Manifestation
You can't.
Your feet are rooted to the spot. You try to turn, to retrace your steps, but your body refuses to obey. A primal fear, cold and sharp, lances through you. This is not a panic attack. You're a prisoner in your own flesh.
So you walk. You have no other choice. Each step feels like a monumental effort, lifting a leaden weight only to place it down again on floorboards that groan under your feet with a sound that seems ancient, weary. The wallpaper begins to peel, revealing plaster the color of old bones beneath. The air grows colder still, nipping at your exposed skin.
You walk until the corridor ends not in a door, but in a stone archway. Beyond it is not a room, but an expanse of night sky, vast and ink-black, pricked with stars that seem too close, too sharp. A cool breeze sweeps through the arch, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and something else, something coppery and sweet. You are standing on a flagstone terrace, the kind you might see in the ruins of a forgotten castle.
And then you hear it.
A sound so raw, so profoundly desolate, it stops your breath. The room begins to darken, and before you can take even a step backward, it falls into a pitch blackness you have never suffered before.
Your feet are rooted to the spot. You try to turn, to retrace your steps, but your body refuses to obey. A primal fear, cold and sharp, lances through you. This is not a panic attack. You're a prisoner in your own flesh.
So you walk. You have no other choice. Each step feels like a monumental effort, lifting a leaden weight only to place it down again on floorboards that groan under your feet with a sound that seems ancient, weary. The wallpaper begins to peel, revealing plaster the color of old bones beneath. The air grows colder still, nipping at your exposed skin.
You walk until the corridor ends not in a door, but in a stone archway. Beyond it is not a room, but an expanse of night sky, vast and ink-black, pricked with stars that seem too close, too sharp. A cool breeze sweeps through the arch, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and something else, something coppery and sweet. You are standing on a flagstone terrace, the kind you might see in the ruins of a forgotten castle.
And then you hear it.
A sound so raw, so profoundly desolate, it stops your breath. The room begins to darken, and before you can take even a step backward, it falls into a pitch blackness you have never suffered before.