Loose Shadows
The shadows burst like ravenous serpents, dancing through the air with living fury.
They had no target. Only hunger. Hatred. Pain.
For a moment, the village was swallowed in absolute silence.
Women clutched their children. Men staggered with makeshift spears. Fear was total.
The smell of burnt wood still lingered in the air, mixed with the dry blood and moist dust carried by the wind between the broken houses.
The woman, eyes wide, held her daughter tightly.
The little girl didn’t cry. She just looked at him—as if trying to understand.
Lucas felt something tear inside him. The Abyss roared, thirsting for blood.
Clara’s image surfaced in his mind. That same expression. That same innocence.
Clara.
Not the real one—but her echo, reflected in that pure gaze.
His breath faltered.
The shadows hesitated.
Lucas dropped to his knees.
The shadows, already beginning to reach toward the houses, violently recoiled, as if something had yanked them back into hell.
A dark flash enveloped Lucas’s body and vanished with a dry snap.
He collapsed, hands buried in the earth. Eyes shut, breathing like each gasp was a punishment.
Around him, the village breathed again.
<hr>
The Weight of Resistance
Hours passed.
The muffled sound of night felt louder than silence.
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Timid crickets began to sing again between the cracks in the fractured homes. The scent of damp earth drifted in with the breeze.
No one approached him.
Until, by nightfall, the same little girl came close—quietly.
Without a word, she sat beside him.
From her pocket, she pulled a painted stone. A happy little face.
“It’s yours now,” she said.
Lucas took the gift with trembling hands. The stone was rough, poorly polished—but strangely warm.
It felt like he was holding something sacred.
The Abyss growled inside him like a caged beast.
“This is weakness.”
Lucas closed his eyes.
“Maybe it is.”
But in that moment… he’d rather be weak than hollow.
<hr>
The Broken Dream
That night, Lucas dreamed.
But not of blood.
Clara stood before him. Older now. Maybe twelve… thirteen.
She walked through a house he didn’t recognize. She laughed with other children. She had a dog. A life.
He called her.
She didn’t hear.
He shouted.
She walked right past him, like wind.
Then, she stopped.
She looked back.
Her eyes… were empty.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Lucas dropped to his knees.
Behind her, the Abyss appeared like a living shadow, wrapping around her with dark tendrils.
“Even if you return… she will no longer be yours.”
Lucas woke up gasping. Sweating. Shaking.
<hr>
Silent Departure
Dawn arrived with a strange, dense silence.
Lucas rose from the makeshift bed.
It no longer hurt. Not his body. Not his wounds.
Only what was missing.
He looked around the small hut. The woman slept with her daughter clutched tightly to her chest—like Clara used to.
Even in her sleep, the woman whispered something—
“Shia… sleep…”
Lucas heard her, but didn’t react.
Shia.
The girl had a name.
So did her mother.
He’d heard it in passing the day before—one of the women had called her: Enara.
But he wouldn’t repeat them.
Lucas walked to the door. Stopped.
He pulled the child’s charm from his pocket—the stone with the painted face.
He left it on the table, next to a piece of bread he hadn’t eaten.
Then, he stepped outside.
The night was cold—but welcoming.
The scent of the breeze carried ash and distant flowers.
He walked through the village without a sound. No one woke. No one stopped him.
As he passed the fallen tree near the gate, he looked back one last time.
And then he kept walking.
Firm steps. Silent.
Like a ghost leaving behind a life he was never meant to have.
<hr>
The Hunter’s Call
From the top of a distant tree, red eyes watched everything.
The wind howled through the branches—dry and sharp.
“Let’s see how long his humanity holds… before it rots completely.”