In the shadows of the hallway, a small figure stood perfectly still. It was a girl in a white dress, her hair matted and her eyes like two voids of endless black. Refaat blinked, rubbing his weary eyes behind thick spectacles. When he looked again, she was gone, leaving behind only a faint, rhythmic tapping sound— tap, tap, tap —like a heartbeat against the floorboards.
"My brain is playing tricks," he muttered, his voice raspy from years of smoke. "Hypnogogic hallucinations. Lack of sleep. Stress." In the shadows of the hallway, a small
But the mansion didn't care for his logic. As he ventured deeper, the temperature plummeted. He found himself in a room filled with clocks, hundreds of them, all frozen at exactly 3:15. Suddenly, they began to tick in unison, a deafening roar of mechanical judgment. The walls began to bleed a dark, viscous ink, and the floor tilted as if the house itself were gasping for air. When he looked again, she was gone, leaving
From the darkness, the girl reappeared. She wasn't a ghost in the traditional sense; she was a memory made manifest, a jagged piece of a tragedy that Refaat had tried to bury decades ago. Her name was Shiraz. Lack of sleep