Chapter 1: The Invitation
The invitation came when I was already exhausted, the kind of bone-deep fatigue that makes even blinking feel like work. A group text:
Dinner at Golden Dragon, 7PM. Don’t be late.
I thumbed back a quick response: “Can’t tonight. Deadlines”
The reply was immediate: “You’ve canceled three times. We’re staging an intervention. We’ll pick you up.”
Something about the message made my chest tighten. Not anxiety exactly – something older, more primal. A warning. But I dismissed it as social fatigue and sent back a thumbs-up emoji that felt like surrender.
The day had been endless. Client meetings where I nodded and smiled while my mind screamed for silence. A task list that kept multiplying like bacteria. By six, my eyes burned from staring at screens, and my shoulders had formed a permanent arch of tension.
“Just get through dinner,” I muttered to myself in the bathroom mirror. “Two hours max, then bed.”
The face that stared back looked like a poorly made copy of me – skin too pale, tired eyes, hair limp despite my attempts to revive it. I looked at myself for a few moments forcing a smile and touching my makeup.
Chapter 2: The Quiet Unravelling
Wind cut through my coat as I waited on the curb. When Liah’s car finally pulled up, I quickly hurried shivering, cold winds seeming to cut through my face.
“You look terrible,” she said as I slid into the backseat. Derek turned from the passenger seat, his smile faltering when he saw my face.
“Thanks,” I said. “Been working on this look all day.”
“We could take you home,” Liah offered, but there was reluctance in her voice.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just tired.”
We crossed into the older part of town, where streets grew narrower, the sidewalks emptier. I pressed my forehead against the cool window glass and watched my breath create circles of fog.
Something moved in my peripheral vision – a figure standing motionless on a corner, facing our car as we passed. A woman in a red dress, her face a pale oval in the darkness. I turned to get a better look, but she was already behind us, swallowed by the dark shadows.
“We’re here,” Derek announced, gesturing toward a storefront with faded gold characters painted on a red sign. “Golden Dragon”. The paint was peeling at the edges, the dragon’s tail curling back on itself in an impossible loop.
“I thought this place closed years ago,” I said.
“Reopened last month,” Liah said, already stepping out. “Supposedly the food is amazing.”
The sidewalk felt unsteady beneath my feet, as if the concrete had turned to something less solid. A wave of nausea swept through me, brief but intense enough that I had to close my eyes.
“You okay?” Derek’s hand on my elbow, steadying me.
“Yeah, just…” I opened my eyes and saw her again. The woman in the red dress, now across the street, standing perfectly still beneath a flickering streetlight. Looking directly at me.
“Just dizzy for a second,” I finished, but when I looked back, the woman was gone.
Chapter 3: The Uncanny Gathering
The restaurant’s interior was dimmer than I expected, the overhead lights turned low, most of the illumination coming from red paper lanterns that cast more shadow than light. The air was thick with competing scents – ginger and garlic and something sweeter, almost cloying. Conversations hummed at a dozen tables, but there was something off about the rhythm, as if everyone were speaking on a slight delay at a deliberate pace.
“We’re meeting Trevor and Sarah,” Liah said, scanning the room. “There they are!”
As we wound through the tables, I felt the weight of multiple gazes. A middle-aged man paused with chopsticks halfway to his mouth, eyes following our progress. An elderly couple turned in unison to watch us pass, their smiles identical and fixed. A young woman in the corner stared openly, her head tilted at a curious angle.
I folded my arms tight across my chest, suddenly aware of my heartbeat – too fast, too loud.
“It’s nothing”, I told myself. “Just my social anxiety acting up.”
Our table was near the back, partially concealed by a wooden screen carved with intricate scenes – mountains, rivers, tiny figures engaged in activities I couldn’t quite make out.
Trevor and Sarah were already seated, cocktails half-finished in front of them. Hugs, hellos, the familiar dance of greetings. I went through the motions while scanning the room, trying to understand what felt so wrong.
“Hello Madeline!” Sarah waved a hand in front of my face. “You with us?”
“Sorry,” I forced a smile. “Long day.”
“Well, you’re here now,” Trevor said, pushing a menu toward me. “Food will help.”
The characters on the menu seemed to shift slightly as I tried to read them, as if reluctant to be pinned down to definite meaning. I blinked, and they settled.
“I’m not very hungry,” I said. “Maybe just some jasmine tea.”
