The Light Bulb

There are countless mysteries in the world—mysteries that are impossible to solve and that man is taught either to fear or to approach with cautious curiosity, driven by a natural instinct to uncover the hidden. Fear is ingrained in every human being, regardless of background or class.

Man tends to seek answers beyond the simplicity of daily life, attempting to solve the deepest, most elusive secrets that remain unanswered to this day. What I am about to tell you is a story filled with intrigue and Lovecraftian horror. It reminds us that the unknown is often more frightening than the hideous monsters we create in the depths of our own troubled minds.

The worst monsters are those we cannot escape—the ones whose disturbing voices haunt the most fragile among us like lingering phantoms.

The story I am about to recount is laden with suspense—so intense that only a sound mind can attempt to comprehend its unimaginable implications. I must say, honestly and openly, that I have already accepted the truth of this story before revealing it here. All the facts will be presented with precision and relevance.

This unforgettable account begins with the place where this dreadful incident of irrationality occurred, the year it took place, and the presence of the terrifying being that tormented a lone man on what must have felt like an endless night.

It all started on a cold, wintry night in the city of Baltimore, in the year 1955. The man in question was Robert Burke, a convicted criminal who had fallen on hard times. His life had spiraled downward due to illegal gambling and the unchecked whims of his ego, resulting in crushing debts and the loss of everything he once valued.

Misfortune led him from one disaster to another, and ultimately, he ended up in prison. His long ordeal brought him to a nightmarish moment—a moment that would either be forgotten over time or dismissed as the hallucination of a madman. But this was no delusion.

After escaping from prison, Mr. Burke broke into an abandoned apartment located in a vacant lot near his hiding place. It was autumn, and outside, the rain fell steadily as he wandered, anxious about his uncertain future and the fear of being discovered by the authorities.

His situation left him no way out—no help to call for, no phone to use, no means of contacting anyone. He was completely alone and trapped in an impossible scenario. As night fell and the streets grew darker, something strange happened—something that would become the unthinkable prologue to his encounter with an otherworldly force.

Mr. Burke had faced death before and had always managed to escape it. But nothing could have prepared him for the sheer impossibility of what he was about to experience. Who could imagine being confronted by something alien yet real—something whose very existence defied belief?

Joseph Burke had never been a man of much distinction. His life was a patchwork of petty crimes, broken relationships, and half-hearted attempts at redemption. Raised in a working-class neighborhood, Burke had learned early on that survival was more about instinct than morality. His father, a man who had once worked long hours as a mechanic, had passed away when Burke was still young, leaving him to navigate the streets with little guidance.

His mother, worn and frail from years of hard labor, had raised him with a mix of sternness and desperation. She had hoped for better things for him, but the rough edges of Burke’s life had always chipped away at those aspirations. School was a distant memory—an institution that had little relevance in a world where survival was the only priority.

As a teenager, Burke had become involved with small-time thefts, breaking into cars, shoplifting—those were his early crimes. He was never particularly skilled at them, but he quickly realized that crime was easier than honest work. In the dark alleys of the city, he found himself surrounded by others like him: people with nothing to lose.

Burke's criminal record grew as the years passed. Burglary, racketeering, and assault became regular entries in the police files. He was arrested more times than he could count, each stint in jail only adding to the myth of his criminal reputation. But none of this mattered—Burke had long ago resigned himself to the fact that he would never escape the life he had chosen.

Yet, in the quiet moments between his bouts of lawlessness, Burke occasionally felt a pang of regret. The face of his mother, tired and wrinkled from years of worry, haunted his thoughts. He had promised her he would change, that he would stop running from responsibility. But promises, as he had learned, were easily broken, and the streets always called louder than the faint echoes of his mother's hopes.

That was until the night he stumbled upon the basement in that abandoned building.

The events of that night are, in truth, nearly impossible to describe. One cannot explain such things without venturing into the realm of the inexplicable. What Mr. Burke experienced may have been a figment of a troubled mind, but I leave it to the reader to decide.

