Chapter 5 - In My Head
1075 Words
Talon hadn’t destroyed the disk—he couldn’t. He didn’t even know why. Instead, he shoved it into a dusty cardboard box in his basement, buried beneath old books and cracked picture frames, as though weight and darkness could smother its presence. But deep down, he knew it wasn’t gone. The game was alive in his house, whispering to the silence.
He tried to cope. He signed himself up for rehabilitation sessions, told himself routine and structure could distract him, could make him forget. He applied for an impromptu two-day leave. Chloe begged him not to, devastated at the thought of handling things without him, but he had already retreated—physically, mentally, spiritually.
That Friday evening, Chloe stood in front of his door. She adjusted her dress with shaky hands, rehearsing her smile. In her arms she carried a woven basket, stuffed with perfumes, incense sticks, pastries, chocolates, even a dish of homemade pasta still steaming in foil. She wanted to surprise him. To remind him of comfort. Of her.
The sun was lowering, bleeding orange into the horizon, shadows crawling longer across the street. She pressed the doorbell, heart thumping, waiting for his familiar shuffle of footsteps.
No answer.
She frowned. Pressed it again. Still nothing.
“Come on, Talon,” she murmured, glancing nervously at her watch. The longer the silence stretched, the heavier the air seemed to grow.
Ding—dong.
The hollow chime echoed through the house like it was swallowed into something endless. She leaned toward the peephole, squinting to see inside. Only darkness stared back.
“Looking for me?”
The voice slid across her skin like cold oil. She froze, every muscle locking.
Her breath stammered. “…N-No.”
That wasn’t Talon’s voice. It was lower, guttural, as though dragged across rusted chains. The atmosphere thickened, pressing against her lungs until she struggled to breathe. Her veins pulsed violently, her scalp prickling as her hair rose in terror. Sweat, icy and unnatural, broke across her back.
She turned—slowly, painfully.
No one.
The street was empty.
Her laugh cracked through the air, brittle and sharp. “Whew… you almost got me there, Talon. Real funny.” She tried to believe it, tried to swallow the fear clawing at her insides.
She turned back toward the door—
And screamed.
A figure stood inches from her. Not facing her, but facing the door. Its body was wrong, rigid, as though stitched together. Across its back, jagged letters scrawled in black, glowing faintly in the dying sunlight:
CHECK POINT ZERO.
Chloe stumbled backward, the basket tumbling from her arms, souvenirs scattering across the concrete. Flashes of Talon’s frenzied warnings surged back into her mind. The drink. The name. The glass. The way he had screamed about the game.
Her breath hitched into sobs. “Oh my God…”
The figure giggled.
It wasn’t laughter. It was a noise scraped raw, broken and high-pitched, like glass dragging against glass. It slithered into her ears, pierced into her marrow.
“You don’t want to play the game?” it asked, voice wet, gurgling, wrong.
It turned.
Chloe’s knees buckled. Her scream tore itself from her throat as the figure revealed its face—except there was none. No eyes, no mouth, no flesh. Only smooth skin where features should have been, and then three words carved across the void of its head:
CHECK. POINT. ZERO.
She bolted.
The fence loomed ahead, and without a thought she dashed toward it. Her body hit the metal hard, fingers clawing for grip as she jumped over it. She pulled herself up, skin tearing on the jagged edges, blood spilling from her palms. She screamed, half in pain, half in sheer terror.
And then—
The earth beneath her cracked open.
The street yawned like a mouth, asphalt splintering into a jagged void. Beneath, thousands of hands stretched upward—rotting, skeletal, malformed—clawing and writhing. The wails of unseen creatures rose from below, shrieks and sobs woven together into a chorus of despair. They wanted her. They wanted her down.
“No! Please! I’m sorry!” she sobbed, clinging harder to the fence as it cut deeper into her palms. Her blood dripped into the void, and the hands below shivered in hunger.
The faceless figure stepped closer. The words on its head ignited—green, then orange, then a blistering red. The glow painted the street in unholy colors, the fence vibrating violently beneath her grip.
The fence began to dissolve, piece by piece, metal unraveling into nothing.
Her life flashed in fragments: laughter with Talon, quiet nights in bed, the first time he kissed her.
“I’ll play! I’ll play the game! Just stop!” she screamed. Her voice cracked, frantic, primal with survival.
The inscription flared bright green.
Light exploded, swallowing her vision whole—
And suddenly she was back at Talon’s doorstep, basket still in hand, reaching for the bell.
She froze. Her body trembled violently, every nerve screaming run. She dropped the basket without ringing and stumbled backward down the path. Her heart pounded in her throat, tears streaking her cheeks.
“Chloe?”
She spun—this time it was him. Talon stood in the doorway, his voice weary, cracked but unmistakably human.
“Talon!” She collapsed into his arms, sobbing. “It was here—it was right here. The ground opened up, it wanted me, it said to play, it—it had no face—”
“Shh.” Talon pressed her to him, though his arms were trembling. He tried to soothe her, though fear shone in his eyes.
“No, you don’t understand,” she choked out, hands flailing, pointing wildly. “It’ll kill us! It only stopped when I promised to play. We have to play it! If we don’t—it’ll eat us alive!”
Talon’s jaw clenched. He pressed a hand over her mouth, pulling her inside, locking the door tight.
On the couch, she curled up, rocking, muttering broken fragments of what she’d seen. Her eyes were wide, staring at nothing.
For the first time, Talon felt true dread—not for himself, but for her. If it had reached Chloe… then it wasn’t just in his head anymore.
He grabbed his phone with shaking hands, calling the others.
When they answered, his voice was barely a whisper.
“What is this… Check Point Zero?”
- Writer