Liah rolled her eyes. “You need to eat something. How about a good salad?” She placed her hands lovingly on mine with a smile. I smiled back and said “Yes”
The waitress materialized beside our table so suddenly that I was startled. She was older than I’d first thought – sixty at least, perhaps older – wearing a high-collared black dress that belonged to another era. Her hair was pulled back severely from her face, emphasizing sharp cheekbones and eyes so dark they appeared pupil-less in the dim light.
“What can I get you?” she asked, her voice surprisingly melodic.
The others ordered enthusiastically – dumplings, Szechuan rice, noodles, something with black bean sauce. I stared at the waitress’s hands as she wrote, noticing how the tendons stood out beneath paper-thin skin, how her nails curved slightly too long, slightly too sharp. Her plastic smile revealed teeth that seemed too uniform, too white.
“And for you?” she asked, turning to me. Our eyes met, and a jolt of recognition shot through me, though I was certain we’d never met.
“I will have the garden salad and dressing on the side, please. And jasmine tea.” I replied.
As she walked away, I fought the urge to watch her go, certain that her movements would be too smooth, too gliding.
“Does anything seem off to you? About this place?”, I asked my friends.
Derek glanced around. “It’s a bit… offbeat, I guess.”
“Supposedly they serve good authentic food,” Trevor added, as if that explained the prickling sensation at the back of my neck.
The conversation moved on – work complaints, diet experiments, dating disasters, movies no one had time to watch. I nodded at appropriate intervals, laughed when required, but remained mostly silent, sipping the scalding tea the waitress had delivered.
Across the restaurant, I spotted her again – not the waitress, but the woman from outside. She sat alone at a small table, a cup of tea before her, untouched. She wore a red dress with mandarin collar, hair pulled back in a style similar to the waitress’s. She stared directly at me, her lips curved in a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. The smile felt lifeless, scary and deliberate without any heartfelt meaning.
I looked away, heart pounding. When I dared to look back seconds later, her table was empty.
The food arrived, steam rising in fragrant clouds. My friends dove in, passing plates, exclaiming over flavors. I watched their chopsticks move from plate to mouth, plate to mouth, the repetition almost hypnotic. The nausea returned, stronger this time, accompanied by a light-headedness that made the room seem to move in angles.
“Try this,” Derek insisted, placing something on my plate. I stared at it, unable to identify what it was supposed to be. The texture looked wrong – too glossy, almost pulsing.
I pushed the plate away. “Maybe just a little rice.”
The waitress appeared again, refilling my water without asking. “I hope you are enjoying everything”, she inquired, her eyes fixed on mine with an intensity that felt invasive.
“Just tired,” I said, the explanation wearing thin even to my own ears.
“You should eat some more,” she said, her smile widening a fraction too far. The words felt empty.
As she spoke, I noticed the restaurant had grown quieter. Conversations at nearby tables had paused, heads turned slightly in our direction. The man who’d watched us enter now sat motionless, chopsticks still suspended, food forgotten. The elderly couple smiled identical smiles. The young woman in the corner tilted her head further, as if listening for something just beyond hearing.
All of them watching. All of them smiling.
I stood abruptly, my chair scraping loudly against the floor. “Bathroom,” I mumbled, already moving.
The restroom was at the back of the restaurant, down a narrow hallway lined with faded photographs – black and white family pictures. The fluorescent light flickered overhead, casting alternating moments of harsh clarity and pool-like shadow.
I pushed through the door. Inside, a single bulb illuminated a small space with two stalls and a sink beneath a mirror.
I ran cold water, splashed my face, trying to shock myself back to normalcy. When I looked up, water dripping from my chin, I saw her in the mirror – the woman from outside, from the empty table. Standing directly behind me.
I whirled around, heart slamming.
No one.
The stall doors stood open, revealing empty spaces. I was alone.
Turning back to the mirror, I gripped the edge of the sink, studying my reflection. For a moment – just a moment – my reflection seemed to move independently, the head tilting in curiosity while I stood frozen.
“Get it together,” I whispered, and the reflection’s lips moved in sync again.
When I returned to the table, the others were finishing their meal, plates nearly empty. Liah looked up with concern.
“You were gone a while.”
“Sorry,” I said, sliding back into my seat.
The waitress appeared beside me, making me jump again. She carried a small tray with five fortune cookies arranged in a perfect circle.
“No meal is complete without fortune,” she said, placing the tray in the center of the table.
The others reached eagerly, but I kept my hands in my lap. The waitress remained beside me, waiting, that strange smile still fixed on her face.
