2025-11-28 03:16:04Uche didn’t sleep.
He couldn’t.
The mirror.
The whisper calling him “Subject 49.”The wall taps answering Seyi’s knocks.The cold breath seeping from the wardrobe…Everything replayed nonstop in his head.
By sunrise, his nerves were fried.
His hands still shook.His mouth was dry.But he wasn’t leaving.
Not yet.
He needed answers.
Seyi owed him.
Morning light didn’t soften Room 49. It actually made it worse—revealing scratches along the wardrobe frame, a tiny crack in the ceiling, and strange faint markings on the wall that looked like thin, long fingerprints dragging downward.
Seyi sat on his bed, elbows on his knees, head bowed. He looked exhausted… but calm. Too calm.
“Are you ready?” he asked without looking up.
“No,” Uche said honestly.
“Good.”
Seyi lifted his head.“Being ready is how they get you.”Uche swallowed.
“Tell me everything. Start from the beginning.”Seyi nodded.
“You deserve the truth. But you won’t like it.”
“Just talk.”
Seyi exhaled, rubbed his face, and then began:
1. THE FIRST INCIDENT — 12 YEARS AGO
“Twelve years ago, the school admitted a boy named Kenneth Eze. He was assigned to this same room. Room 49.
“That first night, he heard tapping behind the wall. Just like you.
“They said he complained to the porter the next morning. The porter told him the same lie they always tell:
‘Pipes.’
“The next night, he heard a voice from the wardrobe calling his name.
“On the third night, Kenneth disappeared.”
Uche leaned forward.
“Disappeared how?”“No one knows. His mattress was torn open. His locker was scratched from the inside. And his phone was found under the bed with the screen showing the time:
2:13 A.M.
No footage.
No witness.Just gone.”Uche felt cold creep into his fingertips.
“And the school didn’t shut the room down?”
“They tried,” Seyi said. “But the walls wouldn’t allow it.”
“What does that mean?”
“The day after, all workers who tried to remove the door… collapsed.”
“Collapsed?”
“Like fainting. But worse. They woke up screaming about eyes inside the walls.”
Uche’s heart hammered.
“So the school locked the room?”
“No. They renovated it… and quietly assigned another student there the next session.”
Uche stared. “Why?!”
“Because,” Seyi said darkly, “whatever is inside these walls doesn’t want the room empty. It wants someone here. Always.”
2. THE PROGRAM’S BIRTH
Uche’s jaw clenched. “And the Program? What is it?”
Seyi’s eyes darkened.
“It started after the fourth student disappeared.
“That’s when the school realized something:
They couldn’t stop the room.
They couldn’t block the walls.They couldn’t control whatever lived inside.So instead… they decided to study it.”
Uche blinked. “Study?”
“The Program,” Seyi said, “is Blackridge University’s secret research project. Room 49 is their specimen. Students sent here are… test subjects.”
Uche felt a punch in his stomach.
“Test subjects for what? What exactly are they studying?”
Seyi hesitated.
Then he whispered:
“Fear.”
Uche frowned. “Fear?”
“Yes. Raw fear. Unfiltered fear. The thing inside the walls feeds on it. And the Program wants to understand why. What it is. What it wants.
“Every student assigned to this room is monitored.”
Uche felt sick.
He remembered the mirror.The whisper saying “Subject 49.”“Monitored by who?” he asked.
“Both,” Seyi said.
“The school…and the thing in the walls.”3. THE ROOMMATES BEFORE UCHE
Uche braced himself.
“What about the four before me?” he asked quietly.
Seyi sighed deeply.
“You’re the fifth,” he said.
“The youngest. The calmest. The one that lasted the longest before breaking.”“I haven’t broken,” Uche snapped.
“Not yet,” Seyi said. “But everyone breaks. This room doesn’t let you keep your mind.”
He stood, pacing slowly.
“My first roommate was Kingsley. He tried to fight the taps. He knocked back. Responded. Tried to communicate.”
Uche swallowed.
“What happened to him?”“He lost his voice by the next morning. Completely. Doctors said strained vocal cords. But that was a lie.”
Seyi’s face hardened.“The walls took it.”Uche’s skin crawled.
“My second roommate, Musa…” Seyi continued.
“He couldn’t stand the whispers. The voice kept calling his name. Over and over. He opened the wardrobe one night.”“And?”
“He didn’t open it again. Because after that night… he couldn’t move his right arm.”
Uche stared.
“What’s inside that wardrobe?”“We don’t know,” Seyi said.
“And we don’t open it willingly.”“And the third?”
Seyi’s voice dropped lower.
“The third wasn’t taken by the room,” he said.
“He jumped from the second floor. He couldn’t handle it.”Uche exhaled shakily.
“And the fourth?”“The fourth was last year,” Seyi said.
“He almost made it. He understood the rules. Stayed quiet. Stayed alert.”“So what happened?”
