
The mirror above the sink was fogged, though there had been no steam.
It did that sometimes — not every night, just the strange ones.
He wiped his hand across the glass. Stared.
Just his face. Just hollow eyes and tired skin. Just Elias Cross.
No message tonight. Not like the others.
Sometimes, messages had appeared: cryptic words, symbols, smeared in fog that wasn't his own. They'd disappear the moment he blinked. But tonight, there was nothing. Only him.
And yet...
His reflection didn't quite look right.
He leaned closer. His movements were mirrored. Perfectly. Too perfectly.
Then it happened again.
A blink — just a fraction too early.
He staggered back.
Cold washed through him.
Was he losing his mind? Had he already lost it?
"Get it together," he muttered. "You're just tired."
But the fear stayed.
Thick and real.
---
By morning, the grey rain of Duskmoor had returned. Not a storm — storms were clean, honest — but a constant drizzle that soaked everything in unease. The kind of rain that felt like it was trying to get inside you.
Elias pulled on his coat, checked his phone, and left the apartment without breakfast. The train to the northern quarter was late, packed with people pretending not to notice each other. He found a seat by the window and watched the city smear past.
Towering buildings with blinking signs. People moving like ghosts through steam vents and puddles. Duskmoor was a place of forgotten things. Forgotten people.
Sometimes, he wondered if he was one of them.
The dreams had changed something. Or maybe just revealed it.
The voice, the messages, the mirror that didn't follow the rules — they weren't figments. Not all of them. And then there was the dream from the night before, more vivid than usual. A narrow hallway, walls like wet skin. A hand on his shoulder.
Small. Cold.
And that whisper:
"You're getting closer."
He didn't know to what. But part of him feared it wasn't just a memory he was chasing.
It was a mistake.
---
His meeting that day was supposed to be simple. A missing person case — young man vanished after visiting an address that, reportedly, didn't exist anymore. Elias had handled stranger things before. Haunted basements. Phantom messages. A boy once convinced his sister had been replaced by an identical copy. Elias didn't deal in ghosts, but he did deal in fear. And fear, he'd learned, always had a source.
The address the girl had given him led to the river district — abandoned warehouses, shattered windows, roads half-swallowed by weeds. He walked the perimeter twice. Waited another fifteen minutes by the rusted gate.
No client.
No message.
He called the number she'd used.
Disconnected.
He checked his call log.
No record of the conversation.
His stomach turned.
This wasn't just a no-show.
This felt like bait.
Like someone — or something — wanted him there.
---
He wandered back toward the heart of the city, avoiding the subway, letting the rain settle into his skin.
He felt like he needed to remember something.
The streets got narrower as he walked. Familiar names began to appear on peeling signs.
St. Alder's Lane.
That meant he was near the edge of the old ward. Close to St. Aurum.
He stopped at the corner.
The psychiatric facility loomed through the mist. Its windows were shuttered with time and ivy. Officially, it had been closed five years ago. But rumors said otherwise. Some said screams were still heard at night. Others swore the basement lights came on without power.
Elias had been there once. As a patient.
He didn't remember why. Not really.
Only fragments — white corridors, metal beds, and a boy with dark eyes sitting at the foot of his cot.
Sometimes, in dreams, that boy spoke in riddles.
Sometimes, he screamed.
Elias stared up at the third floor.
A flicker.
A face.
Gone.
---
That night, the rain grew heavier. Thunder rolled low and constant, like the city's pulse.
Elias couldn't sleep.
He sat in the bathroom again, door shut, lights dimmed.
The mirror had fogged once more.
But this time, something was there.
A symbol.
A circle. A line slashed through it. And the word, etched in trembling strokes:
"OPEN."
His mouth went dry.
He stepped closer. The air around the mirror was too warm, humid with something not quite natural.
When he leaned in, the surface shimmered.
And for a second — just a breath — the reflection changed.
His bathroom was gone.
In its place: a hallway.
Dark. Endless.
And at the far end, a child's silhouette.
Then it was gone.
His breath came shallow.
He stared at his own face, willing it to stay normal.
But deep down, he knew.
Something had followed him back from the mirror.
---
At 3:03 AM, the scratching began.
It came from the hallway.
Soft. Rhythmic.
From inside the walls.
He froze.
The apartment was dead quiet otherwise. No traffic. No neighbors. Just that sound.
And then — the voice.
"Find me."
It didn't echo. It didn't belong.
It existed only in the space behind his ears, in that thin place between memory and madness.
He moved to the hallway.
His hand brushed the wallpaper.
It was damp.
Cold.
The scratching stopped.
The silence was worse.
---
He stood there, heart racing, waiting for the noise to return.
But it didn't.
Only the silence remained.
Deep. Listening.
The hallway mirror — long and narrow, framed in brass — had fogged again.
He approached it slowly.
Wrote appeared across the top in smeared condensation:
"Not yet."
Then the fog cleared, and his reflection stared back.
Eyes wide.
Lips twitching into a smile.
But Elias wasn't smiling.
Not at all.
---
To Be Continued in Chapter 2 – The Whisper Corridor