“Take one,” she insisted, her voice dropping to a near-whisper. “It’s tradition.”
“Madeline, come on,” Sarah urged. “Don’t be a spoilsport.”
With reluctance, I reached for the last cookie on the tray. The moment my fingers touched it, the waitress’s smile widened.
“Good choice,” she said. “That one is specially for you, my dear.”
She walked away, and I stared at the cookie in my palm. It looked ordinary enough – golden-brown, slightly curved, with the characteristic cracked surface. Yet it felt heavier than it should, as if something more substantial than paper waited inside.
Around me, my friends cracked their cookies open, reading their fortunes with exaggerated voices.
“‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,'” Derek read, rolling his eyes. “Profound.”
“‘Your smile is a treasure to all who know you,'” Liah laughed. “At least mine’s personalized.”
“Your turn,” Trevor nodded toward my unopened cookie.
With a sense of inevitability, I broke the cookie in half. The paper inside was folded more elaborately than usual, origami-like in its precision. I unfolded it carefully, revealing elegant calligraphy rather than the expected machine print.
“You will soon see yourself clearly.”
Something cold settled in my stomach. I looked up, scanning the restaurant for the waitress, for the woman in red. Both were nowhere to be seen.
“What’s it say?” Sarah asked.
“Nothing interesting,” I folded the paper quickly, slipping it into my pocket. “Just the usual cryptic nonsense.”
Chapter 4: Shadow Pursuit
Outside, the night had grown colder, the wind sharper. The streets were deserted now, storefronts dark, the sidewalks gleaming with recent rain.
“Sure you don’t want a ride?” Liah asked as the others climbed into her car.
“I need the air,” I said. “It’s not far.”
“Text when you get home,” she insisted.
I nodded, already turning away, drawing my coat tighter. The cold felt cleansing after the closeness of the restaurant, the sharp air replacing the sweet-sour scents that had clung to my clothes, my hair.
As Liah’s taillights disappeared around a corner, I began walking, focusing on the rhythm of my steps, the sound of my breath. The nausea had subsided, replaced by exhaustion so complete it made my vision blur at the edges.
Home. Shower. Bed. The mantra carried me forward.
I was two blocks from my apartment when I realized I was being followed.
The footsteps behind me matched my pace exactly, creating an echo effect that had masked their presence until I paused at a crosswalk. Then I heard it – a second set of steps, halting when I halted.
I turned slowly, expecting to see the woman in red, the waitress with her too-wide smile.
No one.
The street stretched empty behind me, pools of lamplight illuminating vacant sidewalk. I peered into shadows between buildings, searched for movement, for watching eyes.
Nothing.
Imagination. Fatigue. Too many late nights, too much caffeine, too little real food.
I hurried the rest of the way home, fumbling with my keys at the entrance to my building, glancing repeatedly over my shoulder. Inside, the familiar lobby with bright lights and aging furniture felt like sanctuary. I leaned against the wall of the elevator, eyes closed, focusing on my breath as it carried me to the sixth floor.
Chapter 5: The Descent
My apartment welcomed me with silence and the faint scent of the morning’s coffee. I locked the door, checked it twice, then moved methodically through my evening routine – coat hung in the closet, shoes neatly arranged in the cabinet, bag in my closet. I filled fresh water in my electric kettle and turned it on and slipped into the shower.
The hot shower was salvation, steam enveloping me, water pressure working at the knots in my shoulders, my neck. I stood under the spray until my skin flushed pink, until the bathroom mirror fogged completely, obscuring my reflection.
Clean, warm, wrapped in my softest towel, I went through my skin routine. I slathered lavender oil on my skin. Wore my comfort pajamas, lighted a candle and sat on the couch. I leaned back, sitting silently.
My body felt heavy, as if gravity had increased its pull on me alone. Even my eyelids seemed weighted, requiring effort to keep open. Yet beneath the fatigue, something hummed – a strange energy, vibrating just below the threshold of perception.
“You will soon see yourself clearly”
The fortune replayed in my mind, the elegant script appearing against the darkness of my closed eyelids. What had seemed ominous now felt almost comforting, a promise rather than a threat.
I felt myself drifting, consciousness spiraling inward like water down a drain. Circles within circles, pulling me deeper. A curious sensation of both falling and watching myself fall, as if I were simultaneously the experience and the observer of the experience.
The vibration intensified, rising from subliminal to palpable. My body felt both impossibly heavy and curiously insubstantial, as if I might sink through the couch, through the floor, or simply dissipate into the air.
