At first, no one moved.
The last words Arya had spoken still hung in the air—like something that hadn't finished falling—while the silence that followed was heavier than the alley itself.
We're not done yet... and he hasn't started yet.
Then the group began to move again.
But what they entered wasn't a continuation of the road before. It was a new tightening—one shaped by the world itself.
The alleys had changed.
They were no longer just cramped concrete corridors. They had become residential lanes pressed together with unsettling closeness, as if the buildings were leaning toward one another on purpose—to leave no room to escape.
The passages here were narrower. More enclosed. The walls were so close that even the air seemed trapped between them.
But what made the place worse... wasn't the tightness.
It was the curtains.
Clotheslines stretched from wall to wall, heavy, soaked laundry dangling from them—faded fabrics drifting slowly on a current you could barely feel. Layer... behind layer... behind layer.
Every few steps—
The path vanished.
The first one to crash into them was Samer.
A cold piece of cloth slapped against his face without warning. He flinched violently, shoving it away with his hand. His breath choked for a second before his voice burst out, tight and tense.
"Damn it... I can't see a thing!"
"Neither can we..." Lisa said in a hushed voice, carefully pushing a cloth away from her face. "It's like we're walking inside... curtains."
"Look ahead, not in every direction at once!" someone snapped back, but his voice carried no real confidence.
Another man reached out and shoved the clothes aside with force. The fabrics scraped against each other, producing a soft sound... but in that silence, it seemed louder than it should have been.
"Don't move them like that..." Lisa murmured, her voice low but taut. "It's like we're announcing where we are."
"And what are we supposed to do? Walk with our eyes covered?" The reply came fast—closer to agitation than logic.
Voices overlapped. Cloth scraped. Breaths quickened.
Chaos... was beginning to form from something trivial.
Samer whispered, his voice trembling as he pushed a hanging shirt aside with his shoulder. "This place is getting tighter... are we on the right path?"
"Shut up, Samer," Richard's reply came sharp, without him turning around. "Just walk. And keep your mouth shut."
Richard moved forward, shoving a faded bedcover aside at random. The friction of his hand against the dry fabric produced a harsh sound that echoed through the alley's silence.
Hands began reaching out to push the hanging laundry aside, creating visual and audible chaos.
"Richard... wait," Lisa stumbled, her audible breaths betraying her panic. "The fabrics... they're touching my face. I feel like there's something hiding inside them."
"No one's hiding, Lisa," Kai said, his voice thick as he struggled to shove aside a heavy sheet. "But this damned stuff blocks our sight. If something shows up now, we won't see it until it's right in our faces."
In the midst of this confusion, Uncle Jad stopped suddenly. His heavy hand landed on Samer's shoulder, halting him from flailing at the clothes.
"Everyone, stop," Uncle Jad said, his voice calm and composed, but carrying the authority of experience. "You're making unnecessary noise. Every time you push a piece of cloth aside with force, the whole line shakes—and tells everything in this alley exactly where we are."
Richard turned toward him with a tight expression, while Arya continued to watch the empty space beneath the clothes in silence, as if she had been waiting for someone to reach this conclusion.
Uncle Jad went on, tilting his head downward. "Don't push the laundry aside with your hands. Bend down. Look from under the hems. The space below is empty—it reveals legs and shadows before we reach them. Let the curtains be a screen for us, not a barrier against us."
A brief silence fell, in which Uncle Jad's words made perfect sense. Richard began nodding in agreement, trying to lower his head to see the path from a different angle.
But Samer, who had already started following Uncle Jad's advice and crouching, froze in place.
"Uncle Jad..." Samer whispered, his eyes wide as they stared downward. "You said we'd see legs from here, right?"
"Yes. What is it?"
Samer pointed with a trembling finger toward a long black cloth hanging directly ahead of them, about three meters away.
From beneath the edge of the cloth, there were no human legs. Instead, there were pointed limbs—pale as bone—sinking slowly into the alley's muddy floor, as if whatever owned them was balancing its weight before leaping.
"There... there's something standing behind the black curtain," Samer said, his voice nearly disappearing.
Everyone held their breath. The black fabric wasn't swaying with the breeze—it was shuddering with faint, steady pulses... as if something massive was breathing directly behind it.
Very slowly, with their hearts racing, Richard fixed his gaze on the pale limbs visible beneath the black cloth.
He didn't advance. Instead, he stepped back half a pace and nodded his head toward Kai, who was standing directly behind him.
"Kai... move forward. Check it," Richard ordered in a low voice that left no room for argument.
Kai hesitated for a moment, swallowing hard as he gripped the metal piece he was carrying. He looked at Richard, then at the trembling cloth, and finally stepped forward, reluctant.
Kai used the tip of his weapon to push the black cloth aside—it turned out to be an old, heavy cloak—very slowly, from a safe distance.
Behind the hanging black cloak, a sight appeared that made Kai let out a long exhale of relief mixed with disgust.
