This time, I was already awake—sitting in the corner of my room, blanket pulled over my head like a child afraid of the dark. I watched the phone screen as the numbers burned away:
00:00:00
Buzz.
Then the message appeared.
⚠️ WARNING #0002 ⚠️
ENTITY CODE: DREXIGORA
TYPE: NIHILISTIC INVOKER
TIME OF ARRIVAL: IMMINENT
ABILITY: DANCE OF THE FORSAKEN LIMBS — visual exposure to the entity's movement induces involuntary suicidal actions within 3–7 seconds.
PHYSICAL TRAITS: 1000 black tendrils forming a twisted cage, constantly writhing in an unnatural rhythm. One eyeball, unnervingly fast-moving, emerges randomly from its center mass. It appears to "scan" for emotion.
SURVIVAL TIP: DO NOT LOOK. Even glimpses from reflections are fatal.
ENTITY BEHAVIOR: Attracted to clusters of people. Lingers near lights, windows, and mirrored surfaces.
NOTE: This is not a test. You will die if you watch it.
I barely finished reading before I heard screaming.
Multiple voices. From outside. Then a crunch. Then a loud, wet thud.
I threw myself away from the window, dragging a chair to block the bottom half. The gaps in my curtain suddenly felt too open. I covered them with duct tape and an old towel.
But I could still hear it.
That… slithering.
Like wet rags being twisted in slow motion.
I didn't want to look. I refused to look. But curiosity scratched at my skull like a parasite.
And then I made the dumbest mistake of my life.
I opened the front camera of my phone. Just to check. Just a peek.
My screen froze.
At first, I couldn't make out what I was seeing.
A mass of long, black tentacles—no, they weren't tentacles. They bent like arms. Legs. Spines. Some ended in fingers. Others in… nothing.
They weren't dancing. They were glitching. Like a bug in a game. Spasming, twisting, clicking into patterns that didn't belong in three-dimensional space. Every movement looked like it was being fast-forwarded, reversed, and sped up again all at once.
And at the center of it all—
—was that eyeball.
Pure white. With a pupil that jittered like a cursor trying to escape the screen. It kept twitching from angle to angle. Watching everything.
I didn't realize I was crying until I tasted salt.
Something about that thing… repulsed me. Viscerally. Like my soul wanted to puke.
A second later, my neighbor jumped from the roof.
Just flew past my window. Screaming until he hit the pavement like a bag of meat.
I shut the phone. Threw it across the room.
I didn't even scream.
I just sat there.
Mouth open. Shaking.
It was outside. I could feel it. Crawling. Slithering its way around the buildings. Drawing people in like a pit.
They kept going to the windows.
Kept looking.
Kept falling.
I buried my face in my arms. I don't know how long I stayed like that. Hours?
Eventually, the slithering stopped.
The smell didn't.
It left something behind. Something rot-like. Wrong.
My phone buzzed one last time.
YOU SURVIVED WARNING #0002
DREXIGORA HAS PASSED
NEXT ENTITY: 24 HOURS
YOU'RE STILL ALIVE
BUT IT'S STARTING TO NOTICE YOU
I didn't understand that last part.
It's starting to notice me?
Which one?
Seraphine?
Drexigora?
Or something else I haven't met yet?
One thing was clear.
These aren't just random monsters.
They're following a plan.
And somehow…
I'm part of it.