5 Times I Woke Up Inside the Same Nightmare

Описание: On March 4th, 2023, Gabriel stopped being afraid of dying.
What replaced that fear was something worse: the realization that something had been watching him sleep for a very long time — and had finally decided he was ready to notice it.

Gabriel is not superstitious. He’s a 32-year-old UX designer in Austin, Texas. Routine. Deadlines. Coffee. Traffic. Stress. When the dreams begin — a vast institutional hallway, oversized black-and-white tiles, endless closed doors — he explains them away. Stress dreams. Sleepwalking. Dissociation.

Then the symbol appears.

A circle. A vertical line. A horizontal line cutting through it.

He finds it drawn in his notebook. In a paperback he doesn’t remember touching. On the wall beneath layers of paint in his apartment — carved long before he ever moved in.

The hallway returns every night. The knocking grows closer. A faceless figure waits at the end, patient, studying him. The doors begin to glow from underneath. Familiar voices whisper behind them — his mother, his coworker, even his own voice speaking in a tone that isn’t quite his.

Then the voice memos start recording on their own.

His voice, calm and measured, describing the building in perfect detail while he sleeps.

“It knows you’re writing this down.”

When he finally confronts the presence, it doesn’t chase him. It doesn’t need to.

It only says one thing:

You drew the door. I just walked through it.

Now the dreams follow him.
Not just into sleep — but into other people’s apartments. Into conversations. Into reflections.

And lately, when people look at him, they hesitate.

As if they’re not sure they’re looking at Gabriel anymore.