Chapter 3: The Thing in the Dark

The hidden door burst open.

A wave of cold, foul-smelling air rushed out, thick with the scent of decay and rusted metal. Elton barely had time to react before something moved.

A shape—too tall, too thin, twisting unnaturally—lunged at him from the darkness beyond.

Elton threw himself backward, his shoulder slamming against a rusted shelf. The thing snarled, its breath rasping and uneven, like something not meant to breathe.

His phone’s weak glow flickered over it for a split second—hollow eyes, a gaping mouth stretched too wide, jagged, broken teeth glistening.

It wasn't human.

Not anymore.

Elton’s heart pounded as he scrambled to his feet. But before he could run, the room shifted.

The walls stretched and twisted, peeling like old skin. The door he had come through was gone. In its place was a long, endless hallway.

His breath came in ragged gasps. This wasn’t real.

It couldn’t be.

"Run."

The whisper came from nowhere and everywhere at once. A chorus of voices, all calling his name.

Elton ran.

The hallway seemed to shift as he moved, the walls melting and reforming. Doors appeared and vanished in the corners of his vision. The air felt thick, like he was running through water.

Behind him, the thing followed.

Its movements were jerky, too fast at times, too slow at others. Its shadow loomed, stretching across the walls like it was part of the gas station itself.

Elton turned a corner and skidded to a stop.

A mirror stood in the center of the hallway.

It was cracked, the frame rusted. His reflection was wrong.

Instead of his normal self, he saw a blood-covered version of himself staring back.

His hands in the reflection were stained with deep crimson. His eyes were hollow.

And behind him, in the mirror’s reflection, he saw the three men from the polaroid—Johnny, Brody, and Eddy.

But their faces were twisted in pain. Their mouths moved soundlessly, screaming.

Memories flooded his mind.

Flashes of him as a child. Of the gas station. Of the three men. Of something terrible happening here.

Something he had forgotten.

"You never left, Elton. You just forgot."

The whispering voices grew louder.

The thing was right behind him.

With a final, desperate scream, Elton threw himself at the mirror.

Glass shattered.

Darkness swallowed him.

Then—

He was back in the gas station.

The storage room was gone. The hidden hallway was gone.

Everything looked… normal.

But outside, through the dusty gas station windows, the world was different.

The sky was black, without stars. The road outside stretched into nothingness. The gas station was now surrounded by a dense, endless fog.

Elton wasn’t in the same place anymore.

He was somewhere else.

Somewhere he couldn’t escape.

Elton’s legs trembled as he backed away from the shattered mirror.

Glass shards covered the warped floor, reflecting distorted fragments of his face—his wide, terrified eyes, his trembling lips, his bloodstained reflection still staring at him even though he had stepped away.

The whispering voices didn’t stop.

"You never left, Elton. You just forgot."

He spun around. The thing was still there.

Its shape twisted unnaturally, shifting like a shadow cast by a flickering flame. Its hollow eyes locked onto him, its jagged mouth stretched into an unnatural grin.

And then—it spoke.

But it didn’t use its own voice.

It used his.

"I remember now."

Elton’s breath hitched.

"Do you?"

The thing lunged.

Elton staggered back, heart pounding. His body acted before his mind could catch up. He turned and sprinted down the endless hallway, dodging doorways that opened and slammed shut on their own.

The walls shifted, peeling away like rotting flesh. The further he ran, the colder it became, until his breath came out in visible puffs.

The hallway shouldn’t have existed.

This wasn’t the gas station anymore.

This was something else.

Something buried beneath the surface of reality.

A door creaked open to his right.

He barely glanced inside before his stomach twisted.

It was a small, windowless room, lit only by the flickering glow of an old television set.

A VHS tape was playing.

And on the screen—

He saw himself.

A younger version of him. A child.

Standing in the very same gas station.

But he wasn’t alone.

There were three men with him.

Johnny. Brody. Eddy.

The men from the polaroid.

In the grainy footage, they were arguing.

The younger Elton clutched something in his small hands—something metal and heavy.

The static in the tape glitched violently.

For a split second, Elton saw blood spray across the walls.

Then—blackness.

The screen cut to static.

Elton stumbled backward.

He didn’t remember this.

He couldn’t have.

The thing laughed behind him.

The sound was deep, guttural, and inhuman.

Elton turned just in time to see it emerge fully from the shadows.

It was wearing his face.

His own eyes stared back at him, but they were empty.

Its mouth curled into a wider, sharper grin.

"You know what you did."

The words slithered into his ears.

The walls shook violently. The air crackled.

The entire hallway was collapsing inward.

Elton’s chest heaved. His mind screamed for him to move, to escape.

But his body froze.

The thing stepped closer.

It raised one skeletal hand and placed a single finger against Elton’s forehead.

A wave of memories slammed into him.

A childhood summer.

The gas station.

The three men.

And a gunshot.

The world erupted into darkness.

Elton woke up on the gas station floor.

His head pounded. The air was thick with the scent of dust and gasoline.

The hallway, the mirror, the creature—gone.

Had it all been a hallucination?

Or something worse?

His hands shook as he reached for his phone, still lying beside him on the concrete. The screen was cracked, but still worked.

The time read: 3:33 AM.

Then, he noticed something on the counter beside him.

A polaroid photo.

Not the one he had found earlier.

This one was different.

It showed the gas station, but… not how it was now.

In the picture, it was burning.

Flames consumed the building, turning the sky red. And standing in front of the inferno was a silhouette.

A child. Holding something in their hands.

Something that looked like a gun. Elton’s stomach twisted. He knew what this meant.

He had been here before.

He had done something.

And now, whatever was buried in the past—

whatever was buried inside this place—wanted him to remember.

But did he really want to?

Outside, the fog had thickened. The road had vanished.

The gas station was now trapped in a place that shouldn’t exist.

And he wasn’t alone.

Because in the reflection of the shattered glass…

The thing wearing his face was still watching.