Salem opened his eyes to a world that looked familiar—but wrong. The ceiling above his head rippled like a disturbed pond, and the floor beneath him hummed with a subtle vibration, almost as if reality itself were purring—or laughing.
He swung his legs off the bed, only to find they passed through the sheets like they were made of mist. “Great,” he muttered, voice echoing as if the room had suddenly acquired a microphone. “Just another… whatever this is.”
Static popped along the walls. Images flickered—half-formed faces, cities twisting like origami, snippets of conversations that weren’t his. He squinted at one flicker: a child coughing in a deserted hospital corridor, the date blinking “July 1975” above the doorway. Another blink, and he saw a street empty except for discarded masks an