Something was happening. Something was changing.
With enormous effort, I opened my eyes.
And saw myself, still seated on the couch, eyes closed, mouth slightly open, chest rising and falling in the slow rhythm of deep sleep.
I stood – or rather, I experienced standing – moving away from the couch, from the body still occupying it.
There, on my couch, was someone in deep sleep, mouth slightly open, doing that weird snore-breathe thing that we all insist we never do.
Was it me?
I see myself from an out-of-body experience. Did I die? Is this an afterworld? As true as that sounds and feels, it does not. I am seeing myself sleeping.
And I am not alone in watching.
Chapter 6: The Fragmenting
I hover near the ceiling, weightless yet anchored by the sight below me. Somehow, I’ve become something else—a consciousness separate from my body. There I am – Madeline – asleep on the couch, vulnerable and unaware.
“No, not just asleep. Exposed.”
A strange detachment washes over me as I observe this body that has carried me through life. I’ve never truly seen myself this way – not in mirrors, not in photographs. Those were always filtered through my own perception, through the voice that has whispered critiques since childhood.
Now I see everything with unforgiving clarity.
Her thinning hair when her head tilts forward. The rounded shoulders curved from years hunched over keyboards and phones. The stomach that rises and falls with each breath, soft and unconstrained by daytime garments designed to flatten, to minimize, to hide the bubble of fat all around her body, her aging skin.
“Look at you,” I hear myself think, with disgust and embarrassment.
The thought comes with practiced ease, an old script I’ve performed thousands of times. But something is different now. I’m both the critic and, strangely, a witness to the criticism.
Below me, Madeline stirs. Her brow furrows slightly, breath catching. Her eyes dart rapidly beneath closed lids.
“Someone’s here,” she murmurs, eyes still closed. Her hand gropes blindly for her phone. “Someone’s watching.”
I drift closer, fascinated. Has she always sensed me? This other presence sharing her consciousness?
Her phone screen illuminates, casting a bright blue light across her face. The time reads 12:30 AM.
Madeline’s eyes open suddenly. She bolts upright, scanning the room with panicked intensity as if sensing a presence watching her.
For a moment, I think she’s addressing me. But her gaze is fixed on the darkest corner of the room.
I turn my attention there and see… something. A darkness with dimension. A presence more substantial than shadow yet less definite than form.
“We are not alone.”
“Who’s there?” Madeline demands, clutching her phone.
The shadow does not respond, does not move, yet somehow gives the impression of patient observation.
Has it always been there? Watching us both? The watcher of the watcher?
“I’m losing my mind,” Madeline whispers, and I’m unsure if she’s speaking to the empty room or to herself or to me. “This isn’t real. This can’t be real.”
She stands, moving to the bathroom. I follow, drawn by an invisible tether. The darkness in the corner remains where it is, unmoving.
Madeline flicks on the harsh bathroom light, confronts her reflection in the mirror. I hover just behind her, expecting to see my translucent form reflected beside hers. But the mirror shows only Madeline, dark circles under her eyes.
Then – just for an instant – two reflections appear in the mirror. Madeline in the center. To her left, a woman in the red dress looking at Madeline smiling at her.
Madeline screams, stumbling backward. When we look again, the mirror shows only Madeline’s terrified face.
“What’s happening to me?” she gasps. She pops in two sleeping pills.
“It’s not real,” she repeats like a mantra. “It’s stress. It’s exhaustion. It’s the medication.”
But her eyes keep darting to the corners of the bathroom, searching for watchers.
I drift closer, wanting to communicate, to understand what’s happening. As I move toward Madeline, my attention is suddenly diverted…
I notice the woman in the red dress looking at me, smiling at me. Madeline cannot see her this time.
The fortune cookie message flashes in my mind: “You will soon see yourself clearly.”
But what self am I seeing? Which of us is real? The sleeping woman? The critical observer? Or something else entirely, watching from the shadows?
Madeline’s breathing slows as the second pill takes effect. Her eyes grow heavy. “Tomorrow,” she murmurs. “I’ll call Dr. Levine tomorrow. Something’s… wrong with me.” She walks towards her bedroom trying to sleep.
As she drifts back to sleep, slumped awkwardly on her bed with her knees drawn to her chest, I feel something on my back. Not pulling me toward Madeline, but away – as if something is trying to sever the connection between me and her.
The bathroom door swings open by itself. The light flickers. Something pulls me by force towards the bathroom. I am now in the bathroom.
In the mirror, the woman in the red dress appears again, alone this time.
