“9.”

“Wait, does Freddy vs. Jason count? And what about the remake? Some people say 8, some say 9…”

The scratching stopped. A single strip of green-and-red light appeared on his bedroom wall, projected from nowhere — the familiar pattern of Freddy Krueger’s sweater.

Maya’s final text arrived at 3:07 AM, while Leo lay frozen in sleep paralysis, watching a striped sleeve slide under his bedroom door.

“Ten. Sweet dreams.”

The phone screen dimmed. Then, from the darkness just behind it, two yellow eyes opened and blinked.

But as he hit send, the room went cold. Not the slow chill of a drafty window — but the sudden, breath-stealing cold of a walk-in freezer. The kind of cold that doesn’t come from air.

“Nine?” a voice rasped from the darkness. Not Maya’s. Not human.