Walking through the quiet veins of this fractured town, Adam realized, with a gnawing ache in his chest huffing, that he was penniless—truly and absolutely. If not for the strength still left in his legs and the dignity barely clinging to his shoulders, he might have already been sprawled out on the cobbled pavement, a beggar in a town. If he would stay here.
He sighed, breath brushing the warm air, and tilted his head toward the sky—a blue-washed dome bleeding with light, half-hidden by the shelf of buildings. With tired limbs, he leaned on the cold iron pole standing at the heart of the city, its rusted body humming faintly against his weight.
There it was—the massive clocktower beside him, looming with elegant decay. Its hands struck precisely 12:00 PM. Right on time. Noon had settled like a crown upon the city, and Adam's legs were growing weary beneath him.
Dragging himself from the pole, he moved toward a nearby monastery that doubled as a church. Its old stones basked in gentle sunlight, the stained glass throwing colored mosaics onto the ground as people passed him by—some in silence, others with idle chatter, all minding their own gentle or burdensome business.
But then—a sudden tug.
Adam blinked. A small hand clung to his waist, trembling.
He looked down to find a little girl, barely up to his hip, with short brown hair and eyes that shimmered with tears. Her expression was broken, the way a porcelain doll had a shiny lighting of its eyes, literally that, but deep beneath the glaze.
"I—Have you seen my dolly?" she asked, her voice a cracked whisper, both hands covering her face like she wanted to vanish entirely.
Adam stammered, unsure of how to navigate this sudden tide. "Uh… No, sorry, miss. If I ever find your doll, I'd try to return it, I promise." He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "What does your doll look like? When did you last see it?"
"She… she had a pink dress. Brown button eyes. Red fingernails—and toes, too. If you ever see it, tell my mom. She looks just like me."
And just like that, she scuttled off into the crowd, swallowed by the movement of the city.
Adam paused, watching her vanish. In a town this small, maybe trust came easier, if you literally see everyone everyday. Maybe strangers weren't really strangers after all. But that girl would known that im a stranger on this place so my theory is garbage...
He stepped through the threshold of the monastery.
Inside, the scent of aged wood and incense clung to the air. People knelt or sat scattered across the red-carpeted aisle, but something was off. Their faces were… different. Not inhuman, but twisted subtly from the norm—slanted eyes, drooping expressions, blemishes scattered like bruised fruit. Acne bloomed across their skin, some with sores budding on their cheeks and arms like something unspoken was infecting the very fabric of their being.
"Huff…" Adam exhaled, instinctively touching his own face, grounding himself. "Don't judge. Don't judge…" he whispered, gripping the back of a worn pew and lowering himself slowly into the seat.
From the pulpit area, a voice echoed—not in sermon, but in a wearied murmur.
"It feels like this place is cursed. Is the world ending? Or has it simply… given up?"
Adam glanced toward the source. A man in a dusty cowboy hat sat alone in the dim corner, head bowed. The same sores marred his skin.
But what caught Adam's breath was not the man—it was the barricaded door at the end of the church. Planks nailed hastily, chains coiled like serpents across its length. Someone—something—slammed violently from the other side. A desperate rhythm. A plea.
Yet no one reacted. Not a flinch. Not even a blink. The others acted as if the pounding didn't exist—as if they were deaf to it, or worse, accustomed.
Adam stood and fled the eerie stillness, stepping back outside.
That's when he heard her again—the girl's voice, trembling and thin, as though carried on a wind not of this world.
"Please help me… Please let them live…"
The clocktower rang again, a deep, deafening chime that seemed to shake the marrow in his bones. Each toll echoed through the valley and into the forested rim of the town.
Then he saw them.
The monsters.
Burrowing through the ground like serpents or moles like visitors but the opposite. Some slithered under floorboards. Some breached and hide in the cracked foundations of homes. Some headed deeper—to the the deep forest beyond.
Adam blinked. Orchids. Beneath the pine roots, blooming unnaturally. Bushy leaves, too dense, too wet. They were increasing.
"That's where I need to go…" he muttered.
Climbing over a low, splintered fence, Adam dropped into the brush. The grass parted beneath his boots, and the light began to bleed away, unnatural darkness slipping over the horizon like spilled ink.
As he walk branches cracked underfoot. The wind warped of weird hums. Adam had wondered if this place time is getting faster or his just imagining it...
It took what felt like hours—before the orchids and pinecones thickened into a living carpet.
And then, amidst it all—televisions. Shattered. Dead screens. Mirrors, cracked and webbed, seeing glimpses of his own body.
He stood still. White hair. Black and white pajamas. Pajamas?
"When… when did I put these on?" he muttered.
No memory. Not of changing. Not of owning them. And yet—he was wearing them.
Then came the wall.
A massive green-painted wall, its surface chipped and wet with moss. Crows lined its top, their coal eyes fixed on him with unblinking attention. And there—on the ground—eyes. Real ones. Embedded into the soil, staring up at him.
A gate stood in the middle of the wall, rusted and massive. Painted across it, a warm, mocking message in blood-red spray:
"WELCOME."
The chains around it were monstrous. A lock bigger than his fist sealed it shut.
"Damn it," Adam growled, tugging uselessly. "If it's chained from the outside… then either no one's supposed to get in—or someone locked themselves inside."
He paused. "Or… someone left it behind forever."
Frustrated, he kicked the grass.
There was nothing else to do.
He turned back toward Dowell, the looping, haunted woods. Again, he was lost. Again, the path folded in on itself, dragging him into circles that never ended.
[12:00 AM]
Midnight.
He froze.
The town—was being swallowed by darkness.
It wasn't just the sky dimming. It was everything. The buildings, the people, the ground. Darkness crawled like a wave with fingers, and it was reaching toward him.
Adam ran.
He ran hard, but the black tide was faster than his legs, and in an instant—
It consumed him.
There was no light.
No sound.
No feeling.
It wasn't just blindness. It wasn't just deafness. It was absence. Pure absence. As if existence had never known what it meant to be.
And yet…
It was peaceful.
Euphoric, almost. Like sleep without dreams, like floating without fear. He didn't feel pain or panic—just stillness. A tranquil nothing.
And so Adam closed his eyes—or imagined he did—and let it take him.