Victor and Rupert kept inspecting the house. After witnessing the gruesome scene in the living room, they climbed the stairs toward the second floor, where the bedrooms were.

The first room Victor decided to check was the one belonging to the little girl’s older brother. What he found there wasn’t much different from what he’d seen downstairs — the same trail of violence, the same thick, metallic smell lingering in the air.

The only difference was that this time, the remains had been arranged in a more “organized” way. The pieces of the body seemed to have been placed with a certain care, almost as if someone wanted them to be recognizable: you could tell where the legs, the arm, and the head were.

At the same time, Victor couldn’t shake off that dark feeling that had been haunting him since the moment he approached the house — a dense, tangible sense that seemed to cling to the very air around him.

It was as if... as if whatever had caused all that destruction was still there, hiding in the shadows — silent, but watching, waiting, following his every move.

“Of all the possible evils, I guess this kid got lucky” Rupert said, bringing the cigarette to his lips before taking a drag. The ember briefly lit the hard outline of his face: “Some victims of anomalous attacks are literally torn apart — conscious, alive, feeling everything until the end. From what our people reported, these ones... went quick”

Victor didn’t answer. He couldn’t tell if that could really be called luck. Between dying a brutal death, fully aware of every second of pain, and vanishing in an instant without even having time to feel anything — the latter certainly sounded more merciful. Still, in the end, who was he to decide what counted as a good death? He didn’t even consider himself worthy of judging how anyone should leave this world.

“Do we know who — or what — did all this?” Victor asked in a serious tone, his gaze steady and sharp. He waited in silence for Rupert’s reply, which came soon enough.

“According to the girl? The Boogeyman” Rupert said flatly, showing no sign of interest.

Victor raised an eyebrow, his forehead tightening slightly as he turned toward Rupert, who kept smoking without a care in the world. The glow of the ember flickered across his face before he exhaled another slow cloud of smoke. Noticing Victor’s look, Rupert merely shrugged, the cigarette still between his fingers, and said with a dismissive tone: “Her words, not mine”

Victor wasn’t sure whether to take that literally or metaphorically. He understood the meaning, of course — but did it make any sense for a story made up to scare kids to have even a sliver of truth?

Letting out an exasperated sigh, Victor turned his gaze toward the bedroom window. Outside, the sky was heavy and unmoving, as though a storm could break loose over the city at any moment.

“It’s almost December already...” Victor muttered absently, his voice indifferent, his eyes lost, as if the words had slipped out without much thought.

Beside him, Rupert glanced at Victor sideways for a moment, then turned his attention back to the cloudy horizon before asking, almost casually: “You gonna spend Christmas and New Year’s with Sara?”

Victor heard the question and just shrugged: “Maybe...” he murmured thoughtfully: “I’m not even sure Sara still understands what those two days mean — or if they mean anything to her anymore. But I’ll ask her eventually. Could be a good way for us to spend some time together” He paused briefly, then looked away: “Haven’t been visiting her much since... well, since these cases started showing up one after another”

Rupert nodded, understanding completely. Deep down, he wasn’t much different — this was already their third case that week, and the previous ones hadn’t been any less brutal. Still, there was something disturbingly clever about each death... a kind of morbid creativity that made it all worse.

“You think all this is connected?” Rupert asked suddenly, making Victor look up at him: “I mean... it’s always the kids who survive. And even though each of them tells the story differently, they all say the same thing in the end: something they were afraid of came to life — and killed everyone else”

Victor stayed silent for a few seconds, his eyes fixed on some vague point as he tried to process what he’d just heard. The words echoed in his head, fragmented, hard to piece together. Then, after a moment, he drew in a slow breath and broke the silence.

His lips moved hesitantly, his voice low and cautious: “Any chance they were hallucinating... because of the trauma?”

Rupert took another drag from his cigarette, then turned to face Victor with a firm look. He spread his arms, gesturing broadly at the room around them.

“Man, look at this place” he said, exhaling smoke slowly: “You really think someone could hallucinate all this? If that’s the case, then we’re all completely insane”

He gave a short, humorless chuckle and lifted the cigarette slightly, as if to make a point.

“For the record” he added with a half-smile: “you of all people should know this crap doesn’t cause hallucinations”

Victor watched the cigarette between Rupert’s fingers for a moment, then let out a weary sigh. He rubbed the back of his neck, restless, letting his gaze wander around the room — every shadow, every corner seemed to carry a silent weight.

After a few seconds, he turned and began walking toward the hallway. When the two men went back downstairs, Victor cast one last glance around the place.

It looked the same as before — too quiet, almost unnaturally still. Yet the feeling gnawing at him only grew stronger, heavier, like invisible pressure in the air. And still, nothing happened.

