Julian awoke to the sound of ticking—or so he thought. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a strange, eerie place. A thick silence surrounded him, broken only by whispers. They were just low enough for him to barely catch their edges, but just high enough to be unsettling. As he stood, he glanced around. A vast emptiness stretched before him. No, not emptiness—there was something else, something hidden in the deeper darkness, shifting like shadows he couldn't fully see.
He took a step forward, only to realize there was nothing below him—only an abyss, black and endless.
Then, like an echo from the past, a voice sounded. It came from all directions—next to him, above him, behind him, and even inside him. "You can hear it, right? The ticking?"
The voice was strangely familiar, yet Julian was certain he'd never heard it before. It reverberated around him, as if it were an unnatural presence, stretching through the very air itself. Julian stepped back, a shiver crawling up his spine. After a brief pause, he answered in a low tone, "Who are you?"
"Me? I'm just a thought, a memory long gone… an echo, you could say."
Julian found the strange voice amusing. An echo, huh? What a strange way to describe oneself… What next? Was it going to claim to be a dead man speaking? Julian's thoughts corrected themselves as he processed the words. What do you want? Or rather, why am I here? Could you be one of those strange things I've seen?
The voice didn't respond directly, but Julian dismissed the idea. No, I doubt it. You're much scarier than a voice degrading itself as a long-gone echo.
The darkness around him seemed to breathe, shifting, as though it were alive—its weight pressing down on him. He could almost feel the ticking in the pit of his stomach now, louder, as if it were part of the air itself, winding tighter, like the turning of an old clock long forgotten. Something other was watching. Something ancient. Something… waiting.
"We don't have much time, Julian, before we meet. I suppose I should make it fair."
The voice sounded from the twisting shadows, curling through the air like smoke. "Everything you've seen, everything you know—it's only the tip of the iceberg. I know you've seen it... the shadows moving, the mirror reflections not following you, the smile—just a little too wide. It's all real, and it's not your friend."
There was a pause, a breath caught between the words, before the voice continued, dark and chilling. "When we meet, you'll understand what I mean. You'll understand that I'm not just a voice. And you'll understand that I am far more terrifying than anything you've seen... far more real."
Julian's heart pounded, but it was more the sound of ticking—louder now—that echoed in his chest, as if the rhythm was coming from within him. He swallowed hard, a lump of saliva thick in his throat. Annihilation for liberation? The words twisted in his mind like smoke.
"What are you talking about? Destruction for freedom? That sounds like the kind of lie you keep pushing—nothing but a twisted version of what's real." His voice shook, but he fought to keep his composure. "You say truth will remain, but all I see are more shadows. More games. More confusion."
As Julian took a step forward, the world around him shuddered. The air seemed to crack, a sharp sound like glass shattering, or a mirror cracking under immense pressure. The ground trembled beneath him, and the shadows twisted as if they, too, were breaking apart.
The pale light poured through the windows, filtered slightly by the curtains, casting long, muted shadows across the room. It was the kind of light that made everything feel distant, as if the world beyond the glass was just a dream. Julian woke with a start, his body drenched in cold sweat. The sheets clung to him uncomfortably as he gasped for air, his heart still racing from the remnants of a nightmare he couldn't fully grasp.
His head throbbed with a dull ache, a pressure that seemed to pulse with every beat of his heart. He pushed himself up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, the cold touch of the floor sending a shiver through him. As he stood, the room spun for a moment, disorienting him further. He rubbed his face, trying to steady himself, but the feeling lingered—something was off.
The edges of the dream—fuzzy, fleeting—clung to his thoughts. He couldn't place it, couldn't remember the details, but there was an undeniable sense that he had forgotten something important. Something that felt like it had slipped just out of reach, like a memory that never fully formed. A deep, gnawing sense of loss, as if a part of him had been left behind in that darkness.
He shook his head, as if to clear it, and started preparing for the day, though the unease gnawed at him. He couldn't shake the feeling that whatever he had forgotten was tied to something much bigger than he could understand.