"The monster's body is wedged into the wreckage of an old iron bed frame. Its pale, bony limbs are tangled with the rusted bars like the roots of a twisted tree. It wasn't breathing. It was jerking in silent desperation every time it sensed them getting close—and the black cloak trembled above it with every hungry shudder."
"It's... it's stuck?" Kai muttered, turning toward Richard, his features beginning to regain some steadiness. "Should I finish it?"
Kai raised his weapon to end it, but Uncle Jad's hand landed on Richard's shoulder, and he signaled Kai to stop.
"Don't touch it," Uncle Jad said, his voice low and cold. "It's imprisoned here. Killing it will make noise that might draw in something worse, and blood will fill this place. Leave it where it is and pass along the other side."
As Kai retreated back to his position, Arya stood at the rear, positioned where she could see the entire alley. She wasn't looking at the monster as a threat—but as valuable information.
She noticed that its pale eyes didn't blink. And that its lower jaw was completely shattered, hanging by nothing but frayed skin.
Richard signaled the group to circle around the monster and advance with caution, staying out of reach of its bony limbs that scratched at the iron bars in silent despair.
The gap between the monster's body and the opposite wall was no wider than a meter.
Every member of the group had to pass literally alongside those bony limbs that clawed at the iron bars with a screeching sound that made the skin crawl.
Samer was the first to pass after Kai. He pressed himself against the wall so tightly that his back scraped against the rough concrete until the edge of his shirt tore.
He stared at the monster with wide eyes, his breath escaping in audible hisses. When the monster tried to extend a sharp, bony limb toward his leg, Samer stumbled and nearly fell, shouting—before Uncle Jad grabbed him hard by the arm and steadied him.
"Don't look at it... look only at your steps," Uncle Jad whispered sharply in his ear.
When Lisa's turn came, she shut her eyes halfway and pressed her hand over her mouth to stifle the sound of her muffled sobbing.
She moved in quick, sideways steps, her body trembling violently. The stench of rot rising from the wedged body made her stop for a second—she nearly vomited—but she forced herself forward and passed without opening her eyes.
The stench of rot stayed in their noses. And the sound of the monster's bones scraping against the iron still echoed in memory—as if it hadn't truly stopped... only grown more distant.
One of them wiped his face with a trembling hand.
Another looked behind him... then quickly ahead, as if afraid he might see something that hadn't been there moments before.
Then—Everything shattered. A scream. Not close. But... clear.
"Aaaaah..."
A sharp, human scream burst from the depths of another street, tearing through the narrow walls as if it were closer than it should have been.
Then more screams followed.
Men and women. Maybe a child's voice—
The sounds tangled together in chaotic, broken, terrified bursts... as if they were being ripped from their owners by force.
Followed by the sound of massive shattering glass and a violent metallic crash.
Something heavy had fallen.
"...No..."
A whisper escaped one of them without thought.
The group froze in place. The sound wasn't close, but it was so vivid they could hear a brief plea for help cut off suddenly by a muffled tearing sound.
No one moved this time.
Not just from fear—But because they were... listening.
Kai raised his head slowly, his eyes tracking toward the source of the sound even though he couldn't see it.
"This... this isn't far from here," Kai whispered, turning toward Richard, his eyes betraying an instinctive urge to flee. "One street... maybe two."
Lisa pressed her hand over her mouth—not to stifle her voice... but to stop herself from making any sound at all.
Samer shifted a small step backward without noticing.
"We have to—"
He stopped.He didn't finish.
Because he didn't know what they had to do.
The screams... cut off.
Suddenly.
As if an entire group of humans had evaporated in a single moment.
No fighting.No resistance.Only—Emptiness.
The silence that followed... was worse than the screaming itself.
Slower. Heavier.And more wrong.
This time, no one looked to Richard right away.
As if they... didn't want a decision.
And didn't want an answer.
Kai looked at him finally, his voice low:
"...Should we change the route?"
A simple question.But behind it lay something else:
Are we next?
Richard didn't answer right away.
His eyes weren't on Kai—they were on the emptiness ahead of them.
Then he spoke, his voice low... but different this time:
"If we change the route... we won't know what we're getting closer to."
He paused for a moment.
Then added:
"And if we keep going..."
He didn't finish the sentence.He didn't need to.
Everyone understood.
At the rear—Arya was silent.
She didn't look toward the source of the screams.
And she didn't look at the group.
She was looking at the alley ahead of them.
At the emptiness.
Then she said, calm:
"...They weren't running."
Samer turned toward her slowly:
"What?"
She answered without changing her tone:
"The screaming wasn't while they were fleeing."
A beat.
"...It was at the last moment."
She added nothing after that.
But the meaning settled.Slowly.Heavily.
Something... hadn't just chased them.
It had ended an entire group...
Swiftly.
Then—A faint sound.
Far away.
From the same direction.
But this time...It wasn't a scream.
It was something else.Something closer to...A signal.
Arya stopped.
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"...It's here."
No one repeated the question.
Because they—for the first time—realized the answer was worse than the question.
---129Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8KA9lsUrno
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