Shadow Never Lies

At 6:30 in the evening...

Bella jolted awake from a nightmare, her heart pounding in terror. She had dozed off earlier, exhausted from a long day. Life in the hostel rarely followed any real pattern — chaos was the only routine.

Her room, meant for three people, was eerily empty. The silence felt unnatural. The dim, fading light seeped through the windows, but somehow, everything looked… wrong. Shapes wavered at the edge of her vision — there, yet not there.

Shaking off the creeping dread, Bella forced herself to turn on the room's light. A faint, mocking laugh escaped her lips. "People are so foolish... scared of nothing," she whispered to herself.

Trying to ignore the lingering chill in the air, she carried on as usual. Later that night, when hunger gnawed at her, Bella made her way to the hostel’s narrow, dimly-lit kitchen. There, she met Catherine, her neighbor from the next room.

As they prepared their meals side by side, their conversation drifted naturally — until Catherine, almost offhandedly, mentioned something strange.

"I think... I saw something... in my room," Catherine said, her voice low, almost as if afraid to be overheard.

Bella leaned closer, curiosity laced with an unnamed fear. "What did you see?" she asked.

Catherine hesitated, then began describing it: a hunched, dark figure lurking in the corner, just beyond the reach of the light — something not quite human, watching her while she slept.

As Catherine spoke, the kitchen seemed to grow colder. The fluorescent light above them flickered once, then again.

Halfway through her story, Catherine paused. Her eyes widened. Bella was drenched in sweat, her face pale as ash.

Because just a few hours ago, when Bella had awoken in terror —

she had seen the exact same thing crouching in the shadows by her bed, whispering her name...!