Veins of Sleep
Eli woke to silence.
Not the kind found in hospitals or empty rooms—but the kind that presses. The kind that feels alive.
His eyes fluttered open.
The first thing he saw was Sky, asleep in the chair beside his bed. A soft blue light from the hallway pooled under the door, casting long shadows across the room.
He shifted slightly, wincing at the ache in his skull. His nose had stopped bleeding, but his throat was raw, and his limbs felt leaden.
He was alive.
But he did not feel alone.
Something was still inside him—like a splinter left after the wound closed.
---
Across town, the others hadn't slept either.
Nori sat in her bedroom with every mirror covered, including her phone. She kept feeling things just out of frame, as if her own reflection was trying to breathe without her.
Jess had started drawing again.
She didn't know why.
Her hands moved on their own—pages filling with black ink shapes. Circles. Children with eyeless faces. And always, somewhere in the background, the chair.
Max had gone quiet.
Too quiet.
He stayed outside most nights now, watching the sky, tracing the thin red threads no one else could see.
And Lumen… Lumen had stopped going home entirely.
He stayed close to the hospital.
Close to Eli.
---
At 2:37 a.m., Eli sat up straight in bed.
His breath caught.
There was something in the room.
He didn't see it—but he felt it. The air around him shimmered, and the shadows grew sharper.
Across from him, the built-in mirror of the cabinet began to ripple—like the surface of a pond touched by a single drop of water.
He tried to call out, but his voice failed him.
Then—
A hand touched the inside of the mirror.
Pale.
Small.
Followed by a second hand. And then—
A face.
His own.
But not his.
Its eyes were black.
Mouth smiling too wide.
And behind it… the chair.
Always the chair.
The boy was no longer coming.
He had arrived.
---
A heartbeat later, Sky woke with a jolt.
Eli was still sitting up—eyes locked on the mirror.
"Eli?" Sky whispered.
But Eli didn't move.
He was staring into the glass, lips parted.
On the inside of the mirror, the other-Eli grinned.
And scrawled four words in white fog across the glass:
"Not dreaming. Not yet."
Then he vanished.
---
Sky turned on every light. Pried the mirror off the wall and threw it across the room.
Only then did Eli blink, shivering.
"It's not just me," he whispered.
Sky's blood ran cold. "What do you mean?"
Eli looked up, voice hoarse.
"He's not trying to possess anyone anymore."
Pause.
"He's trying to build us."
---
Across town, Max opened his eyes.
He wasn't in his backyard anymore.
He was in the woods.
At the base of the hill where the mirror first stood cracked and humming.
Only now—
It wasn't cracked anymore.
It was whole.
And it was waiting.