Clara Bennett woke with a start, her head pounding and her vision blurred. She was sitting in a vinyl booth at a diner, the kind you’d find off a deserted highway. The faint hum of an overhead light buzzed in her ears, and the smell of burnt coffee filled her nostrils.
Her watch read 3:03 AM.
She frowned. The last thing she remembered was driving home after visiting her parents. She’d been on the road for hours, her car’s headlights cutting through the thick fog that seemed to come out of nowhere. Then… nothing.
The diner was empty. A plate of half-eaten pancakes sat across the table, and a steaming cup of coffee rested in front of her. The cup was chipped, the contents swirling as though recently stirred.
“Hello?” Clara called, her voice breaking the silence. No answer.
The windows were pitch black, no reflection, no sign of the outside world. She slid out of the booth, her boots clunking against the tiled floor. The jukebox in the corner emitted a soft static, its colorful lights flickering weakly.
Clara approached the counter, her fingers brushing against the cold metal surface. “Anyone here?” she called again.
The kitchen door creaked open. Her heart leapt as she spun toward the sound, but the doorway was empty. A faint smell of rotting meat wafted out, and Clara’s stomach turned.
She stepped cautiously toward the door, peering inside. The kitchen was a mess. Piles of dirty dishes cluttered the counters, and the sink overflowed with murky water. On the far wall, a clock hung crookedly, its hands stuck at 3:03. The dim, flickering bulb overhead cast elongated shadows that seemed to twitch unnaturally.
“Is anyone here?” Clara’s voice cracked as it echoed off the grimy tiles.
Clara turned back to the diner and froze. The booth she’d been sitting in was gone. In its place was an empty space, as if it had never existed. The entire layout seemed subtly wrong—tables misaligned, walls closer than before.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose. “This isn’t real,” she whispered to herself, her voice trembling. “This can’t be real.”
The jukebox crackled, and a song began to play—an old, scratchy tune she couldn’t place. The words were faint, distorted, but unmistakable: “Don’t go… don’t go…”
Clara backed away, her breaths coming in short gasps. She stumbled toward the door, yanking it open. Instead of the parking lot she expected, she was met with more darkness. An endless void stretched before her, swallowing the light spilling out from the diner. The absence of sound was deafening.
“No,” she muttered, slamming the door shut. “No, no, no.”
When she turned around, the diner had changed again. The booths were all gone now, replaced by rows of identical tables, each set with an empty plate and a knife positioned perfectly in the center. The walls seemed closer, the ceiling lower, as though the room was shrinking around her.
She felt a vibration in her pocket and pulled out her phone. The screen was blank. No apps, no time, no signal. Just an empty white glow. It vibrated again, and words began to appear:
WHERE ARE YOU?
Her fingers trembled as she dropped the phone in shock. It clattered to the floor, the screen going dark. The light in the diner dimmed, casting everything in a sickly yellow hue.
A laugh echoed through the diner, low and guttural. Clara spun around, searching for the source, but she was alone. The laughter grew louder, mingling with whispers that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Each voice spoke in an overlapping, indecipherable chant that crawled under her skin.
“Who’s there?” she demanded, her voice cracking. Her fists clenched tightly, but she felt powerless.
The whispers stopped. In their place, a single voice emerged, soft and deliberate: “You can’t leave.”
The room tilted. Clara clutched the counter to steady herself, her vision swimming. When she looked up, she was back in the booth she’d woken up in. The plate of pancakes and steaming coffee were there again, exactly as she’d first seen them.
Her watch still read 3:03.
Clara grabbed the coffee and flung it across the room. The cup shattered against the wall, the liquid dripping like black ink. “What do you want from me?” she screamed.
The jukebox answered, its static warping into a voice: “Follow the spiral.”
On the floor, the shattered pieces of the cup had arranged themselves into a spiral shape, glowing faintly. Clara stared at it, her pulse racing. She didn’t want to touch it, but the pull was irresistible.
She reached out.
The moment her fingers brushed the spiral, the diner dissolved around her. She was standing in a forest now, the towering trees shrouded in mist. The air was cold and damp, the ground soft beneath her feet. The distant hoot of an owl echoed, though the sound was warped, almost mechanical. In the distance, she saw it: a faint red glow pulsing in the fog.
Her watch ticked forward for the first time, the hands now pointing to 3:04.
Clara took a hesitant step toward the glow. The whispers were back, louder this time, urging her forward. With each step, the fog thickened, and the trees seemed to close in. She didn’t know what she’d find, but she knew one thing for certain: whatever was waiting for her, it was only the beginning.
Clara’s foot caught on a root, and she fell forward, landing hard on the damp ground. She winced, her palms scraping against the dirt. When she looked up, she noticed faint symbols etched into the trees around her—spirals carved deeply into the bark, glowing with the same faint red light. They seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat.
She stood, brushing herself off, and hesitated. The forest’s silence was suffocating, broken only by the distant hum of the glow ahead. Her instincts screamed at her to turn back, but she couldn’t. Something pulled her forward, a force she couldn’t resist.
As she neared the light, she saw its source: a massive stone archway, ancient and covered in moss. At its center was another spiral, larger and brighter than the others, pulsating like a living thing. Clara felt her breath hitch as she stepped closer, her watch ticking again.
The hands now pointed to 3:05.
End of Story