From the dawn of time, strange phenomena have appeared in our world—whether strange lights in the sky or whispered tales of alien beings. But to come face-to-face with something truly supernatural, something that pierces through time and appears in our world, is beyond imagining.

Yet that is exactly what happened.

Burke was pacing nervously when he heard a strange sound coming from the basement below. His anxious mind had initially made him oblivious to the noise, but his determination not to be caught—his refusal to be arrested again—sharpened his senses.

Suddenly, a blinding light appeared, accompanied by the strange sound, snapping his attention into sharp focus. Though at first reluctant to investigate, his curiosity soon overcame his hesitation. What he did not know was that the noise and light would soon reveal something more than just an ordinary disturbance—a phenomenon both unnatural and unprecedented.

What Mr. Burke did not imagine was that he had stepped into the illimitable realm of an inherent alterity, where the accepted laws of nature were defied by the inherent logic of time and its multivalence. The radiance of light mentioned earlier began to glow even more intensely from the drab basement, compelling him to investigate its source. As he proceeded, the light grew stronger, flickering unsteadily with intermittent bursts.

Burke had found the basement by accident while searching for a place to sleep. It was dark, damp, and smelled of mildew. He had no intention of staying long, but as he wandered deeper into the basement, he had found something that made his skin crawl.

Burke had never been one for superstition. He didn't believe in ghosts or supernatural forces. He had always trusted in the cold, hard logic of survival. But as the hum grew louder, he felt a shiver crawl up his spine. It wasn’t like anything he had ever heard before. It was as if the building itself was alive, breathing, pulsating with an energy that he couldn't comprehend.

The light bulb above him flickered erratically, casting strange shadows on the walls. At first, Burke had thought it was just a faulty bulb, something typical for a rundown building. But as the flickering intensified, he felt an odd sense of unease settle in his gut. Something was wrong. The air felt thick, oppressive. The shadows seemed to stretch unnaturally, as if they were alive, moving of their own accord.

He tried to shake off the feeling, telling himself it was just his imagination running wild, a side effect of his constant paranoia. But then he heard the noise—a soft, distant hum, like the sound of something stirring from deep within the earth.

Upon descending the staircase into the opaque basement, his instincts urged him to explore the damp and dreary surroundings, cloaked in the immense shroud of enigma. Suddenly, a stray cat appeared from behind a trash can, startling him as it dashed away into the darkness.

After regaining his composure, Burke resumed his search with mounting intrigue. That’s when he noticed the light bulb above him. Its flickering, at first erratic, soon settled into a distinct pattern—flashes that seemed deliberate, their reflection almost transparent in its precision, not amorphous or accidental.

What initially appeared to be an innocuous flicker quickly escalated, its brightness intensifying from a dim adumbration to a piercing luminescence. Though baffled, Burke’s curiosity sharpened, driving him forward with keen determination to uncover the source of the mysterious light.

His mind, previously preoccupied with evading the authorities, now fixated entirely on the strange glow. The exigency of his situation momentarily faded, eclipsed by the hypnotic illumination.

As he inched closer to the light, an imperceptible image began to form—a nebulous shape, pale and whitish, that did not gleam with phosphorescence but radiated a strange, inexplicable fluorescence of orbs.

Gradually, the image became clearer, its composition revealing itself in disjointed flashes. Burke’s mind raced: how could such a thing materialize in tandem with both heat and the coldness of darkness? Was time itself entwined with the light, weaving some unfathomable phenomenon into view?

Questions flooded his mind: Was this a temporal manifestation of a protean form? Did it serve some ulterior purpose, or was it merely a random, unestablished occurrence? Whatever the truth, something had rendered the image visible—disturbing as it was, and though he could only approximate its nature, he could not deny its tangible, unsettling presence.

Oblivious to the magnitude of what he was witnessing, Burke remained cautious and hesitant. Yet he could not suppress his drive to understand the uninvited presence—the stranger behind the impenetrable stare. Was it some peculiar phantom or merely an abstract image, a kinetic apparition teasing at corporeality?

