The air in Salem’s room crackled with tension, electric and suffocating all at once. His heartbeat thundered in his ears—too loud, too fast—like the rhythm of a countdown. But there was no visible clock, no clear deadline. Only the unsettling feeling that something unseen was watching, waiting, and whispering from just beyond the veil of reality.
Salem sat on the edge of his bed, his fingers clutching the edge of the mattress as if it might anchor him to the world. The journal lay open beside him, its pages fluttering despite the stillness in the air. The words scrawled across the paper seemed alive, pulsating with a strange glow that tugged at his sanity.
"You’re not alone," the journal whispered, the letters rearranging themselves before his eyes.
He blinked, heart skipping a beat. Th
