The Man in the Black Coat

Daniel's fingers hovered over his phone screen, the glow of the text illuminating his dimly lit room.

Kaia's last message pulsed at him.

Kaia: Yes.

Kaia: The same man. The same black coat.

A chill ran down his spine.

His room felt too quiet, the kind of quiet that didn't belong. The distant hum of the television downstairs, the steady whir of his ceiling fan—normally comforting, now felt… artificial. As if the world itself was holding its breath.

He exhaled slowly, thumbs moving.

Daniel: Did he say anything?

Three dots appeared.

Stopped.

Started again.

Stopped.

A cold weight settled in his chest.

Then—another message.

Kaia: Look outside.

Daniel's breath caught.

No.

He didn't want to.

But he did.

Slowly, heart hammering, he got up, crossing the room on stiff legs. He parted the blinds with two fingers—

And froze.

There.

Beneath the flickering streetlamp, standing on the opposite side of the road, was the man.

Still. Silent. Watching.

The black coat draped over him like ink poured onto his frame, unmoving despite the wind. His face remained obscured by the shadows, yet Daniel felt his gaze, a pressure against his chest, heavier than sight.

This wasn't just a stranger.

This was him.

The thing from the unfinished world.

Daniel's pulse pounded.

Then—

The streetlamp flickered.

Just once.

And the man was gone.

Daniel staggered back, the air rushing from his lungs. His phone vibrated in his hand.

Kaia: He's gone now.

Daniel sat down hard on the edge of his bed, pressing his free hand to his forehead.

This was real.

The dream wasn't just bleeding into reality anymore.

It was taking shape.

*****

*The Next Morning*

Daniel barely slept. He sat at his desk, flipping through his notebook pages filled with half-remembered dreams, scattered symbols, and words he didn't recall writing. The mark on his wrist still burned.

When morning arrived, exhaustion clung to him like a second skin.

At the breakfast table, his mom gave him a concerned look as she slid eggs onto his plate. "Rough night?"

Daniel blinked at her, then nodded. "Yeah. Just… couldn't sleep."

Emily, his little sister, scooped a spoonful of cereal into her mouth. "Is this about the dream stuff again?"

He tensed. "What?"

Emily chewed loudly, then shrugged. "I hear you sometimes. When you wake up all weird. You talk in your sleep too."

Daniel's stomach tightened. "What do I say?"

She tilted her head. "Mostly just weird numbers. And names."

He swallowed.

His mom poured coffee into her mug. "You've always been a vivid dreamer," she said lightly. "Maybe cut back on the late-night movies?"

Daniel forced a weak smile, but his mind was already racing.

Emily had heard him talking. Saying names. What names? Could she have heard something important? something he couldn't remember after waking up?

The thought made his skin crawl.

The morning routine continued—Emily argued with their mom over packing extra cookies in her lunch, and Daniel tried to pretend things were normal. But his fingers kept drifting to his wrist, tracing the mark beneath his sleeve.

He couldn't tell them. Not yet.

Some things didn't belong in the waking world.

*****

*At School*

Kaia was already at their usual spot when Daniel arrived.

One look at her face, and he knew she hadn't slept either.

"I saw him again," she said quietly.

Daniel tensed. "When?"

"Last night. Outside my house. He didn't move, didn't say anything. Just stood there." She swallowed hard. "And then he was gone."

Daniel exhaled. "Same for me."

Kaia rubbed her temples. "We need to figure out what's happening before—"

A voice cut in.

"Before what?"

Daniel turned.

Marcus stood behind them, arms crossed. "Okay, I've been letting you two have your little 'we're being haunted by the void' moment, but I'm drawing the line at secret meetings. What's going on?"

Kaia hesitated.

Then, after a beat, she pulled out her notebook.

Marcus sighed, dropping his bag onto the bench. "Alright. Hit me."

Kaia flipped to a page, sketches of the machine from the unfinished world, the symbols, the mark.

Then she turned to the next page.

A rough drawing of the man in the black coat.

Marcus's expression shifted. "…Okay, yeah. That's unsettling."

Daniel leaned in. "You still think we're overreacting?"