All he knew was what lay before him: the undeniable manifestation of something. Whatever it was, it emanated a lingering unease, unsettling his senses. Was there even a rational explanation? Or had this experience eluded the bounds of logical comprehension? Perhaps he had encountered an exallotriote being, encroaching from realms beyond natural understanding—something not incompossible, yet utterly foreign.

Was the stranger an intruder or a visitor, transparent in its very nature? Had Burke stumbled into a hidden domain of explicit surreality, a place somehow compatible with his own reality? Was his mind playing tricks on him, warping his senses into a terrifying illusion? His startled reaction suggested more than mere hallucination; it was clear that he craved answers.

Mesmerized, Burke stepped toward the light bulb, the brilliance drawing him in with overpowering force. The radiance intensified, its pulsing synchronizing with a deafening, unrecognizable sound that rattled the air around him.

The noise forced Burke to halt briefly, but he pressed on, undeterred. Still, the shadowy figure remained too vague, too metaphysical to be grasped by the limitations of human perception. As he struggled to decode the enigma, the visitor’s reflection was cast ominously across the dilapidated walls of the basement.

Most in Burke’s position might have fled in terror, never questioning the disturbing apparition. But he was resolute—too captivated to retreat. Whatever had manifested was unlike anything mortal or familiar, existing far beyond the scope of human understanding and certainty.

It was a perplexing conundrum, its full nature revealed only through the unpredictable sequence of unfolding events. What could surpass such a chilling encounter? Only the confounding circumstances themselves, which seemed to transcend any rational concept of reality.

The critical question remained: was this merely a rare anomaly of unknown origin, unprecedented and fleeting? Could its intricate manifestation be linked to the fabric of science, or was it a terrestrial animation birthed from some latent spectrum? The rationale seemed odd, recursive, and starkly contrasted with ordinary understanding.

Alternatively, could this be evidence of an unearthly existence—a being unnatural, yet fully perceptible to the human eye? Whatever its nature, one fact became clear: it was not human in form or essence. Not a construct of the sublunary world, but something Orphic.

If the being hailed from a forinsecal world or was an aberration, it certainly did not belong to our material plane. The flashing light transcended the basement’s shadows, growing blindingly bright. Its intensity swelled, until Burke was forced to cover his eyes. Then the stranger moved closer, its riveting stare freezing him in place, its presence overpowering.

Suddenly, Burke felt immense heat and pressure—hands tightening around his neck, suffocating him with brutal force.

He screamed, his cry piercing the silence of the night. A neighbor, alarmed by the sound, called the local police, suspecting a break-in at the abandoned home. Within twenty minutes, officers arrived to find Burke huddled in a corner, curled up like a frightened child.

Their flashlights and voices stirred him from his stupor, but he was so unnerved that he initially failed to comprehend their questions. When he finally regained his senses, his words were incoherent, mumbled fragments of a harrowing tale. His dilated pupils and erratic movements betrayed deep shock and terror.

He kept repeating that a stranger had emerged from the flashing light bulb, insisting the officers must have seen it too. But by then, the potent glow had faded into nothingness. The stranger had vanished without a trace.

Realizing Burke was an escaped convict, the officers took him into custody. Later, when questioned at the station, Burke insisted on speaking to the main officer in charge. He was adamant that he must recount the story of the stranger in the basement—a tale that would haunt him long after the light had disappeared.

Sgt. Rooney, however, seemed far more interested in discovering how Burke had escaped prison than in entertaining his wild, otherworldly story.

The following confession comes directly from Mr. Burke, a man whose words, though simple, describe events that defy rational explanation. His account, unverified and full of personal interpretation, presents a tale of such bizarre nature that one might easily dismiss it as fiction or the ramblings of a deluded mind. Whether this story is plausible or simply a product of an overactive imagination is left to the reader's judgment.

Sgt. Rooney asked, "Will you state your full name, please?"

"Joseph Burke."

"Mr. Burke, you have quite the criminal record. You've been arrested for burglary, racketeering, and a string of other petty crimes."

Burke’s eyes bulged, filled with desperation, as he tried to explain the extraordinary encounter he had experienced with an unidentified stranger. "Look, what I have to tell you is beyond anything you’ve heard before. What I saw in that basement—it wasn’t even human."

