Lena barely slept that night. Every time she shut her eyes, she thought about the Keeper list—and the empty space after her grandfather's name.
Around 3 in the morning, her bathroom mirror fogged up, even though her apartment was freezing. Slowly, words formed in the steam:
Five nights remain.
She wiped the mirror, but her reflection stayed fuzzy. And for a split second, she saw something behind her—tall, stretched out, face drooping like melting wax. She spun around.
No one.
The book by her bed had flipped to a new chapter: The Watchers. A creepy drawing of the shadow figure stared up at her. Underneath were the words:
The Last Witness sees everything. It walks behind the Keeper. It writes while you sleep.
The next morning wasn't any better. At work, the old microfilm machine powered on by itself, showing a newspaper from 1898. It told the story of a librarian who drowned in her own inkwell. In the photo? That same shadowy figure, standing in the background.
Her boss looked worried. "Lena, maybe go home. You don't look so good."
, her apartment door was wide open. Inside, every shiny surface—her phone, the TV, the toaster—was playing the same video on a loop: a gaunt figure hunched over a sleeping woman's bed, its long fingers ready to write in a book that looked a little too familiar.
She screamed. The screens went black. The real book sat quietly on her coffee table, but a new line was fading into view:
Dr. Varrick. Tonight. Fire (asleep). Cause: spoke secrets.
Lena panicked. She called him. No answer. His landlady finally picked up, crying.
"Such a terrible fire… electrical, they said. He never woke up."
Then the call went quiet. And after a moment, a strange, wet clicking sound came through—like someone licking their teeth.
Lena threw the phone across the room.
She turned back to the book. A red checkmark had appeared next to Varrick's name. Her own name glowed even brighter underneath.
Something warm dropped onto her hand.
She looked up.
The ceiling above her bed was bleeding.
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