It was nearly midnight when my phone rang — a private number.

I stared at the screen. I never answer unknown calls. But something in my gut told me to pick up.

There was no one on the other end — just a static hum… and then a voicemail notification appeared.

I opened it.

> “Ella... don’t come looking for me. I’m in Room 47. They... they never left.”

The voice stopped me cold.

It was my brother, Liam.

He disappeared five years ago.

And the strangest part?

The voicemail was recorded just an hour ago.

---

I spent years accepting that he was gone. Missing persons reports. Endless police searches. A dead end.

We had last seen him outside St. Virgil’s Hospital, a mental health facility closed down in 1993.

But we never found the hospital again. Not on Google Maps. Not even in town records.

Everyone told me I imagined it.

---

Now, with this message, I was staring at the impossible.

I dug up his old journals. On the last page, a hand-drawn map.

It led through the woods.

To a clearing.

To nothing... or what used to be a hospital.

But that night, under a full moon, I saw it — the building was back.

It was real.

---

I pushed open the rusted door.

Dust. Darkness. Whispers.

Room 47.

It was at the end of a long hallway with peeling white walls and a flickering bulb above the door.

I stepped in.

And there he was.

Liam.

He hadn’t aged a day.

---

> “Ella,” he said, his eyes wide.

“You shouldn't have come. They’ll never let you leave now.”

Before I could speak, the door slammed shut behind me.

Lights went out.

I turned my phone flashlight on.

The room was empty.

Liam was gone.

All that remained was a voice whispering from every corner:

> “Another one… for Room 47.”

---

🌟 The End

Life is collectively referred to as a dark fantasy, although many of us attempt incorporating ideas in our head, searching for ways to escape reality. I for one believe anything that can befriend you, can kill.

Every creature has a dark side but mine doesn't have my best interests at heart, I mumble short prayers, locking all the doors and windows shut.

Every step I took upstairs, made the wooden stairs creek, I keep having this feeling am been followed but every time I look back, am left with goosebumps and my head increasing in size.

I swallowed an imaginary saliva down my throat and continue walking up slowly otherwise I will freak out and run upstairs, that will mess up my night.

If you know anything about darkness, you'll know it leaves no room for the weakest heart. This foreign presence happens whenever am home alone, I made a research on the life beyond and discovered that the level of one's fear determines how far we're willing to let the darkness in.

I gently crawl under the duvet and sleep on my right side facing the door, my heartbeat was accelerating, you could hear every beat of it. 2,3,4 minutes later, the gruesome feeling was gone and I accidentally took a nap that lasted for two minutes until my ears picked a creaking footstep 👣 approaching in the direction of my room, dragging a metal object on the wall,  I froze on the bed.

I searched for my phone under the duvet and my eyes found it far on the table which was close to the door, this wasn't a normal circumstance so,  my mind is blank.

"Do you wanna play", the voice said, sounding distant but very  near. That was when I remembered all the short phrases used in horror movies, I stupidly find myself screaming them one by one.

Is anyone out there?

"Who the hell are you?"

Show yourself coward.

"What do you want from me?"

The noise died down and just when I thought it's over, the door to my room was kicked open with full force.

A group of astronauts were just about to embark on a routine space mission when a massive, unexpected surge of energy tore open a rift in time and space.

Enkirion and a group of unlikely allies find themselves on the edge of nowhere, a world that underwent the banishment protocol, purposefully lost within the void. It's people long dead, defenders slain, Enkiron's own people amongst them, he has purposefully returned to this tombworld in the search for a seemingly innocuous book, the Akayo, whose pages hold the answer to a riddle he's been looking for for over a millennia.

Yet this tombworld isn't as dead as Enkirion had hoped, within its depths a terror survives, sleeping, waiting, and now disturbed by him and his companions, the race is on.

Can he and his companions find the Akayo before the terror that slew this world finds them? Or will their bones join the countless many that remain unburied in the open grave this world has become?

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Happy days with Jeremy haunted Jessica's memory as she considered her life without him. The song Auld Lang Syne meant a lot to them in happier days. But the loss of her husband during the war affected her deeply. It was a struggle to live without him. Unable to bare it any longer, Jessica cannot endure. The song returned to her on New Year's Eve, bringing to life her frustrations and her inability to endure.

He will give me what I want most in the world, but in return, he will kill me.

*******

Alpha Damon was the hottest, strongest, most infamous Alpha in the entire state of Maine, but he also had a weakness.

And only I knew it.

At just six years old, I made a blood pact with Damon. I was sad and upset after my father's recent passing, and in order to make me feel better, seven-year-old Damon made a blood pact with me; he promised me that he would protect me from harm, until we found my father's killer.

But that was before he found out what I was.

It has been years... years of us apart. Not until my fateful day came, and when my life was in danger, he finally showed himself.

That was when my life took a turn, I found out what he really wanted.

And this is where the hunt began.

***** this is part of The Crush Saga but is a side novel, this can be read whenever with or without reading The Crush Saga, although Damon and Winter's story is continued in The Crush Saga****

Some thoughts.

Some thoughts.

A dream I had.

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The Climb tells the gripping tale of 17 year old Stevo Vermaak, a passionate and determined young climber who sets off to conquer Mount Everest. His journey to the summit is filled with challenges, but the remains focused on his goal.