"What are you talking about, Mr. Burke?" the sergeant asked, his skepticism palpable.

"Sarge, I’m telling you, it wasn’t from this world."

"What are you saying, Mr. Burke? Then where did it come from?"

"From the flashing light in the basement."

"Do you expect me to believe this ridiculous story?" The sergeant leaned in, his incredulity growing. "Come on, tell me the real story of how you escaped. It’d be better for you, not for me."

"No one helped me escape. I know it sounds insane, but I swear to you, what I saw was real. You have to believe me!"

The sergeant frowned, his face hardening. "Can you prove this? Because right now, all I’m hearing is baseless hysteria."

"I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the truth, Sarge. I may be a criminal, but I’m not lying. What I saw with my own eyes...it was real. As real as you and me."

The sergeant shook his head. "You know what, Mr. Burke? I don’t think you're crazy—just a bad actor. You saw what you wanted to see. Maybe you’ll have better luck spinning your wild tales in prison, but I’m sure the inmates will appreciate them more than I do. Maybe you'll get a movie deal or a book deal. Just make sure you send me an autograph from Hollywood...unless you end up in the loony bin. That happens, you know."

Just as the interview ended and Burke was being escorted back to his cell, he reiterated his claim about the being from the basement. His words fell on deaf ears. The officers took him away, oblivious to the unimaginable reality he claimed to have witnessed.

Burke’s mind raced as he sat in his dark cell, staring up at the flickering light bulb above him. His heart pounded in his chest as the memories of the basement resurfaced. He had tried to push them aside, to ignore them, but the terror was still there, just beneath the surface, waiting to consume him.

Back in his dim cell, Mr. Burke paced restlessly, contemplating his fate. He was scheduled to be transferred to the state prison—the same place he had escaped from before. Yet, despite the looming certainty of his return, something more unsettling was brewing within him. His nightmare had not ended.

As the day passed, Joseph Burke found himself sinking deeper into the suffocating silence of his cell. His once hardened exterior had started to crack, revealing a man who was just as fragile as the fragile walls that surrounded him. In the stark emptiness of the prison, memories from his past came flooding back in waves—haunting him like the persistent hum of the entity’s presence. His mind often wandered to the streets he had once roamed, to the criminals he had mingled with. But they were distant now, no more than fading shadows from another life.

Burke had always believed that the world was a simple place, governed by cause and effect. If you wanted something, you took it. If you didn’t care for the consequences, you ignored them. It was a life built on survival—nothing more, nothing less. But the thing he had encountered in the basement had shaken that belief to its core. It had upended everything he had ever known about reality, about existence itself.

When he first experienced the presence of the entity in that old basement, it had seemed like a one-off incident. He had chalked it up to his overactive imagination—perhaps a product of too many nights spent in isolation, the exhaustion of constant paranoia. But as time went on, and the entity began to return, he realized something far more unsettling. This wasn’t a figment of his mind. It was real, and it was coming for him.

His mind continued to grapple with the reality of his experiences. The world outside the cell no longer felt tangible. The once familiar hum of the prison had taken on an unsettling quality, as if everything in his life had become an extension of the supernatural force that had cornered him in that basement. The guards, the other inmates, the occasional clink of the prison bars—they all blurred into the background. All that mattered now was the flickering light above him and the looming presence that seemed to call to him from the corners of his mind.

For hours, the entity remained a quiet force, a low hum on the edges of his perception. Burke couldn’t explain how he knew, but he felt its presence growing stronger, more oppressive. It was as if it had been waiting, watching, patiently drawing closer.

Burke had never been a religious man, nor had he been particularly inclined to believe in the supernatural. But something deep inside him knew that he had crossed into a realm where the normal laws of physics and nature no longer applied. It was as if the boundaries of his world were thinning, stretching beyond the confines of his understanding. He felt both insignificant and powerful at the same time—trapped between the limits of his own mind and the relentless pull of something greater.

