Chapter 13: The Joke, The Sketch, and the Glitch

The next day, things almost felt... normal.

That unsettling kind of normal—the one you don't trust.

Barney was back.

Alive. Loud. Obnoxious.

Tearing open a juice box like he was on a mission.

"Dude, you look like death forgot to pick you up," he said to Hale with a smirk.

Hale didn't reply. He just stared.

Barney. His friend.

The guy he'd seen die.

Burned into his memory like a brand.

But now he was right here.

Chewing a sandwich. Making snide jokes. Acting like nothing ever happened.

Barney leaned closer and whispered,

"Anyway, this'll all reset at 3:12 tonight, right?"

He laughed. A quick, stupid laugh like it was nothing.

Hale didn't laugh.

His hands trembled. His tray shook.

Like something was ticking inside his chest, waiting to go off.

Barney raised an eyebrow. "Relax, man. It's a joke."

But something flickered in his eyes—just for a second—like he wasn't joking at all.

Art class that afternoon was slow. Silent.

Hale sat next to Ivy again.

She had a mechanical pencil tucked behind her ear and her usual blank expression, drawing something elaborate—something that looked like a door twisted into a spiral.

"Have you ever drawn something you didn't mean to?" she asked out of nowhere.

Hale blinked. "Huh?"

"I mean… like your hands move before your brain catches up. Like someone else is doing it for you."

He didn't answer.

Something buzzed in his head.

He zoned out. Just for a second.

When he came back, Ivy was staring at him.

Her brow was furrowed, like she'd just heard something strange.

"What?" he asked.

"You just told me this place isn't real," she whispered.

"No I didn't."

Her face didn't change. She didn't argue.

She just looked at him—like she knew something he didn't.

Like she'd heard it before.

Hale looked down at his sketchpad.

There were no drawings.

Just words.

One sentence repeated across the page like a broken mantra:

"You weren't supposed to be here."

His breath caught.

He slammed the sketchbook shut, hands suddenly clammy.

Later that evening, Hale emptied his bag onto his desk.

He couldn't focus. Couldn't breathe.

Books. Pens. Crumpled snack wrappers.

And something else.

A sheet of paper, folded into fourths. Shoved deep into a pocket he never used.

He unfolded it slowly.

It was a drawing. A sketch.

Done in pencil, but with chilling clarity.

His chest. The mark.

Perfectly replicated.

At the bottom:

A signature. H. Hale

And the date: Tomorrow.

He didn't remember drawing it.

Didn't even remember ever thinking about it that clearly.

His hands moved on their own sometimes.

His mouth too, maybe.

A crack in the wall of reality had opened. Tiny. Almost invisible.

But enough for something to bleed through.

And Hale felt it in his bones:

Time was not as it seemed.

Reality was slipping.

And 3:12 was only the beginning.