Chapter 15: Cracks in Reality

The air inside the factory was different now—heavier, charged with an energy that pulsed beneath Nathan's skin. He could feel it in his bones, the sensation of being watched, of something lurking just beyond his line of sight. The walls seemed closer, pressing inward, breathing. Each step forward sent a ripple through the stillness, like a stone breaking the surface of a blackened pond.

The whispers had changed.

They were no longer distant, no longer just murmurs hidden in the wind. They spoke to him now, clearer than before, voices weaving together in a chaotic symphony. Nathan… deeper… closer… you see now, don't you?

His pulse pounded as he pressed forward through the dimly lit corridor, the old industrial lights above flickering erratically. The shadows between each flash stretched longer, moving when they shouldn't have. The factory had always felt wrong, but now it felt… aware.

Nathan reached a rusted metal door at the end of the hall, its frame warped as though something had tried to force its way through. His fingers trembled as he reached for the handle. The cold steel bit into his skin, sending a shudder up his arm.

The moment he pushed the door open, a wave of nausea hit him. The room inside wasn't right.

It was the same factory, the same machinery, the same broken remains of a forgotten past—yet everything was subtly… off. The floor slanted in ways that defied logic, the ceiling stretched impossibly high, and the air was thick with the scent of something damp and rotting. The space flickered, like a failing signal on a screen, shifting between what it was and what it should be.

Nathan took a shaky step inside, the ground beneath him feeling unsteady, as though reality itself was warping. His breath came in shallow gasps as he scanned the room, searching for something—anything—that made sense.

Then he saw it.

A figure stood at the far end of the room, its back turned to him. It was human—or at least, it looked human. The longer he stared, the less sure he was. Its limbs seemed too long, its posture slightly too stiff. And then it spoke, in a voice that made his stomach drop.

"You shouldn't be here."

Nathan's breath caught in his throat.

The voice was his own.

The figure turned, and Nathan felt his knees weaken. He was staring at himself.

But it wasn't him.

The reflection of Nathan had his face, his clothes, his eyes—but there was something missing. Its gaze was hollow, its expression eerily calm, void of emotion. The factory groaned around them, metal grinding against metal, as if the building itself was reacting to their meeting.

"You see it now, don't you?" The other Nathan tilted his head slightly, that blank, unsettling gaze never leaving him. "The cracks."

Nathan's mouth was dry, his mind racing to make sense of what he was seeing. "What are you?" he whispered.

The figure took a step forward. "I am what's left when the truth is torn apart."

The lights overhead flickered wildly, and for a brief second, Nathan saw something beyond the walls—something shifting beneath the surface of reality, as if the entire factory was layered over something deeper, something far worse.

He staggered back. "This isn't real."

His double smiled, and it was the most horrifying thing Nathan had ever seen. The expression was wrong—too wide, too sharp, like a mask barely holding back something inhuman.

"Real?" The voice echoed, distorted. "Reality cracked the moment you stepped inside."

The room lurched. The floor beneath him seemed to ripple like liquid, and suddenly, Nathan was falling.

Darkness swallowed him whole.

When he hit the ground, the impact knocked the breath from his lungs. He gasped, the cold seeping into his skin. He wasn't in the factory anymore.

Or maybe he was.

The space around him was vast and endless, an industrial nightmare stretching infinitely in all directions. The walls were fractured, splitting apart in jagged lines, revealing glimpses of something… beyond. Shadows moved within those cracks, writhing, whispering, watching.

Nathan struggled to his feet, his mind spiraling. The factory was no longer a place—it was a construct, a shifting labyrinth that bent reality itself. He clutched his mother's diary, desperate for any sense of stability. The pages fluttered in an unseen wind, the words twisting, reforming before his eyes.

You were never meant to leave.

Nathan's grip tightened. "No."

A sound—deep, guttural—rumbled from the distance. He turned, heart hammering, as something moved within the cracks. Not just a shadow. Not just a whisper.

Something alive.

It crawled forward, emerging from the broken reality, its form shifting, incomplete, as though it was still learning how to exist. It had no face, only a void where one should be, and yet Nathan felt its eyes on him.

Run.

The instinct kicked in before his mind could process it. He turned, sprinting toward a distant light, the only constant in this nightmare landscape. The whispers screamed now, the shadows reaching for him, the ground beneath him crumbling with every step.

He wasn't fast enough.

The thing lunged.

Pain—sharp, electric—shot through his skull as something cold wrapped around his ankle. He hit the ground hard, his vision flickering between the factory and the abyss, the boundaries between them breaking apart.

Nathan's scream was swallowed by the dark.

Then—

A door.

Hanging in the air, inches from his grasp. Old, wooden, familiar.

His childhood home.

With a final, desperate effort, Nathan reached forward, fingers brushing the handle.

The moment he made contact, everything snapped.

Nathan's eyes shot open. He was on the factory floor, gasping for air, his body drenched in sweat. The metal beams overhead groaned as if sighing in relief.

But something had changed.

The cracks were still there. Reality had not fully mended. The factory had shown him something—something it didn't mean for him to see.

And now, it would do anything to take it back.

Nathan swallowed hard, forcing himself to stand. The whispers had quieted, but he knew they weren't gone.

The factory was watching.

Waiting.

And the cracks… were growing.