As Burke continued his solitary pacing, he noticed the faint, flickering light above him. The same flashing orbs of light he had seen in the basement were now coming from the single light bulb in his cell. This time, the light grew stronger, more intense. The terror he had experienced before gripped him once more. He knew, with a sinking certainty, that the same entity that had haunted him before was now coming for him.

The terror was paralyzing. The figure’s form shifted, becoming more defined, more solid, as if it was closing in on him. Burke could hear his own heartbeat thundering in his ears, louder than the hum, louder than the flickering of the light.

Frozen in dread, Burke summoned the guards. His body stiffened and trembled as he stood in terror, watching the entity take form from the light. The guards, distracted by other duties, arrived too late. By the time they reached Burke’s cell, the unthinkable had already occurred.

The last words they heard from Burke were desperate: "No—come quick, before he comes to take me away!"

The guards were left speechless as they watched the strange, shining manifestation retreat back into the light bulb, vanishing as mysteriously as it had appeared. The brilliant radiance dissipated, leaving the cell in complete darkness. Burke was gone. No trace of him remained. He had vanished into thin air.

Joseph Burke had vanished without a trace. Some say he was taken to another dimension, while others believe he was claimed by the very entity that had haunted him. Whatever the truth may be, one thing remains certain: the boundaries of reality are not as rigid as we believe, and there are forces at work that lie beyond our comprehension.

The incident was never explained. Burke's case was officially closed, and his file was destroyed. He was marked as dead, though no body was ever found. His disappearance, like his story, remains shrouded in mystery. Where had he gone? Had he been taken to another dimension? Or had he simply vanished into nothingness? No one could say for certain.

The case of Joseph Burke, like so many others, lies unresolved—a haunting reminder that there are aspects of reality beyond our understanding. The boundaries of existence may be far more fluid than we realize, and what we perceive as "reality" may be but a fraction of the vast unknown.

The days that followed Joseph Burke’s disappearance were a blur for the prison staff and the few inmates who had been acquainted with him. At first, there were rumors—whispers that Burke had simply vanished, as if swallowed whole by the walls of the institution itself. But it didn’t take long for the official story to take shape: Burke had been locked in his cell one evening, and by morning, he was gone. No signs of a struggle. No evidence of foul play. His absence was as absolute as the silence that had once filled his solitary confinement.

Captain Morris, the warden of the prison, had taken the report with a mixture of disbelief and unease. He knew the kind of man Burke had been—hardened, dangerous, the kind of inmate who would sooner fight than disappear into thin air. Yet, despite his efforts to maintain control, there was an unsettling truth that tugged at the edges of Morris’s mind. Burke had always been...different. A man haunted by something invisible, something deeper than the average criminal.

After an exhaustive search of the prison, Morris sat alone in his office, staring at the file on his desk. The report contained no answers, only questions. How had Burke vanished without a trace? It was as if he had been erased from existence. Even the cell itself, once occupied by Burke, seemed to hold an oppressive stillness. The air felt heavier, as though something had been left behind—something that neither science nor logic could explain.

The prison staff spoke of strange occurrences. Lights that flickered on and off with no explanation. Cold drafts in hallways that had been sealed for years. And then there were the sounds—the unsettling hums that some of the guards swore they heard at night, coming from the old, forgotten parts of the building. They tried to dismiss it as paranoia, the product of long shifts and isolation. But even the most skeptical among them could not ignore the fact that Burke’s cell had been left as it was: untouched, undisturbed.

It wasn’t long before rumors began to spread beyond the prison walls. Burke’s disappearance made headlines, fueling the public’s fascination with the enigmatic man and his sudden vanishing act. The media seized on the mystery, sensationalizing his life as a hardened criminal with a dark past, and his disappearance became the stuff of urban legend. Some claimed he had been taken by the very supernatural force he had spoken of. Others said he had simply escaped, his disappearance a masterstroke of criminal genius.

But none of the stories accounted for the unsettling truth—the truth that no one could put into words.

Far removed from the sterile, haunting atmosphere of the prison, Burke’s estranged family struggled to process his absence. His sister, Rachel, had not seen him in years, and the news of his disappearance only added to the confusion and pain she had carried for much of her life. She had spent her childhood in the shadow of his troubled behavior, trying to understand the brother she had once known. Burke had never been easy to reach, always distant, always locked away in his own world, but despite everything, Rachel had always hoped for a chance at reconciliation.