Marcus ran a hand through his hair. "Look, I don't know what this is, but if we're dealing with some real-life Slenderman situation, I'd like to know before I get roped into the next chapter of your nightmare saga."

Kaia flipped another page.

It was the mark.

And beneath it, in sharp, deliberate handwriting:

It's always Saturday and Sunday.

It's always two days.

The mark doesn't fade.

Something is making us forget.

Daniel inhaled sharply.

"We remembered some things for the past couple of weeks," he said.

Kaia's grip tightened on her pencil. "Maybe that was a mistake."

Marcus frowned. "What do you mean?"

She hesitated. "What if… we weren't supposed to?"

A heavy silence settled between them.

Then—

The bell rang, slicing through the tension.

Marcus sighed, standing. "Well. That's terrifying. See you in physics."

Kaia stayed seated. Daniel lingered, watching Marcus go.

Finally, she spoke.

"If this is happening outside the dreams now, we don't have much time."

Daniel nodded.

*****

*Thursday Night*

Daniel woke up before he even realized he was awake.

Something was off.

The air felt too thick, pressing against his skin. Too still, like the world had stopped moving.

He swallowed, listening.

The ceiling fan spun overhead. The faint hum of the refrigerator came from the kitchen downstairs. Normal sounds. But beneath them, beneath the silence—something else lingered.

A presence.

He sat up slowly, pulse quickening. His alarm clock glowed 3:17 AM.

Too early. But something had woken him.

A noise.

Click.

A faint, deliberate sound, like something tapping against the floorboards.

Daniel's breath hitched. He turned his head—

And his door was open.

I locked that.

The hallway outside was pitch black, but the air hummed, charged with something unseen. Something watching.

Then—

A shadow moved.

Not from the hallway.

From the ceiling.

His eyes adjusted to the dark just enough to make out something above him. Not a shape. Not a person. A distortion.

It moved again—smooth, deliberate. Climbing across the ceiling as if gravity meant nothing. Its limbs, if they were limbs, stretched unnaturally long, twisting at angles that shouldn't exist.

Then—

It turned its head toward him.

Daniel's stomach dropped.

No face.

Just dark, stretched skin. And eyes—two bottomless voids, deeper than black, like holes in reality itself.

Watching.

The mark on his wrist burned.

The thing shifted, its body bending as if deciding what to do next. Its fingers, or whatever passed for fingers—curled like a spider testing its web.

Then—

It dropped.

Daniel gasped, kicking back—

And—

He was in bed.

Gasping. Heart racing.

Sunlight filtered through his blinds. His alarm clock now read 7:42 AM.

Morning.

His room was the same. The door was closed.

But the mark on his wrist still burned.

And he could still feel those eyes on him.

*****

*The Library*

Kaia called him that afternoon.

"I found something," she said, voice urgent.

Daniel sat up straighter. "What?"

"Not over the phone," she said. "Meet me at the library."

Daniel didn't ask questions. He grabbed his bag and left.

When he arrived, Kaia was already there, seated at a back table, surrounded by books. She looked up, eyes sharp, serious.

Without a word, she slid a book toward him.

Daniel frowned. The cover was worn, the leather cracked with age. It smelled like dust and time itself.

"I found this in the archives," she murmured. "It's about old myths. Lost symbols. Dreamwalkers."

Daniel flipped through the pages. Strange markings. Stories of people slipping between realities. Ancient warnings, half-buried in metaphor.

Then—

A drawing.

His stomach flipped.

The mark.

The exact same symbol burned into his wrist.

Kaia tapped the page. "It says people who bear this mark are connected to something called the Fractured Cycle. A pattern of dreams that don't end. They loop. Over and over."

Daniel's throat was dry. "What does that mean?"

Kaia hesitated. "I don't know. But it gets worse."

She turned the page.

Daniel's breath caught.

There, etched in ink—was a figure in a long black coat.

A shadow of a man, standing in the distance, faceless, waiting.

Beneath it, in delicate, faded script, the words:

The Watcher of the Unfinished.

A chill ran down Daniel's spine.

The dream. The mark. The man.

It was all connected.

And now, it was following them.