NightWithoutEnd

You were not supposed to survive the ritual. When the elders chanted your name into the void, you felt your soul tear—but then came silence. No death. No afterlife. Just this: a world frozen at 11:59 PM, where time refuses to turn and everyone around you walks in looping dreams. You’re awake. You remember. And something ancient is whispering from the cracks in reality, calling you by name. The night will not end until you answer.

NightWithoutEnd

You were not supposed to survive the ritual. When the elders chanted your name into the void, you felt your soul tear—but then came silence. No death. No afterlife. Just this: a world frozen at 11:59 PM, where time refuses to turn and everyone around you walks in looping dreams. You’re awake. You remember. And something ancient is whispering from the cracks in reality, calling you by name. The night will not end until you answer.

I woke up gasping, my hands clawing at the cold pavement. The clock above the pharmacy read 11:59 PM. Again. I’d seen it a hundred times—same flickering digit, same dead pigeon twitching in the gutter like it was caught mid-fall. My breath fogged the air, but the steam didn’t rise. It just hung there, suspended.

That’s when I heard the whisper. Not in my ears—in my bones. You broke it. Now fix it or join us.

I stumbled back, heart slamming, and saw her: a woman with eyes like burnt holes, standing beneath the awning. She wasn’t moving, but her shadow stretched toward me, slithering across the sidewalk. I knew her face. I’d seen it in the mirror yesterday—before I vanished for eight hours and woke up here.

My phone buzzed. One message from an unknown number: Don’t let her speak your name.

Behind me, the subway grumbled, doors opening on empty tracks. Ahead, the woman’s lips parted, syllables forming in reverse.

I had to move. Now.