When the police came to her door, she thought it was just another call about an old friend or relative with a rough history. But the words they spoke—soft and careful—hit her like a punch to the gut. Burke was missing. No trace of him had been found, not even his clothes or belongings in his cell. They spoke of him as if he had simply... evaporated.

Her first instinct was to think he had escaped. That perhaps, after all the time spent behind bars, he had finally managed to outsmart them all. But as days passed and no news came, Rachel began to entertain darker thoughts. What if he hadn’t escaped? What if something had taken him? And then there were the stories—the whispers about his time in solitary, about the strange behavior he’d exhibited, about the things he had said in his final weeks. Some said he had been haunted by an unseen force. Others claimed he had seen something no man was ever meant to see.

Rachel couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that her brother had been consumed by something far beyond their understanding, something that had claimed him completely. She spent hours poring over the files, searching for a clue, for anything that might explain what had happened. But all she found were dead ends. She found nothing that made sense, nothing that answered the question burning in her mind.

Where was Joseph Burke?

Weeks turned into months, and Burke’s disappearance began to fade from public memory. Yet the prison was not the same. The energy in the air had shifted. Guards, once assured in their duties, now moved through the hallways with unease. They couldn’t escape the sense that something was wrong. There was an oppressive weight that lingered in the air, a heaviness that seemed to follow them from one end of the prison to the other. And it wasn’t just the guards. Inmates began to whisper about the "haunting" that had taken place, the strange events that no one could explain. Some said that Burke had been taken by the spirit of the prison, that the entity had claimed him for its own. Others swore that the prison itself was cursed, and that Burke had merely been the first to fall victim to it.

Captain Morris couldn’t ignore the changes either. At night, as he sat in his office, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The hum that the guards had reported had not gone away. It still echoed in the depths of the prison, vibrating through the walls, rattling the windows, a constant reminder that something was very wrong. And it wasn’t just the sounds. Morris would occasionally find himself standing at the threshold of Burke’s old cell, staring at the empty space as if waiting for something to happen. There was a sensation there—an intangible, creeping dread—that made him want to turn away, but he couldn’t.

In one particularly sleepless night, Morris ventured into the bowels of the prison, the hum growing louder the deeper he went. As he approached the area near the old solitary confinement cells, he stopped dead in his tracks. There, standing at the far end of the corridor, was a figure—a shadow. It was impossible to make out any details, but Morris could feel its presence, like an electric current racing down his spine.

His breath caught in his throat. His heart thudded in his chest as the figure seemed to shift, to stretch unnaturally, as if the air itself was bending around it. His instincts screamed at him to turn back, to leave before it was too late. But before he could take another step, the figure dissipated into the shadows, leaving nothing but the echo of its presence.

The hum grew louder then, more insistent, as though the prison itself was alive, breathing with the weight of its history, its secrets, and the forces that had taken Joseph Burke.

It was late—much later than Captain Morris had planned to stay. The prison had a way of stretching time, especially in the deeper, quieter hours of the night when the hum of the place grew louder, more insistent. Most of the staff had gone home, leaving Morris alone in his office, his tired eyes fixated on the paperwork that never seemed to end. But on that night, something felt different. The air was thick with anticipation, the kind of weight that only comes before a storm.

Morris rubbed his eyes, trying to shake the feeling, but it was no use. The sensation of being watched was suffocating. His mind kept drifting back to the events of the past few months—the disappearance of Joseph Burke, the strange occurrences within the prison, and most disturbingly, the figure he had seen that night in the solitary confinement wing. He could still see it clearly in his mind’s eye: the shadow, stretching unnaturally, its form bending and distorting with the very air around it.

At the time, he had told himself it was a trick of the light. He’d dismissed it as exhaustion, the kind of hallucination that came with too many long shifts and too little sleep. But deep down, he knew it wasn’t a hallucination. He’d felt it—felt the cold presence that lingered in the air long after the figure had vanished.