At least, not for that brief moment. From one second to the next, the air shifted — thickened — as if time itself had stopped to hold its breath. Victor felt himself sink into a strange dream where he could see from outside his own body, watching himself and Rupert, floating somewhere between the two.

It was then, in that suspended moment, that something appeared. He didn’t see where it came from, nor could he understand what it was. He only felt the sudden impact—something struck him from behind in one clean, brutal blow.

Hands as dark as pitch, long and sharp like claws, pierced through his body and Rupert’s at the same time, binding them together in an instant of pain and shock before the world dissolved around them.

Everything happened in just a second before Victor came back to his senses. His body reacted purely on instinct—as if a survival manual had been burned into his mind all at once. Before his thoughts could even catch up, his muscles were already moving on their own.

Victor grabbed Rupert by the shoulder and shoved him aside with all his strength, while throwing himself in the opposite direction. The movement was quick—almost simultaneous.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw it—the hand he had “seen” seconds earlier—slashing through the space where they had just been, tearing through air and floor with deadly precision. Had they hesitated for even an instant, both would have been skewered.

Without hesitation, Victor drew his weapon and spun around, aiming behind him—toward where those hands had appeared. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Rupert doing the same—still startled, maybe even confused, but fast enough to follow his lead.

The metallic sound of weapons echoed briefly through the tension-thick air. Refocusing ahead, Victor tightened his grip and narrowed his eyes at the thing now rising before them.

It had a vaguely human shape, but only in the most unsettling way. Taller, thinner, and disturbingly lean—almost skeletal. Its long arms hung like twisted branches, and its legs, impossibly thin, supported its body in a way that defied nature.

Its entire form was wrapped in a dense darkness with no clear outline, as if light itself refused to touch it. On its face—or what might have been a face—shone two tiny white dots, eyes that seemed to pierce the blackness with a cold, empty stare.

“What the hell is that!?” Rupert shouted beside Victor, his voice laced with panic. His eyes were locked on the thing ahead, trying to make sense of whatever the hell had attacked them—whatever it was.

“Focus, Rupert!” Victor barked, his voice firm but edged with impatience, trying to snap his friend out of his daze.

For a moment, Victor was certain he’d be dead if not for that vision he’d had seconds earlier—likely a byproduct of the power his younger sister, Sara, had shared with him.

Even so, an uneasy feeling clung to him. It was strange, cold—curling through his thoughts with no clear reason.

Nothing actually happened as he and Rupert swept through the house—no suspicious sounds, no flickering shadows. Still, Victor kept his guard up—or at least high enough to react the moment something decided to strike.

But ignoring every question burning in Victor’s mind, the thing opened a hole where its mouth should’ve been. From within, a faint yellow light began to seep out—soft, yet deeply unsettling—cutting through the endless darkness. It was oddly inviting, as if calling him closer.

“I don’t like this, Victor... what the hell is that thing trying to do?!” Rupert exclaimed, gripping his weapon tighter, his eyes fixed on the anomaly ahead.

“I don’t know—and I don’t plan to find out!” Victor shouted back, irritation lacing his tone.

“You took the words right out of my mouth!” Rupert replied with a nervous half-smile, admitting—grudgingly—that he agreed completely.

In the next instant, they both opened fire. The projectiles—concentrated energy rounds, strong enough to pierce even the toughest anomalies—hit the creature dead-on. Still, the impact only pushed it back a step or two, as if the attack were nothing more than a shove. The dark thing barely seemed to feel pain; the energy around it flickered briefly before stabilizing again—unfazed.

As he fired, Victor’s mind raced. The bullets, accurate as they were, did nothing—only managing to irritate the anomaly and drive it back slightly.

If things kept going like this, he and Rupert were as good as dead. At least, that’s what Victor thought. But to their surprise, the creature didn’t advance.

Instead, it slowly closed its grotesque jaw and began to retreat, slithering back toward the darkest corner of the house. Its form—already nearly pitch-black—became almost invisible as it melted into the thick shadows that consumed the room.

Then its eyes—those bright, inhuman orbs—suddenly went out. Silence filled the air. Victor and Rupert stopped firing at the same time, instinctively. For a fleeting moment, they both felt the same thing: whatever that thing was, it was gone.

Rupert broke the silence first. His voice didn’t seem directed at anyone in particular—more like a mutter to himself.

“What the hell just happened?” he said, eyes distant, still trying to make sense of what he’d just seen.

Victor didn’t answer. In truth, he didn’t even know what to say—still trying to grasp how things had escalated so fast that they’d nearly been skewered by a shadow... or whatever the hell that thing was.