Days passed, and Ivan moved through them at a strange rhythm.
He would sit in the back, with a hollow ache in his chest that would only quiet when he was alone, staring into the darkness.
The next day, he found himself standing in front of the bathroom mirror again.
He stared at his reflection, searching for something. A change in his eyes. A change in his skin. But all he could see was himself—tired, pale, ordinary.
A faint impact from the hallway made him jump.
He stood completely still, listening. It wasn't a heavy sound. It was the sound of something small landing on the floor, followed by a faint scratching.
"Gylou?"
There was no response.
He stepped out of the bathroom into the hallway. The house was silent, but the air felt heavy. He followed the sound toward the living room, his heart pounding hard against his ribs.
There, on the carpet in front of the couch, was a small wooden box.
The box was simple, made of dark wood, with no symbols or raised edges.
His hand hovered over it, his fingers trembling. The scratching stopped.
The house was completely silent, the kind of silence that felt as though it were holding its breath.
He picked it up. The wood was warm against his palm.
As he turned it over, he noticed something carved into the bottom—a symbol.
Two interlocking circles. One jagged and broken, the other smooth and complete.
The two worlds.
A sudden chill swept through the room, and the light from the window seemed to dim, as though a cloud had passed over the sun.
Ivan's breath stopped.
He felt it again—that heavy, expectant pressure in the air, the sensation that he was being watched from somewhere.
He didn't lift the lid.
It melted.
One moment, the wood was solid. The next, its surface collapsed like mist.
Ivan held his breath.
Inside the box, there was no bottom.
There was only an eye.
It was enormous, filling the entire hollow of the box. Its purple-and-gold color seemed to shift with every beat of Ivan's heart. Long, dark lashes curled around the edges of the hollow, and its pupil was wide, fixed entirely upon him.
It did not blink.
It only watched.
A wave of heat burst from the box, pressing against Ivan's face. He tried to pull his hand away, but his fingers felt frozen against the wood, held in place by a force he could not escape.
The world turned over.
The living room, the sunlight, the wooden box—everything slid sideways as though the ground had turned to water.
His heartbeat stopped.
He suddenly collapsed onto the couch, unable even to draw enough air into his lungs to scream.
The eye in the box stared at him with that same intensity.
As Ivan's vision began to blur at the edges, he realized with horror that the eye wasn't merely watching him.
It was looking into his soul, following his eyes.
The purple-and-gold iris contracted, and the pupil widened until it swallowed the color completely.
A voice.
Soft.
Scratching inside his skull.
"Let him in."
Ivan's fingers trembled.
A violent, involuntary spasm tore his hand away from the box.
He collapsed onto the floor, his cheek pressing against the cold wood. His lungs burned as he struggled to breathe.
The eye in the box blinked.
Slowly, the eyelid lowered and rose once.
When it opened again, the purple-and-gold color had settled into something more focused, more deliberate.
"You're late."
The purple-and-gold iris didn't merely contract—it expanded.
The pupil grew with impossible speed, swallowing Ivan whole.
The living room disappeared.
The couch, the sunlight, the wooden box—gone.
He was suspended in an absolute void, a heavy, crushing darkness pressing against his skin from every direction.
There was no floor beneath him.
No ceiling above.
There was only the sensation of falling, even though he wasn't moving.
The darkness changed.
Not with the return of light, but with movement within the darkness.
Something vast and slow passed beside him.