chapter 42: The Empty Room

Nathan stood before the door, heart hammering against his ribs. The air around him was thick, suffocating, as if the very walls of the factory were holding their breath. He had been avoiding this room, skirting past it in the maze of rusted corridors, but now there was no other way forward. The handle was ice-cold beneath his fingers.

The door creaked open, revealing nothing but darkness. His flashlight flickered, the beam swallowed as if light itself was unwelcome. Nathan stepped inside, the silence pressing against his skull. It was an empty room—at least, that's what it wanted him to believe.

As he took another step, the door slammed shut behind him.

Nathan spun around, his breath catching. His flashlight flickered again, and in that brief moment of darkness, the room shifted. When the beam returned, he was no longer alone.

Figures lined the walls, their forms barely distinguishable from the shadows. They stood motionless, their faces obscured. He couldn't tell if they were watching him or if they even had eyes at all. A whisper slithered through the air.

"You shouldn't have come here."

Nathan swallowed hard, gripping his flashlight like a weapon. The figures didn't move, but their presence gnawed at the edges of his sanity. He turned, trying to find an exit, but the room had changed. The door was gone. The walls had stretched, the corners fading into a void that seemed to pulse like a living thing.

Then, something moved.

A figure detached itself from the wall, stepping forward in an unnatural, jerking motion. Its limbs twitched, its body flickering between shapes as if it couldn't decide what it was supposed to be. A distorted version of a voice—his mother's voice—echoed from its shifting form.

"Nathan… help us."

He staggered back, bile rising in his throat. "No. You're not real."

The thing laughed, a hollow, fractured sound. "Aren't we?"

Another step forward. Nathan's flashlight dimmed, the shadows closing in. He felt a pressure on his skull, a force trying to pry open his mind. Images assaulted him—his mother, her face twisted in fear; his father, swallowed by darkness; himself, standing in this very room, but not as he was now. A different version of him. A version that had never left.

A hand shot out from the dark, fingers brushing against his wrist. Ice flooded his veins. He yanked back, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The figures surrounding him began to move, slow and deliberate, their forms warping with each step.

Nathan clenched his fists, grounding himself. This was the factory's trick. It fed on fear, on despair. He forced himself to think, to push past the rising panic. There had to be a way out.

The diary.

His mother's words had warned him. This place thrived on manipulation. He reached into his jacket, fingers brushing against the worn pages. As he pulled it out, the whispers grew frantic, the figures hesitating.

Nathan flipped through the pages, scanning for the passage he needed. His mother had written about a room that was never empty, about illusions, about confronting the past instead of running from it. His hands shook as he found the words, barely able to speak them aloud.

"This place is a lie."

The figures trembled, their forms unraveling. The air grew thick with an ear-piercing wail. Nathan pushed forward, forcing himself to walk through them, to confront them. "You're not real," he whispered again. "And you won't take me."

The walls began to crumble. The figures shrieked, their voices merging into one distorted howl. The darkness thinned, the heavy presence lifting from his chest. Then, like a dream dissolving upon waking, the room snapped back to reality.

The door reappeared.

Nathan didn't hesitate. He bolted toward it, shoving it open and stumbling into the corridor beyond. The air was clearer here, the weight of unseen eyes lifting. He turned back, half expecting the figures to emerge, but the room was just that—a room. Empty. Harmless.

Except he knew better.

Nathan swallowed and pressed forward. The factory was far from done with him.