She raises one finger to her lips in a shushing gesture, then points to wall behind me with a strange smile.
“We are not the first,” she mouths silently. “And we will not be the last.”
The mirror cracks suddenly, a spiderweb of fractures spreading from the center. In each fragment, a different face appears – all women, all with the same hollow eyes and desperate expressions.
I try to scream but have no voice. I try to wake Madeline and warn her but cannot touch her.
I’m suddenly pulled back to the bedroom, hovering weightlessly on the ceiling, looking down at Madeline. And there, in the corner of the ceiling, I see another observer. And another. And another.
All watching. All waiting for Madeline to wake up. The woman in the red dress standing beside the bed looking at Madeline, smiling strangely at her.
I look at the others like me who are watching Madeline, each one waiting for their chance to speak to Madeline once she is awake. They do not seem to care much about the woman in the red dress, or can they even see her?
But then I notice something even more disturbing. From each observer, smaller fragments are beginning to split off – miniature critics watching the critics, judging the judges. One whispers, “You’re not harsh enough with her.” Another protests, “Please be gentle on her. Share some love.” Another murmurs, “You let her sleep too peacefully but why?” Each fragment spawns another, and another, a fractal pattern of judgment multiplying endlessly.
The woman in red walks among these multiplying parts, touching some, whispering to others, her smile growing wider with each new fragment that forms.
The fortune cookie was right. I am seeing myself clearly for the first time. But, who is “I”?
I try to return to Madeline, to merge with her, to wake her but I cannot. Am I the only one that feels sorry for Madeline?
One of the shadow figures steps forward. When it speaks, its voice is familiar – the same voice that has criticized Madeline’s every move, every choice, every flaw. My voice.
“It is time,” the woman in the red dress talks to all the shadows. “She is ready.”
Ready for what, I don’t know. But as the shadows advance, I understand one terrible truth:
This has all happened before.
And it will all happen again.
The woman in the red dress now directly looks at me. I cannot breathe. It feels like I am being eliminated from her glance. I seem to suffocate. I have not felt anything like this before. I do not have a physical body but what is this feeling I feel?
Chapter 7: What Follows
Madeline jolts awake with a gasp, heart pounding. Sunlight streams through the living room blinds, casting striped shadows across her body. She’s on the couch, still wearing yesterday’s clothes.
10:07 AM.
“God,” she mutters, rubbing her face. Her mouth is dry, head foggy. “What a nightmare.”
She tries to piece together what was real. The invitation to Golden Dragon had been real – the text messages from her friends asking her to join them. But she hadn’t gone. No, she remembers now: declining the invitation, walking home through the cold, collapsing on the couch fully dressed.
Everything else – the restaurant, the woman in red dress, the fortune cookie, the observers – all of it had been a dream. A vivid, terrifying dream that still clung to her like cobwebs.
“Stress dream,” she tells herself firmly. “Anxiety manifestation. Classic symbolism.”
The bathroom door is ajar, light off. She approaches it cautiously, pushes it open with one finger.
The mirror is intact, showing only her pale, frightened face.
But as she turns to leave, something catches her eye. A business card on the counter that wasn’t there before.
She picks it up, turns it over in her hand.
“Dr. Amelia Levine, Psychotherapist”
“Specializing in dissociative disorders and trauma”
Madeline has never heard of Dr. Levine. Has never seen this card before. Has no idea where it came from.
Her phone chimes with a text notification. Unknown number.
“Did you sleep well, Madeline? You’re not alone anymore.”
She stares at the message, a chill running through her. Probably just spam, she tells herself, but how would a random spammer know her name? And the timing, so soon after her nightmare…
She moves to the window and pulls the blinds fully open, needing daylight, normality. On the street below, pedestrians move about their morning routines. A man walks his dog. A woman checks her watch.
And there, directly across the street, standing perfectly still beneath a tree…
A woman in a red dress with a mandarin collar, face a pale oval, looking directly up at Madeline’s window.
As their eyes meet, the woman’s lips curve into that same lifeless smile from the dream.
Madeline backs away from the window, heart hammering against her ribs. Something in the apartment feels different now. The air seems heavier, charged with an unfamiliar energy. The space behind her feels occupied, as if the empty rooms are no longer empty.
She turns slowly, scanning the room. Nothing visible, but she cannot deny the feeling that something feels off. Maybe she is still recovering from her nightmare?
“Hello,” she whispers.
Only silence answers, but it’s a silence that listens.
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