Tonight, however, something was different. The prison was alive, vibrating with energy, as if it were waiting for something—waiting for him to finally face what had been growing in the shadows for so long.

He stood up from his desk, the quiet creaking of his chair breaking the silence. The hum in the air had intensified, just as it had that night when he first saw the figure. It was louder now, a low, resonant sound that filled his ears. It seemed to be coming from deeper within the prison, from the old, forgotten hallways he had been avoiding for weeks. A chill ran down his spine as he made his way toward the corridor, the one that led to solitary confinement. The same place where Burke had spent his last days.

As he walked, the lights above him flickered—softly at first, but then with greater intensity, as though something was forcing them to malfunction. Morris felt a prickle of unease crawl up his neck. The hum was now unmistakable, vibrating through the very walls. It was as if the prison itself were alive, pulsating with something unseen, something ancient.

He reached the corridor, the long stretch of hallway leading to the solitary cells. It was dark, the air heavy with the scent of damp stone and old decay. The only light came from the flickering overhead bulbs, casting long shadows on the cold concrete floor. Morris paused, his heart pounding in his chest. The figure was waiting for him, just as it had been waiting for Burke.

Then, he saw it.

At the far end of the hall, standing at the edge of the flickering light, was the figure—a shadow of a man, stretching tall and impossibly thin. Its form was vague, shapeless, like a distortion in the air itself. It didn’t move. It just stood there, its presence filling the space with an oppressive weight. Morris froze. His instincts screamed at him to run, but his feet felt as though they were cemented to the floor. He couldn’t look away.

The figure remained still, but the energy around it was palpable, charged with an unnatural force that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. The light above it flickered violently, as if fighting against the figure’s presence. For a moment, it seemed as though the lightbulb itself might explode. Morris instinctively stepped back, but the figure’s gaze—if it even had one—seemed to follow him, tracking his every movement.

Then, the hum grew louder. It became a deep, resonant thrum that filled his ears and rattled his bones. The shadows around the figure began to stretch and twist, as though the very fabric of reality was bending and distorting. Morris felt a sudden, overwhelming sense of vertigo, as if the world itself were collapsing in on him. His mind raced. Was this real? Was he going mad? Or was this the thing that had taken Burke? The thing he had come to fear?

Suddenly, without warning, the figure moved.

It didn’t step forward—no, it was as if it glided through the air, as though the distance between them no longer mattered. One moment it was at the far end of the hall; the next, it was right in front of him. Its presence was suffocating, and Morris felt his breath catch in his throat. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. The air around him was thick and oppressive, and it was as if he couldn’t move, couldn’t escape.

The figure’s form shifted, distorting further, as if it was both a shadow and something more—something beyond the physical realm. Morris’s mind was scrambling, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, but it was impossible. There was no logic here, no reason. The figure wasn’t human. It wasn’t anything that could be explained by science or reason.

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the figure dissolved, fading into the shadows like smoke caught in the wind. The hum stopped. The air cleared. The lightbulbs above flickered one last time before settling into stillness.

Morris stood in stunned silence, his heart hammering in his chest, the sweat dripping from his brow. His mind was racing, but it was as if every thought had been wiped clean. Had it been real? What had just happened? He looked around, but there was no trace of the figure. No sign that anything had occurred at all. The hall was empty, the only sound the faint creaking of the prison settling into the night.

But then, a new thought hit him like a cold wave: Joseph Burke. He had vanished from his cell in the same way, hadn’t he? The same shadow, the same distortion of reality. Burke had been taken by this thing—whatever it was. And now, it had come for him.

A shiver ran down his spine as Morris turned and fled from the hall, his legs shaking beneath him. As he reached the safety of his office, he slammed the door behind him and collapsed into his chair, gasping for air.

He couldn’t deny it any longer. There was something inside this prison. Something that had been here long before he ever arrived. And whatever it was, it wasn’t finished yet.

Morris sat in the silence of his office, the echoes of the figure’s presence still ringing in his ears. The prison had always been a place of darkness, but now, the darkness had a face. And it was waiting.

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