Mara awoke the next morning with a dull ache in her temples and a nagging feeling that wouldn’t let go. The alarm. Had it actually happened? She pushed the memory aside, chalking it up to a late-night hallucination.

But that night, it happened again.


She was deeper in sleep this time, so much that when the alarm cut through her dreams, she jolted awake with a gasp. The clock blinked 3:32 a.m., as if mocking her. Heart pounding, she looked around her room, scanning the shadows that seemed to creep along the walls. Something about the darkness tonight felt thicker, as if it were pressing in on her.


Forcing herself to breathe, she sat up and listened, trying to ground herself in the familiar: her phone, her dresser, the still-unpacked boxes by the door. But the piercing sound filled her ears, persistent and disorienting, drawing her focus away from the tangible. She felt a pull, as if the alarm were calling her somewhere, leading her down into the depths of something she couldn’t quite grasp.


Unable to resist, Mara slipped from her bed and made her way down the hallway, heart racing. She reached the small living room, where shadows pooled in the corners, casting strange shapes across the walls. The alarm seemed to vibrate through the floor, the walls, pulling her toward a darkened doorway she didn’t remember leaving open.


She hesitated, but something compelled her forward. As she stepped into the doorway, the room around her faded, and a different scene materialized—a hallway, stretching infinitely in either direction, lined with doors. Each door was cracked open, revealing a slice of dim light that flickered like a dying bulb.


Mara felt a shiver crawl up her spine. This wasn’t her apartment. It wasn’t anywhere she recognized. She turned, half-expecting to see her living room behind her, but found only more of the hallway. Shadows moved along the edges of her vision, dissolving when she tried to look at them directly.


An icy weight settled in her stomach as she realized: she was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere she shouldn’t be.

One of the doors at the end of the hallway creaked open wider, spilling a soft, golden light onto the floor. It felt like an invitation—and a warning.


Compelled by an instinct she didn’t understand, Mara took a step toward the door. As she moved closer, she felt a shift in the air, a dense stillness that pressed down on her lungs. The light spilling from the doorway flickered, casting strange shadows that seemed to curl and reach out to her.


When she reached the doorway, she saw something glinting on the floor just beyond it. She knelt down and picked it up—a small bracelet, dusty and faded, with a child’s name inscribed on the inner curve.

Eva.


Mara turned the bracelet over in her hands, feeling a chill as the metal warmed beneath her touch. The name felt familiar in a way that unsettled her, as if it were a half-forgotten memory scratching at the edges of her mind. She looked up, hoping to see more, but the room beyond the door was empty, a blank expanse shrouded in gray fog.

The alarm blared again, a screeching wail that cut through her like a knife. She stumbled backward, clutching the bracelet, and closed her eyes against the dizzying sound. When she opened them again, she was back in her apartment, alone in the dark.

The clock read 3:33 a.m.


The bracelet was still in her hand.