Darius Kane had never imagined that he would die, transmigrate into another man’s body, and then end up becoming a resident of something like Horror Town.
His very first trial had forced him to survive Art the Clown, and now his first official mission had thrown him against a demonic app capable of enforcing someone’s predetermined death.
None of this was something he could have predicted even in his wildest dreams, and that uncertainty was precisely what made life interesting.
Besides, he’d already technically died once before coming here, so there was no telling what Countdown would even show if he downloaded it.
Deliberately binding himself to Ozhin just to satisfy his curiosity would be unbelievably stupid.
Darius opened the map on his phone and began marking several locations he might need the following day.
Once that was finished, he opened YouTube and searched for information related to Countdown deaths and supernatural incidents surrounding the app.
There were plenty of videos claiming that users had experienced strange events or died shortly after downloading it, but most comments dismissed them as scripted content designed to go viral.
Considering how many people faked paranormal encounters online for views, the skepticism wasn’t surprising.
Human beings usually refused to believe something impossible until it happened directly in front of them.
Meanwhile, Quinn Harris had just stepped out of the shower at home.
Wearing an oversized T-shirt, she dried her damp hair with a towel and tried to convince herself that the hot water had helped calm her nerves.
She planned to sleep early and deal with everything again in the morning, preferably after Darius contacted her with an actual solution.
However, the moment she pushed open her bedroom door, a human figure suddenly appeared beside the bed.
It remained visible for only a fraction of a second before vanishing.
“Ah!” Quinn screamed and stumbled backward, nearly dropping the towel.
Her heartbeat immediately exploded as she stared into the apparently empty bedroom, trying to understand what she’d just seen.
Although the figure had vanished almost instantly, its face looked disturbingly familiar.
After several frightened seconds, she finally remembered the injured patient from the hospital.
“Evan…?” The realization only made things worse.
Evan had been scheduled for surgery, so there was absolutely no reason for him to be standing inside her bedroom in the middle of the night.
Darius had specifically warned her that strange and frightening things could begin appearing before her timer expired, which meant this might be exactly what he’d been talking about.
Knowing that didn’t make Quinn feel much safer.
She was suddenly certain that spending the night alone was a terrible idea.
Quinn quickly called one of her closest friends from college and asked if she could stay over.
Her friend agreed without asking many questions, so Quinn dressed, grabbed an overnight bag, and left immediately.
Fifteen minutes later, she was safely inside her friend’s apartment, trying to convince herself that being around another person would make the night less terrifying.
They eventually climbed into bed beneath the dim glow of a bedside lamp and began talking as they had countless times before.
Quinn nearly explained everything several times.
She wanted to tell her friend about Countdown, Courtney, Darius, the warning on her phone, and the figure she’d just seen inside her bedroom.
Each time the words reached her throat, however, she stopped herself.
The story sounded insane even to Quinn, and dumping that kind of fear onto someone who couldn’t do anything to help seemed pointless.
Her friend eventually noticed her silence.
“You okay?
You’ve been acting weird all night.” Quinn forced a smile.
“Yeah.
I’ve just been stressed about work lately.” “Still worried about keeping your position at the hospital?” “A little.” Her friend immediately smiled reassuringly.
“You’re good at what you do.
They’re not going to get rid of you.” “Thanks.” “When everything settles down, I’m buying you dinner.” Quinn finally laughed.
“If I survive my schedule, I’m paying.” Neither woman realized how literal those words had become.
They talked for a little longer before turning off the lamp and going to sleep.
Despite Quinn’s fear, nothing supernatural happened during the rest of the night.
She eventually managed to get several hours of badly needed rest.
At 8:30 the next morning, Quinn returned to the hospital and changed into her scrubs.
She loaded a medication cart and started her rounds, trying to focus on work instead of the timer constantly counting down on her phone.
Evan’s room was one of her first stops.
When she pushed open the door, however, the bed was empty.
Quinn frowned.
Evan was supposed to undergo surgery soon.
Where had he gone?
A cold sensation slowly crept down her back as she remembered the figure she’d seen the previous night.
Quinn set the medication aside and stepped into the hallway, where she spotted another nurse approaching.
“Hailey, have you seen Evan?
He’s not in his room.” Hailey glanced inside.
“No.
Maybe he went to the bathroom?” “Maybe.” Quinn continued working, but her concentration was gone.
She kept replaying the previous night’s apparition while trying to convince herself it had simply been stress or exhaustion.
Half an hour later, after finishing the medication rounds on that floor, she headed back toward Evan’s room to check again.
Before she reached it, however, a scream suddenly echoed from the stairwell.
A hospital custodian burst through the emergency door with a pale face.
“Someone’s dead!
There’s a man down there!” Quinn stopped cold.
“What?” Several nearby employees heard the commotion and hurried toward the stairwell.
Quinn followed behind them with a growing sense of dread, already knowing whose body she was going to find before she saw it.
When the emergency door opened, a man was lying twisted at the bottom of the stairs.
Blood stained the steps around his head, while a cellphone rested nearby with Countdown’s black interface still glowing on the screen.
Every number displayed zero.
Year: 00.
Month: 00.
Day: 00.
Hour: 00.
Minute: 00.
“Oh my God.” “Call security and the police!” “What happened?
Did he fall?” “Is that the Countdown app?” Voices erupted around Quinn, but she barely heard them.
The dead man was Evan.
He had apparently skipped the surgery because Countdown predicted that he would die during it, thereby changing the event connected to his original fate.
The moment he violated the agreement, Ozhin simply found another way to make sure the timer remained accurate.
Quinn took several unsteady steps backward.
Yesterday, she’d still been searching for reasons not to believe Darius.
Now Courtney was dead.
Evan was dead.
And both of their timers had reached zero exactly when they died.
The curse was real.
Quinn moved away from the growing crowd, pulled out her phone, and immediately called Darius.
He had only recently gotten up at the motel and was standing near the sink when he answered.
“Morning.” “Evan’s dead.” Darius paused only briefly.
“Stairwell?” Quinn’s grip tightened around the phone.
“Yes.
He died in the stairwell.
Darius, please tell me you actually found something.” “I did.” Quinn closed her eyes in relief.
“Meet me at the restaurant across from the hospital at noon,” Darius continued.
“I have a plan.” “Okay.
I’ll be there.” After the call ended, three police officers arrived and quickly began clearing employees away from the stairwell.
Quinn leaned against the hallway wall and pinched the bridge of her nose, forcing herself to breathe slowly.
She had less than three days remaining, Jordan’s countdown would expire only minutes before hers, and now she’d personally seen what happened when someone tried to avoid the death Ozhin had assigned them.
Please let Darius’s plan work.
One of the senior nurses approached from down the hall.
“Quinn, stop standing around here.
The OR is short-handed and needs help.” Quinn opened her eyes immediately.
“Sorry.
I’m coming.” She followed the nurse away from the police activity, trying to push Evan’s body out of her thoughts long enough to keep working.
At the corner of the corridor, a convex safety mirror hung near the ceiling, giving staff a view around the blind intersection.
Quinn glanced at it without thinking.
Then her steps slowed.
A dark figure was standing behind her in the reflection.
Quinn’s blood turned cold.
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