Karen’s world fell into a suffocating silence. The darkness swallowed her whole, and for what felt like an eternity, there was nothing but the cold void.
But then, she opened her eyes.
She was back in her room—at least, it looked like her room. The bed was the same, the curtains, the clock… but something was off. The air felt heavy, and everything seemed too still, too quiet. Karen sat up, her heart hammering in her chest. Had she finally woken up?
A soft knock came from her bedroom door. She froze.
The knock came again, this time louder. Karen slowly turned her head toward the door. It was ajar, the darkness from the hallway spilling into the room like ink. Her pulse quickened.
“Karen…” a voice whispered from the other side. It wasn’t a voice she recognized—it was slow, deliberate, and inhuman.
She bolted from the bed, her instinct screaming to run. But the door creaked open on its own, revealing nothing but the pitch-black hallway.
“Wake up!” she whispered to herself, but the sensation was all too real now. There was no more dream to escape from. She was trapped in this twisted version of her reality.
Footsteps echoed down the hallway, coming closer and closer. Karen backed up against the wall, eyes wide, her breath shallow. A shadow moved into the doorway, and with it, a familiar shape—the figure. Its face was still obscured, but this time, it smiled. A smile that seemed to stretch too far, showing rows of sharp, jagged teeth.
Karen’s legs gave out. She collapsed onto the floor, trembling.
“I wanted to wake up,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face.
The figure crouched down to her level, its grin widening. “You never left,” it said, its voice a twisted echo.
Karen’s mind spiraled as the figure reached out, touching her cheek with icy fingers. “This is where you belong,” it hissed, and suddenly the room around her started to decay. The walls crumbled, turning into ash. The floor beneath her feet gave way, and Karen was falling—falling endlessly into the void.
She screamed, but no sound came out.
And then… everything was black.
There was no waking up. Not this time. Karen was gone, lost in a place where dreams and nightmares merged, trapped forever in a reality she could never escape.