“He broke rule 3.”
“What rule 3?”
“Don’t look into the mirror.”
Uche froze.
“Like the one I saw last night?”
“Yes. That mirror appears only when the Program escalates. When the room… takes interest.”
Uche felt his chest tighten.
“What happened to him?”
“He looked inside.”
Seyi swallowed.“And the mirror didn’t show him. It showed something else.”“What?”
“Something wearing his face.”
Uche’s blood ran cold.
The mirror last night had shadows inside. A face shape. Watching him.
Seyi sat down again.
“By the next morning… he was gone.”
“Gone how?”
“His bed was empty. Door still locked. No signs of struggle. Only a message carved on the wardrobe door:
LEVEL COMPLETED. SUBJECT REMOVED.”
Uche blinked.
“What level?”
“The Program operates in stages,” Seyi said. “Tap test. Whisper test. Mirror test. Instruction test. Identity test. And the last one…”
“What’s the last one?”
Seyi stared at him.
“The Extraction.”
Uche’s chest crushed in.
“What is extraction?”
Seyi shook his head slowly.
“You don’t want to know.
Nobody reaches that stage alive.”4. WHY UCHE WAS CHOSEN
Uche inhaled shakily.
“So why me? Why assign me here?”Seyi’s eyes softened a little.
“You were not chosen randomly,” he said.
“No one is.”“They look through new admission lists every year. They pick the ones who check certain psychological boxes.”
“Psychological?”
Uche frowned. “Like what?”“Boys who have experienced trauma. Boys who don’t scare easily but have fear hidden deep down. Boys with quiet minds. Boys who can break in interesting ways.”
Uche felt a chill gather at his spine.
“How do they know all that?”
“Admission forms,” Seyi said.
“Background reports. Social media. Even interviews during clearance. They don’t miss anything.”“So what did they see in me?”
Seyi’s expression shifted.
“Something the room wants.”
Uche felt his stomach twist.
“What does the room want?”“No one knows.”
Seyi stood again.“But every boy chosen had something inside them… something the walls reacted to.”Uche clenched his fists. “This is madness. I’m leaving.”
Seyi looked at him sadly.
“No. You’re not.”
“I AM!”
“Uche…” Seyi said quietly.
“If you leave the room…it will follow you.”Uche froze.
“What?”
“The room is the walls. The walls are the thing. Once it marks you… you belong to it.”
Uche felt sweat prick his forehead.
“What do you mean… mark me?”
“What happened last night?” Seyi asked.
“What EXACTLY did you hear?”Uche whispered:
“It called my name.”
Seyi closed his eyes.
“And that’s it,” he said.
“You’re marked.”Uche sat down, weak.
“So what do I do?”
Seyi came closer.
“There are rules, Uche. Actual rules. We follow them or we don’t wake up.
The Program isn’t just testing your fear.
It’s training you to listen.”“To listen to what?” Uche whispered.
“To the walls,” Seyi said.
“To the wardrobe.”“To the voice.”“I don’t want to listen!”
“You don’t have a choice,” Seyi snapped.
Uche flinched.
Seyi softened again.
“Tonight,” he said quietly, “the Program will escalate.”
Uche exhaled shakily.
“What stage?”
“The instruction test.”
“What does that mean?”
Seyi looked straight into his eyes.
“It means… tonight the room will tell you to do something.
And you must choose whether to obey…
or resist.”Uche’s heart dropped.
“And if I choose wrong?”
Seyi didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
Uche stared at the wardrobe.
At the walls.At the ceiling.At the crack stretching long and thin like a vein.The thing inside the walls was awake.
Watching.Ready.Tonight, it would speak.
And Uche would have to answer.
Whatever choice he made…
would determine what the room did next.And for the first time since arriving at Blackridge, he truly understood:
The real nightmare hadn’t even begun.
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CHAPTER 18 — THE BOY WHO WALKED OUT
The ground didn’t stop shaking when they reached the tunnel.It got worse.Concrete split open behind them, the Origin Wing folding in on itself like a dying animal. Fire alarms wailed. Emergency lights popped one by one, plunging long stretches of the passage into darkness.Uche half-carried, half-dragged his father forward. Obiora was conscious now, barely, his weight heavy but real.Alive.That single fact anchored Uche.“Keep moving,” Uche said, voice steady even as his chest burned. “We’re almost out.”Obiora coughed, a weak sound. “You… you’re inside it now.”Uche didn’t deny it.“I know.”The hum followed them—low, constant, like a distant engine. The fear-feedback systems were collapsing, but fear itself wasn’t gone. It bled through the tunnels, thick and metallic, soaked into the walls.Uche felt it all.Every panicked technician.Every soldier realizing the guns weren’t enough.Every system screaming because its center no longer obeyed commands.He wasn’t controlling people.
