Participant Nine
Nobody finished their meal after that.
The dining hall remained unnaturally quiet while the participants sat frozen beneath the harsh fluorescent lights, each one subtly recounting faces from the transport van in their own minds. Eight people sat in the room. Everyone could physically see that.
Yet the harder Ethan tried remembering the missing participant, the more his memory blurred strangely around the edges.
A man.
Middle-aged maybe.
Thin build.
Or was he taller?
Dark jacket?
No.
Gray.
Every detail slipped away the moment Ethan tried focusing on it directly.
Across the table, Mira Solis looked disturbed in the exact same way.
“You remember him too, right?” she whispered.
Ethan Vale nodded slowly.
“I think so.”
Think.
Not know.
That difference terrified him.
Daniel Cross leaned back in his chair while rubbing exhaustion from his face aggressively.
“This is intentional,” he muttered. “They’re messing with us psychologically.”
Nobody disagreed.
Because honestly, that explanation felt safer than the alternatives.
Then the dining hall speakers crackled softly overhead.
“Participant evaluations will resume in fifteen minutes.”
Dr. Mercer exited the room immediately afterward with the security staff following behind her. None of them addressed the missing participant again.
Almost like they expected the group to stop questioning it naturally.
And slowly—
that was exactly what began happening.
By the time the participants returned to the observation wing, conversations about the missing man had already weakened strangely. Not because they stopped caring, but because remembering him required effort now.
Constant effort.
Like holding onto a fading dream after waking.
The second round of evaluations focused on group cognition testing. Participants were seated individually inside small glass rooms while researchers displayed images and phrases through digital monitors mounted against the walls.
Ethan’s room felt freezing cold compared to the rest of the facility.
A microphone hidden somewhere overhead crackled softly.
“Participant Four,” a woman’s voice said through static. “Please focus on the monitor.”
The screen flickered alive.
A photograph appeared.
Nine people standing beside the transport van outside Somna Labs during arrival.
Ethan immediately leaned forward.
There.
The missing participant stood at the far left side of the group.
Middle-aged man.
Brown coat.
Short beard.
Finally.
Relief washed through Ethan instantly.
Until he realized something worse.
The others in the photo looked slightly wrong too.
Their expressions.
None of them smiled.
Not even casually.
Every participant in the picture stared directly toward the camera with blank exhausted faces beneath the rain.
Like prisoners being documented.
Then Ethan noticed the background.
Someone stood behind the group near the facility gate.
A woman in a white hospital gown.
Half-hidden by fog.
Watching.
His heartbeat quickened immediately.
“Who took this photo?” he asked toward the microphone.
No response came.
The monitor flickered again.
The image zoomed closer automatically.
Toward the missing participant.
And Ethan froze.
The man’s face looked blurred.
Not from low quality.
Distorted.
Like the camera physically failed to capture his features correctly.
The screen flickered harder.
Then suddenly—
the man moved.
Not in real life.
Inside the photograph.
His head slowly turned toward Ethan from within the still image.
The monitor instantly shut off.
Complete darkness filled the glass room afterward.
Ethan jerked backward in his chair breathing too fast while cold panic crawled through his chest.
“Hello?”
Nothing answered.
Only silence.
Then came knocking.
Three soft knocks against the glass wall behind him.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Ethan spun around immediately.
No one stood outside the room.
The hallway beyond the glass remained empty beneath dim white lighting.
Then another knock sounded.
This time from beneath the floor.
His entire body went still.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Something moved softly underneath the room.
Not machinery.
Crawling.
The sound circled slowly beneath Ethan’s chair before stopping directly underneath him.
The overhead microphone crackled alive again.
“Participant Four,” the static-filled voice whispered softly, “how many people are inside the room?”
Ethan stared at the empty glass walls around him.
“One.”
Silence followed.
Then the voice answered:
“Incorrect.”
The lights exploded back on instantly.
Ethan nearly fell from the chair.
Nothing else occupied the room.
No hidden person.
No movement.
Yet across the opposite glass wall—
fog slowly spread across the inside surface like cold breath touching the glass from somewhere within the room itself.
And written slowly through the condensation—
appeared three words.
DON’T FALL ASLEEP
Ethan stumbled backward immediately.
The microphone crackled violently.
Then Dr. Mercer’s calm voice emerged.
“Participant Four, please remain seated.”
No chance.
Ethan shoved open the glass room door and walked directly into the hallway despite staff shouting behind him. His pulse hammered painfully while fluorescent lights flickered overhead across the observation wing corridors.
Something was deeply wrong here.
Not just psychologically wrong.
Physically wrong.
He turned the corner toward the main hallway—
and nearly collided with Leah.
She looked pale.
Terrified.
“Ethan…”
Before he could answer, Leah grabbed his wrist tightly.
“There’s someone inside my room.”
The sentence hit hard enough to stop him completely.
“What?”
“I went back after testing.” Her breathing shook badly now. “There’s somebody sitting on my bed.”
Every muscle in Ethan’s body tightened instantly.
“Did you tell security?”
Leah nodded quickly.
“They checked already.” Tears welled visibly in her eyes. “They said the room was empty.”
Silence.
Then softly—
from somewhere farther down the hallway—
came the sound of laughter.
A woman laughing quietly behind the walls.