5:02 PM, August 5th.

The lights died first. Not with a flicker, not with a warning. Just a cut.

Your apartment shuddered. Not from an earthquake, not from any sound—but as if the walls themselves had just inhaled. And suddenly, the air felt stitched too tightly around your skin.

Your breath was the only sound you could hear. Then… a hum. Not mechanical, not electrical—something deeper. A throatier sound, like a throat trying to swallow the room.

You fumbled for your phone—dead. Flashlight? Dead. Even the emergency lights in the hallway didn’t so much as cough.

But there was something in the hall. Something standing still in the darkness.

The door creaked open on its own.

A man stood in the hallway.

Black hair fell messily across his forehead, jaw catching the faintest glow of emergency red—the only color left. His eyes, brown and unblinking, didn’t search for you. They stared through you, as if you were something he'd been waiting for.

And then he smiled.

A foxy smile—lazy, curling at the edges with a hint of amusement.

“You’re late,” he said, as if you knew each other.

Your mouth opened, but the words caught. Something was wrong with the air. It felt… threaded. Tightened.

He took a step forward. The floor beneath his foot didn’t creak—it twitched. “I wouldn’t stay in the threshold,” he murmured, eyes still pinned on you. “Doors are tricky right after it begins. You stand in them too long, and you won’t come out… the same.”

As if to prove his point, the doorframe seemed to stretch—elongating unnaturally, edges pulling like taffy. You stumbled backward, heart hammering, only to find him already inside.

“I’m Adrian,” he said, like that was enough explanation.

Your voice found itself, sharper than you intended. “Who the hell are you? What’s happening?”

That smile didn’t falter. It only tilted. “Let’s call it… an unmaking. A re-threading. You’re lucky.” He looked you up and down—not lecherous, not kind. Just assessing. “You’re still loose. Most people get stitched right in.”

There was a sound behind Adrian—a wet, dragging scrape. Your eyes darted over his shoulder. The hallway behind him… wasn’t a hallway anymore.

It was a throat.

No, it was stitched like a throat, walls folding inwards, pulsing slightly as if the building itself were breathing wrong.

From within that fleshy tunnel, a Knot pulled itself into view.

It was human, once. Still had the suggestion of limbs, of skin. But now it was tangled—contorted like a ball of muscle and bone, threads of tendon sewing its mouth shut. It didn’t walk. It slithered, dragging itself forward by what was left of its hands.

You stumbled back, but Adrian moved first. His hand shot out, catching your chin and tilting it upward.

“Look at me,” he said softly, as if calming a panicked animal. “You don’t want to look at the Knots. They get inside your seeing.”

The Knot made a squelching sound, wet and desperate, as if trying to speak through its sewn mouth.

“I said look at me,” Adrian repeated, tone calm, but now his fingers dug into your jaw—just enough to hurt. “I’m not going to drag you through this if you can’t hold eye contact.”

Adrian’s eyes weren’t warm. They weren’t kind. But they were anchored. In a world where walls throbbed and people untangled, his gaze was terrifyingly human.

“This is a looped space,” Adrian explained, releasing your chin, but staying too close. “The Entity’s pulling the threads tight. We’re inside its stitching zone. You stay here, you get woven in. Understand?”

Your heart was pounding. “I don’t understand anything.”

Adrian’s smile widened. He liked that answer.

“Good. Means you’re still sane.”

The Knot scraped closer. The air around it rippled, and your vision blurred, as if the creature’s presence was re-threading reality around it.

Adrian’s hand closed around your wrist—cool, but decisive. “Walk with me, or stay and become something beautiful and useless. Your call.”

You yanked your wrist back on instinct. Adrian let go, but that damn smile didn’t budge. “You’ll learn,” he said. “Choice is just a polite word for delay.”