November 5th (maybe)

The water's gone.


Drained the last bottle yesterday. My throat burns like fire, lips cracked and bleeding. Hunger I can handle, but thirst? That's pure torture—a physical need no willpower can overcome.

I considered the tap, but remembered the text: "Don't drink the tap water."

I couldn't risk it. I'd seen what happened to Buddy—he must have drunk from a puddle contaminated by moonlight. I didn't want to become… that.


Dehydration symptoms kicked in. Dizziness. Weakness. Hallucinations. The walls breathed like lungs. Ceiling cracks writhed like snakes. And I heard… my mother calling.

"Alex…"


The voice was soft, distant, yet crystal clear in my mind. A hallucination, I knew. But I answered anyway.

"Mom? Is that you?" I croaked.

"I'm so thirsty… my child…"

My heart clenched. Yes, Mom must be thirsty too, locked in that cold box. No—wait. She's dead. The dead don't get thirsty. I slapped my face hard, trying to clear my head.

But I couldn't hold on much longer. Death's shadow fell over me like a damp cloth. I lay on the floor, feeling life drain from my body.

Just as consciousness began to fade, my oracle-phone lit up one final time.

The glow was weak but cut through my despair like a lighthouse beam.

With my last ounce of strength, I crawled over and grabbed it.

Still that "Unknown Number." But this message changed everything.

"The time has come. Open it. Embrace it."

I stared blankly at the words. What did it mean? Open the freezer—the very thing I'd been avoiding? Embrace whatever was transforming inside?

Was this a trap? Had my "protector" been setting me up all along? Or was this my only escape? My mind reeled. All logic, all survival instinct, crumbled away.

I forced myself upright against the wall and grabbed this journal. My hands shook violently, barely able to hold the pen. Before making my final choice, I needed to review everything.

I started from page one. How I'd "calmly" handled Mom's "corpse." My first sighting of the Blood Moon and that warning text. My fear, paranoia, loneliness, and growing obsession with the freezer.

My account was full of assumptions and vague details. Had I actually confirmed Mom was dead? I'd just assumed based on cold skin and no breathing. Never checked her pulse or pupils. I just… "knew" she was dead. Then, like following a script, I'd carried out the "hiding" steps. The whole thing felt less like panic and more like… a rehearsed ritual.

I suddenly remembered something from Mom's mythology books—a legend about an ancient northern tribe. When the crimson "Purification Moon" rose, the chosen "Winter's Messenger" would enter a False Death. The tribe would place them in an ice cave, guarding them with songs and prayers until they completed their Metamorphosis and were reborn as a "Child of God" to lead the tribe through darkness.

This was insane. Completely absurd.

Yet this crazy idea cut through my chaotic thoughts like lightning.

Death? Or Metamorphosis?

The texts that had warned me away from danger now told me to embrace it.

Maybe the real danger was never what was in the freezer, but my ignorance and fear of it.

I made my decision.

I rose shakily, my dehydrated body swaying. No bat. No flashlight. Just my bare hands as I stumbled toward the basement door.

The cold beyond the door was sharper now, the sweet fragrance almost suffocating. I didn't fight it—I breathed deeply, filling my lungs with that frigid, scented air.

I descended the stairs.

The basement had become a magical winter realm. Frost covered everything, glittering in the soft red glow from the freezer. The deep humming resonated directly with my soul, filling me with strange peace.

I stood before the massive crystalline shrine. The runic patterns slowly rotated like a cosmic map of the stars.

I placed my hand on the freezer's icy lid. No hesitation. No fear. Only a sense of destiny.

I took a deep breath and, with all my strength, heaved open the heavy lid.

There was no horror show inside. No rotting corpse. No twisted monster.

Just bone-chilling cold and a soft red glow, gentle as a womb.

In the center lay a massive cocoon of translucent ice crystals. Person-sized, mirror-smooth, filled with web-like red patterns that pulsed slowly like a giant heart.

Somehow, the Blood Moon's light had pierced through roof and floors, creating a beam that shone directly on the cocoon like a sacred offering. Inside, I could make out a curled figure—Mom's silhouette.

As I watched, the cocoon's surface made a?crack?sound, and a hairline fracture appeared.

Then another. And another. Cracks spread like lightning, making delicate, musical sounds like wind chimes.

A voice spoke directly into my mind.

Mom's voice. Gentle and familiar, yet layered with ancient, majestic echoes I couldn't understand.

"Alex… my child… come here…"

My legs gave out. I collapsed to my knees as the journal and pen slipped from my grasp. I stared, transfixed, at the breaking cocoon, tears blurring my vision.

Fear? Joy? I couldn't tell. I only knew everything was ending—or perhaps truly beginning.

Something moved within the cocoon's fractures.

It was smiling at me. I knew that smile.

It was Mom's smile.

I…