The stench hit me first.
Not the usual musk of a beast, but something far fouler—like rotting leather dipped in formaldehyde, then left to cook under acid rain. It seeped from the mutated bat's wings as it glided down, landing just beyond the veil of fog, a few paces from my hiding place.
I didn't breathe. I didn't move.
It paused.
Not with its ears. Not with its eyes. But with its soul.
There's no other word for it. The way it froze—as if some ancient, broken instinct whispered that the world was wrong here. It didn't turn toward me, not physically. Yet I felt it searching.
Like a god blindfolded, groping in the dark for an offering it was promised.
It knew.
A silence fell, thick as tar. I braced myself for death.
But then… it turned. Its wings beat once. And it vanished into the mist.
My lungs were tight. My chest, locked. I didn't move. I couldn't.
A minute passed. Then another.
Still nothing.
Fear is a cruel sculptor—it molds you into something less. In that moment, I forgot everything. Everything I had prepared. Everything I knew. Even the one truth carved into my fate.
I thought I was going to die.
And so, my oldest habit returned—quiet as a prayer.
Counting my breaths.
One.
Two.
Three.
Each inhale felt thinner than the last, like breathing through cloth soaked in grief. Four. Five. Six. My hands trembled like leaves on the edge of frost. Seven. Eight. Nine.
The tree root above me pressed into my spine like the nail of a coffin lid.
Ten.
Still, nothing came.
And that's when the memory rose.
Not like a flash—but a slow, haunting realization. As if an old truth, long buried under fear, began to bloom once more.
The beasts could sense me. But they could not act.
Not against me.
I closed my eyes and let the weight fall from my chest. Not relief. No—never relief. Just clarity.
I wasn't dead because I couldn't be touched. The bat's presence wasn't a hunter's gaze—it was a warning bell.
The danger wasn't the beast.
It was the man it served.
I reached into my coat and retrieved a matte-black mirror—military grade. Modified with a distortion mesh. No shine, no glint, no betrayal of light. With a subtle tilt, I aligned the angle.
And there he was.
The man in black.
Standing at the edge of the clearing where Maria died.
Where her blood soaked the ground.
Where the last words she tried to write had turned to dust under radiation, lost forever.
Unless, of course, someone claimed to have a way to recover them.
I had told that lie.
Crafted it carefully.
The man believed it.
And now… he was here.
I began circling him, wide and slow. Every step was deliberate. Every twig beneath my boot was judged, weighed, and spared. I reached the pocket in the clearing where I had buried the trap—a chemical masterpiece. A twisted symphony of reactive agents designed to roar in delayed crescendo.
It was an evolution of the elephant toothpaste reaction. But unlike the science fair trick, mine had two secrets.
One was already loaded into the soil—a volatile mix triggered not by fire, but by shock and vibration.
The second?
A compound stitched into the foam itself. Dormant now. But once inside the bloodstream… something else would bloom.
That truth would be revealed later.
For now, I simply stood.
Rose.
And made myself known.
"It seems I have finally found the culprit," I said, stepping from the shadow of the trees. "So tell me, Mr. Culprit… are you alone, or did others join you in betrayal?"
He turned slowly.
No panic. No startle.
Just… calculation.
And that scared me more than rage ever could.
His thoughts—layered. His eyes—unblinking. He spoke softly.
"You fooled my tamed bats."
He stepped closer. The hem of his cloak brushed the dead grass, stirring no sound.
"So… are you a black magician?" His voice held something beneath it now. Old bitterness. A buried memory clawing its way up. "Or just another coward in white robes playing hero?"
I didn't answer with reason.
I answered with legend.
"I am neither, I'm your greatest nightmare." I said, my voice calm, sharpened like a blade drawn slow.
He didn't flinch. But something in him bristled.
A pause. Then, almost amused, he chuckled.
"You talk too big… for someone hiding in trees."
He began moving—not directly toward me, but circling. He was avoiding traps. Observing the terrain.
Smart.
But not smart enough.
He lunged. Blades flashed from his sleeves, thin as whispers, fast as thought.
They struck.
But only the decoy.
A scarecrow, thrown together with my coat and a layer of thermal residue to mimic body heat.
The blades sank into its chest.
He landed, rolling up to a crouch, his eyes scanning the shadows.
"Pathetic," I said from above. "Are you blind, or just desperate?"
He didn't speak. He turned to retreat—but he was already inside my trap.
Too late.
I hurled the stone. A solid block of granite, small but heavy—angled perfectly.
It struck the marked patch of earth.
And the earth erupted.
A geyser of white-hot foam screamed from the ground, a pillar five meters tall. The chemicals surged, reacting instantly to the kinetic shock. A noise split the air—high-pitched, metallic. Like glass screaming as it shattered across time.
The foam swallowed him.
He screamed. Raw, hoarse.
The smell—acrid. The foam hissed as it burned and expanded.
Then…
Silence.
Until he stepped forward.
Still alive.
Half his coat was gone. His mask cracked. But his eyes—furious. Bleeding resolve.
He charged.
And for the first time that night, I took a step back.
My heartbeat surged.
But my mind… sharpened.
Like an arrow notched in silence.
I thought:
Even the demons feel fear. But only mortals make legends with it.
He came closer. Eyes glowing
Then, I said aloud:
"It's time I revealed my trump card."
He laughed, staggered.
"You still have cards left? All I see is a scared little child playing with chemicals."
He raised a hand, blade glinting.
"Your last trick? That was a child's science project."
Then he charged.
I waited.
Three steps.
Two.
I flipped open a sealed box from my coat.
Inside: a single insect.
Small.
Beautiful.
Terrifying.
Its wings shimmered with colors that did not exist in the natural world. Its eyes burned not with hunger—but memory.
It was a thing born from the forgotten thoughts of dying gods.
I said nothing.
The insect rose into the air.
And the man stopped cold.
His thoughts didn't race—they shattered, reforming into jagged memories he never meant to revisit.
No. That shape… That color… That name…
A memory surfaced—something he read in a forbidden file. Not science. Not magic. Just... a whisper.
A thing that shouldn't exist. A myth survivors dared not name.
But I brought it. I brought it here.
His legs faltered.
His breath caught in his throat.
The color in his face drained like ink in rain.
I stepped forward, voice soft—too soft.
"But you know this name, don't you?"
The creature twitched.
I let the word fall from my tongue like judgment:
"Nullwing Widow"
He staggered back. Hands trembling.
A step.
Another.
Panic cracked through his stoic shell.
His blade dropped.
He had prepared for beasts. For traps. For guns and gas and ghosts.
But not this.
He didn't move. Couldn't.
Fear bloomed in his chest like frost on glass.
I took one final step forward, leaned close, and whispered into the hollow silence between us:
"You thought the island was your playground," I whispered, "but it was my cage for you."