As Jack Willson walked home that night, the street felt... wrong.
The kind of wrong that sinks into your bones before your brain catches on. The air was cold — not winter cold, but a lifeless kind of chill that carried no wind, no scent, no breath of the living. Everything felt still. Too still. Even his own footsteps sounded foreign, as if someone else were walking beside him — heavier, slower.
The streetlights above flickered as he passed, sputtering like they were suffocating. Their dim orange glow stretched his shadow out across the pavement, and then — split it. One shadow became two. Then three. Then many.He stopped.
There, down the sidewalk.
Figures.
Dozens of them.
Shadows with no faces.
No eyes.
No voice.
Just silhouettes of what might've been human — if they weren't moving like mist and staring without faces.
They drifted along the edges of the road like smoke caught in slow motion. Jack couldn't hear their footsteps. Couldn't even hear them breathe. Yet their presence screamed in the silence. As if the night itself was holding its breath.
He blinked, hoping it was exhaustion. Stress. Anything.
But they didn't vanish.
He kept walking. Quicker now. His palms were damp, fists clenched.
Then… he looked back.
Doctor Stephen Strange.
Standing just ten feet behind him.
Dead.
Pale as paper. Mouth curled into a smile far too wide for the situation.His eyes glowed faintly blue, hollow yet burning. His cloak was gone. His feet hovered inches above the ground, arms slack at his sides like a puppet on invisible strings.
"NO... no no no—"
Jack's voice cracked.
He turned and ran.
Down the alley. Past flickering lamps and trash bins. Across the street where a car's headlights blinked off as he neared. Through the rusted front gate of his apartment complex. Up the steps, heart hammering, lungs tearing for breath.
He slammed the door shut, deadbolt locking with a violent click. Then silence.
Only his breathing. His heartbeat pounding in his ears. The soft creak of the walls around him — or something else.
He stumbled into his room. Tossed his jacket to the floor. Leaned against the wall, hands on his knees.
"What's happening to me?" he gasped. "Is this real? Am I going insane?"
And then… a voice.
Low. Calm. Inevitable.
"It's real, Jack Willson."
His blood froze.
The voice came from the bed.
Slowly — against every instinct screaming inside him — Jack turned.
Doctor Strange sat casually on his bed, as if they were old friends catching up after years apart. His hands were folded. His smile remained. Dead eyes stared through him.
Jack's scream filled the room.
Everything went black.
Morning.
Warm sunlight filtered through thin curtains, slicing the dark into strips. Jack jolted awake on his bedroom floor, shirt soaked in cold sweat, mouth dry as bone.
He gasped, eyes darting around.
Desk. Bookshelf. Clothes pile. All normal. Familiar.
His bed was empty.
"Just a nightmare…" he muttered. "Just a damn nightmare."
But something felt… off.
His head throbbed with pressure, like he'd been underwater too long. His ears rang faintly, and the world shimmered. His vision was wrong — not blurry, but… distorted. Colors bent. Edges rippled.
He stumbled to the balcony and pushed the door open, seeking air.
What he saw nearly made him collapse.
They were still there.
Hundreds of them.
The shadow figures lined the street below like silent mourners. They stood without moving, heads tilted upward — toward him. Watching. Waiting. A wave of black smoke in humanoid form.
Jack fell back inside, trembling. He locked the door. Then the windows. Every latch, every bolt.
"What the hell is this...?" he whispered.
Then… he looked up.
Doctor Strange was hanging upside down from the ceiling fan — like a spider. Smiling.
"Yo, Jack Willson."
Jack let out a raw, terrified shout, stumbling back and grabbing a chair like a weapon.
"WHAT IS GOING ON?!" he shouted. "YOU'RE DEAD!"
Strange gently flipped down, landing on his feet like gravity didn't apply.
"Relax," he said, brushing imaginary dust from his ghostly jacket. "I'm not here to hurt you."
"You're DEAD!" Jack screamed. "I saw your body! I touched it!"
Strange sighed, his voice carrying the weight of galaxies. He floated up, cross-legged, above the floor.
"I know. I died. It… wasn't supposed to happen."
"Then why are you here?" Jack asked, voice trembling.
"Because something went wrong. I crossed a line to speak with someone I lost… and in doing so, I opened a door that should've stayed closed." Strange looked away, shame haunting his face. "Now the dead are waking. And I'm stuck between."
Jack shook his head, clutching the chair like it could save him from the abyss.
"Why me?"
Strange turned to him, eyes glowing faintly with something ancient — sorrow, maybe. Or fear.
"Because you touched me."