A loud, steady knock shattered the silence of the room.
"Ivan? Are you awake?"
His mother's voice called from the hallway.
"I made breakfast. Eggs and toast, just the way you like it."
She paused, waiting for a response.
"Don't tell me you slept through your alarm again."
Ivan sat frozen for a moment, his heart still pounding against his ribs from the terror of the dream. He looked down at his hands, expecting to find them covered in blood or scratches, but they were clean.
"I'm awake,"
he called back, though his voice came out shakier than he intended.
Ivan's breath caught in his throat.
He slowly turned his head toward his desk, expecting to see nothing more than his worn notebook and scattered pens.
Instead, the black cat was sitting there.
It was perfectly still, its fur catching the morning light spilling through the window. It didn't move. Its ears didn't twitch. Most unsettling of all—it made no sound. Those same yellow eyes from the dream were fixed directly on him, unblinking, carrying a strange, unbearable weight.
"Mom?"
he called, his voice cracking.
He wanted to ask her about the cat, but the words died in his throat. What would he even say?
The cat remained motionless, a dark silhouette upon the desk.
Ivan's feet touched the cold floor as he swung his legs out of bed, every movement stiff. He forced himself to look away from the desk, determined to convince himself the cat wasn't really there.
He reached for the doorknob, his fingers only moments away from touching it—
when a low voice interrupted him.
"Don't go out there yet."
Ivan froze in mid-step.
His hand trembled on the doorknob.
Slowly, he turned his head toward the desk.
The cat had not moved at all. Its tail still hung lazily over the edge of the wood, and its mouth had never opened. The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, vibrating inside his skull.
"Breakfast is a lie. Stay here."
The cat suddenly turned its entire head toward him.
"And whatever it happens ... don't open the door."
The knocking returned, louder this time.
"Ivan? Open the door right now!"
The floorboards in the hallway creaked beneath his mother's approaching footsteps.
Ivan stared at the door, his knuckles turning white around the handle. His mind raced.
Was he losing his mind?
Was this some stress-induced hallucination?
"Ivan!... Ivan! Open the door!"
His mother's hand slammed against the wood from the other side.
"Don't."
The cat's voice echoed through his mind again, sharper now.
"That isn't your mother anymore."
Ivan stopped breathing.
He looked desperately toward the black cat, but its yellow eyes remained locked on him, motionless and unblinking.
The doorknob began to turn.
His mother was trying to open it.
"Ivan, sweetheart... are you alright?"
The knocking changed.
It was no longer simple knocking.
It became uneven—heavy thuds followed by lighter taps and scratching sounds, as though fingernails were dragging across the wood.
"Ivan? Open the door, Ivan. Open it. Open it. Open it."
Her voice changed.
It was no longer the warm, gentle voice he had always known.
It had become something horrifyingly wrong.
"It's breakfast time, Ivan... Eggs and toast. Eggs and toast. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs."
The words began to overlap, bleeding into one another.
The pounding grew louder and more violent, and the doorframe trembled beneath the force of whatever stood on the other side.
"Open the door, Ivan. We need to see your face. We need to see your face. We need to see your face."
The cat's tail flicked once.
"See?"
The pounding escalated into violent impacts, as though something heavy yet soft was slamming itself against the wood.
The voice was no longer recognizable as human.
It had become a grotesque mixture of his mother's tone, Sarah's laughter, and Mark's agonized groans, layered over one another in a sickening loop.
"Open. Open. Open. Open."
Ivan's legs gave out beneath him.
He collapsed backward, scrambling away from the door on his hands and knees.
His breathing came in short, shallow gasps, his eyes wide and burning with tears he hadn't even realized were falling.
He crawled toward the far corner of the room until his back slammed against the wall.
His fingers scraped desperately across the wooden floorboards, searching for some escape from whatever was knocking on the other side of that door.