CHAPTER 17 – THE DAY FEAR TURNED
The alarms didn’t just scream.They howled—a raw, metallic shriek that clawed through the underground facility, rattling glass, steel, and bone. Red lights spun violently, casting the halls in pulsing blood-colored flashes.Uche stood still in the center of it all.Calm.Terrifyingly calm.The mark on his wrist burned, spreading heat through his veins, syncing with the pounding hum beneath the floor. He felt the facility the way one feels their own heartbeat—every corridor, every door, every moving body.Fear wasn’t flooding him.It was feeding him.“LOCK DOWN THE ORIGIN WING.”The Director’s voice echoed through the speakers, sharp now. Controlled—but strained.Steel shutters slammed down across corridors. Armed units poured in from every access point, boots pounding in perfect rhythm.Uche turned slowly, eyes glowing faint gold.“Too late,” he whispered.1. THE FIRST STRIKEThe first Purge unit rounded the corner—six men, rifles raised, visors glowing.“TARGET ACQUIRED!”They opened
CHAPTER 16 – THE TRUTH THEY BURIED
The light burned.Not just his eyes—his mind.Uche stumbled forward as the white glare swallowed him whole, stripping away sound, gravity, even time. His thoughts fractured, memories slipping through his fingers like sand.Then—Silence.Absolute.Heavy.Oppressive.His feet touched solid ground.Uche blinked hard, vision slowly returning.He stood inside a glass chamber.Walls, floor, ceiling—transparent, spotless, cold. Beyond the glass stretched a massive underground facility, far larger than anything he had seen before. Rows of observation decks circled the chamber like a coliseum. Screens flickered to life one by one.Every screen showed him.Heart rate.Neural activity.Adrenal spikes.Fear response metrics.He staggered back.“No… no no no…”This wasn’t ancient.This wasn’t supernatural.This was designed.A voice echoed calmly through hidden speakers.“Welcome to the Origin Wing.”Uche’s blood ran cold.That voice.Older now. Colder. Controlled.“The Director,” Uche whispered
CHAPTER 15 – THE FALL AND THE FACE
Uche expected the fall to kill him.The wind roared past his ears as he plummeted downward, darkness spinning around him in a dizzying spiral. His arms flailed, reaching for anything—air, light, a ledge—nothing existed. Just the void.He screamed until his throat burned.Then—FWOOOM!He hit something soft.Not ground.Not water.Something… alive.He bounced slightly, tumbling onto a cold surface, gasping. His hands gripped the floor, feeling the strange texture beneath his palms—smooth, rubbery, pulsing faintly.Like skin.He jolted upright.He wasn’t in the chamber anymore.He was inside a long, dimly lit corridor—narrow walls arching overhead like the ribs of a giant creature. Blue veins glowed faintly inside the walls, pulsing in rhythm… like a heartbeat.An entire underground hallway made of a living organism.His stomach churned.The air smelled metallic, sharp enough to sting his nostrils. The floor beneath him vibrated softly with each pulse of the glowing veins.He forced him
CHAPTER 14 – THE WHISPERING STAIRS
The darkness swallowed Uche instantly.No lights.No walls.No sound except the faint echo of his own footsteps spiraling downward.The staircase felt endless.Cold, damp air wrapped around him like a second skin, making every breath heavy. The deeper he went, the more he felt the pressure—like an invisible hand was slowly tightening around his lungs. There was no turning back; the floor above had already sealed shut, cutting him off completely.Step.Step.Step.His footsteps sounded wrong—too loud, then too soft, as if the space around him kept changing size with every turn of the spiral.Then it began.The whispers.Faint at first.So faint he wasn’t even sure they were real.“Uche…”He stopped.The voice drifted from somewhere behind him.Or ahead?Or inside his skull?He listened.Silence.He kept moving.Then—“Uche… turn back.”He froze again. This time the voice was clearer, too clear.A voice he recognized.His father’s.His throat tightened painfully. “Dad?”A whisper moved
CHAPTER 13 – THE ROOM THAT BREATHES
Uche woke up gasping.Not because of a dream… but because Room 49 was breathing.The walls rose and fell like lungs expanding, slow and heavy, releasing a deep, vibrating hum that crawled across the floor and into his skin. For a moment he sat frozen, his chest tight, unable to tell if he was awake or trapped in another layer of the Room’s illusions.Then he felt it—a cold draft brushing his ankles.He looked down.The floor tiles had shifted halfway open on their own.A thin line of pale blue light spilled out from the cracks, pulsing like a heartbeat.No.Not a heartbeat.A signal.Uche swallowed hard, shoving off the bed. “Not now… not today…” he whispered, but Room 49 didn’t care. It never cared.The Program wanted him downstairs again.He crouched slowly and pressed a palm against one of the tiles.It was warm.Alive.As if something beneath the floor was waiting.Suddenly—BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!Three violent knocks slammed into his door, loud enough to rattle the frame. Uche jumped
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