Chapter 1

217 6 1
                                    

Kozio takes another hesitant step, his shoes sinking slightly into the frozen ground beneath him. His breath is shallow, the cold air biting at his lungs. He doesn’t understand how he got here why everything looks like his school but wrong. The shadows on the walls seem to shift as he passes them, and the distant whispers grow louder, incomprehensible and maddening.

Suddenly, he hears a faint, metallic clang echoing down the hall a sound that shouldn’t exist in this frozen, dead place. His pulse quickens, and his eyes dart around, searching for the source. The fog thickens, blurring the walls, twisting the familiar lockers into shadowy shapes that loom over him. Each step feels like it's taking him deeper into a void, and no matter how far he walks, the hallway never seems to end.

A cold sweat breaks out on his forehead. He feels the overwhelming sense that something is watching him something unseen, lurking just beyond the mist. He turns a corner, and in the distance, barely visible through the fog, he sees a figure standing in the hallway. It’s motionless, staring directly at him with empty eyes that seem to pierce right through him.

Fear paralyzes him, rooting him to the spot. The figure doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe it’s as if it’s waiting for him. With a shaky breath, Kozio takes a step back, but the moment he does, the figure lurches forward, its movements jerky and unnatural. Panic floods his senses, and he spins around, running blindly down the hall as fast as he can, the cold air slicing at his face.

The whispers are deafening now growing louder, merging into a chaotic cacophony that drowns out his own thoughts. He feels like he’s being chased, but when he glances back, there’s nothing there only the shadows and the cold, creeping darkness.

Then, abruptly, the ground beneath him gives way. He’s falling, plummeting into a black abyss, his heart pounding in his chest. The cold air rushes past him, and he can’t breathe can’t scream. All he can do is fall, endlessly, the shadows closing in around him until there’s nothing left but the sound of his own heartbeat.

Kozio jerks awake with a strangled gasp, his eyes flying open to the harsh fluorescent light of the classroom. His heart is still racing, his breath hitching as he looks around, dazed and disoriented. He’s back in his seat, his notebook open in front of him, the scrawl of his own writing barely legible on the page.

The classroom is exactly as he left it—quiet and mundane, the other students absorbed in their work. But the dream the nightmare feels too real, and he can’t shake the lingering dread that clings to his mind. His hands are trembling, and he grips the edge of the desk, trying to steady himself.

He glances around, but no one seems to notice his distress. The world feels distant and hazy, as if the nightmare hasn’t fully released its grip on him. The memory of the figure, the mist, the whispers it all lingers in the back of his mind like a shadow, refusing to fade.

Kozio takes a deep breath, pressing a hand to his chest to slow his racing heart. It was just a dream he tells himself over and over a nightmare, nothing more. But as he shifts in his seat, the chill from the dream still seems to cling to him, as if he’s brought a piece of that darkness back with him into the waking world.

The bell rings, and he quickly gathers his things, avoiding the gaze of the other students as he makes his way out of the classroom. His mind is still heavy with the remnants of the nightmare, and he can’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t just a dream that something from that twisted, frozen world is following him, waiting just beyond his sight.

For the rest of the day, everything feels off like he’s stuck in a haze he can’t quite break free from. Even the colors of the world seem duller, the sounds muffled. But he forces himself to act normal, to go through the motions, ignoring the quiet voice in his mind that whispers that this isn’t over.

Resonance of Ruin - FPE OCWhere stories live. Discover now