Jenna spent the entire afternoon trying to understand the photographs.
She checked the file information.
The pictures had been taken that same day.
But she hadn't taken them.
She tried tracking the location of the last photograph.
Her phone froze.
The screen went black.
Then it came back.
For a few seconds, strange images flashed across it.
The rooftop.
The black hole.
The old photograph.
A room filled with machines.
A girl standing in front of a mirror.
Then the phone became hot in her hand.
She dropped it onto the table.
When she picked it up again, the screen was cracked.
Something small had fallen out from underneath the phone case.
A piece of paper.
Three numbers.
Jenna called her parents.
No answer.
She called again.
Nothing.
She didn't want to go home.
So she went to a café instead.
She sat near the window and tried to calm herself down.
Then she saw the woman.
The same woman from the old photograph.
Jenna stood so quickly that her chair nearly fell.
"Wait!"
The woman walked outside.
Jenna followed her.
But by the time she reached the street, the woman was gone.
Jenna looked around.
Nothing.
She slowly turned toward a shop window.
Her reflection stared back at her.
Then it smiled.
Jenna didn't.
She stepped backward.
The reflection stopped smiling.
Jenna stared at it.
Maybe she was exhausted.
Maybe she needed sleep.
Maybe the divorce had affected her more than she realised.
She tried to think rationally.
Then a memory suddenly came back.
A white room.
A bright light above her.
Someone speaking.
"Jenna, if you wake up before 3:17…"
The voice stopped.
Then:
"Don't open your eyes."
Jenna blinked.
She was standing in the middle of the street.
She looked at the time.
3:16.
She didn't remember walking there.
Her feet were facing home.
She tried to turn around.
She couldn't.
By the time she reached the house, every window was dark.
Then one by one, they lit up.
The bedroom.
The kitchen.
The hallway.
The living room.
Every window except one.
The locked room upstairs.
Its window was open.
And someone was standing inside.