The digital numbers on the microwave bled into the silence of the apartment.
02:56:40
The Auditor in the yellow raincoat didn't lower its arm. The pale, dripping finger remained locked onto the narrow hallway that led to Mac's bedroom.
Mac stared at the raincoat, his breathing shallow and rapid. He couldn't stay in the living room for three hours. The evaluation wasn't a waiting game; it was an audit. Crimson Cross wanted to see how he operated under extreme, targeted psychological pressure. Standing still wasn't going to save him.
He had to clear his domain.
Mac swallowed the knot of terror lodged in his throat and took a step toward the hallway.
Squelch.
The heavy, wet footstep directly behind his heel sounded instantly. The entity didn't lag. It moved with him perfectly, maintaining a distance of exactly zero inches. The freezing air radiating from its unseen body seeped through the thick canvas of Mac's jacket, chilling the sweat on his spine.
He took another step. Then another.
Step. Squelch. Step. Squelch.
"You shouldn't go in there," the guttural voice rasped directly into his right ear. It was so close he could hear the wet parting of its lips, the sticky smack of saliva. "They brought something back from the warehouse. Just for you."
Mac locked his jaw. Do not acknowledge. He focused all his mental energy on the peeling floral wallpaper of the short hallway ahead. He didn't blink. He didn't let his eyes dart to the corners to catch a shadow. He walked with the stiff, unnatural gait of a man navigating a minefield.
He reached the end of the hall. His bedroom door was closed.
It was a cheap, hollow-core door with a faux-wood finish. Usually, it hung slightly crooked on its hinges. Today, it was perfectly flush with the frame.
Mac raised his right hand, reaching for the brass doorknob. His fingers were trembling so badly they vibrated in the sickly, yellow light filtering from the living room.
Just as his fingertips brushed the cold metal, another hand reached out from over his right shoulder.
It was bloated, a sickly greyish-blue, and entirely covered in dark, foul-smelling water. The skin was sloughing off the knuckles in wet strips.
The dead hand clamped firmly down over Mac's hand, pinning his fingers against the doorknob.
The shock of the freezing, wet flesh sent a violent jolt of pure adrenaline straight into Mac's heart. His entire body convulsed. A sharp gasp tore through his clenched teeth before he could stop it.
The thing directly behind him leaned in, pressing its cold, wet chest flush against Mac's back.
"Did you say something, Maclin?" the voice whispered, the tone suddenly razor-sharp and eager. "Are you talking to me?"
The microwave clock ticked in the distance.
Mac squeezed his eyes shut. A single tear of pure, agonizing terror leaked from the corner of his eye, tracking hot down his cheek. He had gasped. Was a gasp an acknowledgment? Was it a reaction?
He forced his lungs to expand, drawing in a slow, measured breath of the putrid air. He didn't answer. He didn't try to pull his hand away.
Instead, he pushed forward.
Using his own trembling hand, heavily weighted by the bloated, dead flesh pressing down on top of it, Mac twisted the brass doorknob. The metal clicked.
He pushed the door inward.
The dead hand slid off his, retreating back over his shoulder into the unseen void behind him.
Mac opened his eyes and stepped into his bedroom.
The layout was the same. His cheap dresser was still pressed against the left wall. The small closet door was shut. But the atmosphere was fundamentally wrong. The single window, which normally looked out over the apartment complex parking lot, was entirely boarded up from the inside with heavy, rotting planks of wood and thick, rusty nails.
There was no light source in the room, save for the sickly yellow glow spilling in from the hallway behind him.
And in the center of the room, resting on his small, unmade mattress, was a massive, squirming lump hidden beneath his grey comforter.
The lump was the size of a full-grown man curled into the fetal position. As Mac stood frozen in the doorway, the blanket slowly rose and fell.
In... out. In... out.
It was breathing. But it wasn't the wet, guttural breathing of the entity behind him. This breathing was panicked. It was a rapid, shallow hyperventilation, muffled by the heavy fabric.
Mac felt the cold breath on the back of his neck again.
"Pull the blanket back," the voice behind him commanded, the layered, watery tones vibrating with malicious glee. "See what the company brought you. See the bonus."
Mac didn't move. His eyes remained locked on the squirming grey comforter.
The shape underneath suddenly thrashed violently, kicking against the sheets. A muffled, desperate scream tore through the fabric—a human scream.
It was Elias's voice.
"Help me!" the muffled voice shrieked from under the blanket. "Maclin! I'm still alive! They're burning me! Pull it off! Please, just pull the blanket off!"
Mac's blood turned to ice. He had watched Elias get dragged into the dark by the man in the black suit. He had heard the sickening snap. But Crimson Cross didn't deal in clean deaths. They dealt in endless, agonizing labor.
The lump thrashed again, rolling toward the edge of the mattress. A hand—a perfectly human hand wearing a frayed grey suit sleeve—shot out from beneath the edge of the comforter, clutching the bedsheets in a white-knuckled grip.
"I'll give you the Choice!" Elias screamed, the sound muffled and distorted. "I know how to beat the third pull! Just uncover my face!"
Mac took a half-step forward, his survival instinct warring with his basic human empathy. If Elias was really under there, if he actually knew how to beat the Audit...
The entity behind Mac mirrored his half-step perfectly. Squelch.
"Do it," the voice behind him hissed softly. "Uncover him. Save your friend."
Mac stopped.
He stared at the desperate, thrashing hand clutching his bedsheets. He looked at the heavy, black clipboard still gripped in his left hand.
Rule 1: Do not acknowledge the person standing behind you.
That was the only rule. There were no instructions about a body in the bed. There were no instructions about boarded-up windows.
The entity behind him was pushing him to do it. It wanted him to pull the blanket back.
Mac slowly lowered his right hand to his side. He didn't step toward the bed. Instead, he forced his voice to remain dead-level, staring at the blank wall directly above the headboard.
"I am conducting a standard visual inspection of the domain," Mac announced to the empty room, speaking loudly and formally, ignoring the thrashing man on the bed and the monster breathing down his neck. "The room is secure. No anomalies detected."
The thrashing under the blanket instantly stopped.
The human hand in the grey suit sleeve went entirely rigid. Then, with a sickening, wet slurp, the hand rapidly melted, dissolving into a puddle of thick, black oil that soaked immediately into the mattress.
The grey comforter flattened out, empty.
The entity behind Mac let out a sound of pure, venomous frustration—a low, mechanical grinding noise that shook the floorboards.
Mac had passed the test. He hadn't fallen for the bait.
But as the heavy silence returned to the bedroom, the door to his small closet slowly creaked open on its own.