Rina didn't sleep that night. She sat on her bed, gripping Mika's notebook, listening to the scratching beneath her floorboards. It was slow and rhythmic, like fingernails dragging along wood.
By 2 AM, the sounds changed—now more like whispers trapped in glass. They weren't in any language she understood, but her skin crawled with every syllable.
Driven by fear and something deeper—curiosity or madness—she grabbed a flashlight and pried open a loose floor panel. Beneath was pitch-black space, deeper than it should've been. She leaned in and called softly, "Mika?"
No answer. Just silence.
Then, a hand.
Small, pale fingers shot up and grabbed her wrist.
Rina screamed and yanked back, falling across her bed. But the hand didn't follow. It slowly withdrew into the darkness, leaving behind a scrap of paper on the floor. She crawled toward it.
> "They live in the empty spaces. Beneath names. Behind walls. Beneath floors. They only wear faces to speak."
The handwriting was hers.
The next morning, Rina tried to talk to her classmates, but they barely acknowledged her. Even the teacher avoided her gaze. It was like she was fading—becoming something less than real.
In a desperate move, she skipped school and returned to the room under the floor. She brought a candle this time, lit it, and lowered herself into the dark space.
It was not a crawlspace. It was a room.
Covered in mirrors.
Hundreds of them. And in each reflection, she saw herself—but twisted. Older. Younger. Eyeless. Smiling. Screaming.
In the center of the room was a mirror turned backward. She walked to it, trembling. When she turned it around, her reflection blinked.
Then smiled.
And said, "You're late. You were supposed to scream yesterday."