"Theresa!" Tomoya called out, his voice cutting through the corridor like a blade. His pulse pounded in his ears as he sprinted after her, but she was already nearing the elevator.
Theresa was tall, her long legs carrying her forward with swift, determined strides. It was as if she was running not just from them—but from everything, from the betrayal, the pain, the suffocating sense of being cast aside.
Tomoya was tall, too, but he had never been built for speed. His movements were far too fluid, almost graceful—more suited for careful calculations than sudden bursts of motion. By the time he reached the elevator, the doors had already begun to slide shut.
For the briefest moment, their eyes met through the narrowing gap. Theresa's expression was unreadable—was it heartbreak? Was it anger? Or worse... was it indifference?
Then, the doors closed completely, sealing her away from him.
Tomoya stood there, breathless, his palms pressed against the cold metal of the elevator. He felt an ache settle deep in his chest, a gnawing guilt that clawed at his ribs. He wanted to chase after her, to tell her everything—to tell her that they trusted her, that she wasn’t being pushed away because she had lost her ability to see visions. That wasn’t the reason.
Or was it?
No. Of course not.
And yet… deep down, he knew the truth was much crueler. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust her. It was that, in their hearts, they had already decided that she didn’t belong in this fight anymore.
Because she couldn’t see? Because she was no longer useful?
Tomoya clenched his jaw, fists curling at his sides. The very thought made his stomach churn with disgust. That wasn’t fair. That wasn’t right. Theresa had been with them through everything. She had fought alongside them, suffered alongside them. She had bled for this cause.
And now, just because she no longer possessed the one thing that had made her indispensable, they were pushing her away?
He exhaled sharply, trying to calm the storm raging inside him.
But no matter how much he wanted to believe otherwise, he couldn’t ignore the underlying truth. Takumi wanted her out of this. Maybe not just her—maybe all of them.
Tomoya had seen it in Takumi’s eyes. The way he carried himself, the way he shut people out, how he methodically kept everyone at arm’s length. He wasn’t just trying to protect them—he was preparing to shoulder everything alone.
Tomoya gritted his teeth. That was something he could not allow.
"Tomoya! Why are you just standing there?!" Kathleen’s sharp voice cut through the silence.
She was nearly sprinting toward him, her hurried steps echoing in the empty corridor. The urgency in her voice made Tomoya blink out of his daze, but before he could respond, Kathleen was already upon him, slightly out of breath.
"Go after her!" she demanded, pointing toward the elevator as if he hadn't already been trying.
"But the elevator—"
"Well, use the emergency exit, dumbass!" she snapped, her frustration palpable.
Tomoya scoffed, crossing his arms. "Don't 'dumbass' me! And you?! Why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be with Shane and nii-san? We need to know what they’re talking about!"
"Shane will tell me," Kathleen said confidently, flipping her hair back as if the matter was settled.
Tomoya’s brows lifted. "And how sure are you?"
The moment the words left his lips, Kathleen's expression shifted. It was subtle—just a flicker in her eyes, a tightening of her jaw—but it was enough. She took an involuntary step back, as if the question had physically hit her.
"How dare you question her loyalty to me—" Kathleen started, her voice rising with indignation, but she stopped mid-sentence.
Not because Tomoya was already cocking his brow at her reaction, but because deep down, she knew.
She knew that Samantha had never been entirely honest with her.
Not before.
Not now.
Maybe not ever.
Kathleen clenched her fists, swallowing the sharp sting of realization. Samantha had harbored too many secrets, and in doing so, she had spun an intricate web—one that had ensnared them all.
And now, they were all tangled in it.
"Fine!" Kathleen groaned, rubbing her temple in frustration. "You go follow Theresa and make sure not to leave her side until you explain everything to her."
She let out a heavy sigh, as if pushing aside her pride before continuing, "I may not have liked her at first, but she's definitely a friend. Make sure you tell her that."
Tomoya nodded without hesitation, already turning toward the emergency exit. There was no time to waste. His condominium only had one elevator channel, and if he waited for it to descend and return, Theresa would already be long gone.
He yanked open the heavy emergency door, the metal handle cold against his palm. The stairwell was dimly lit, the flickering fluorescent bulbs casting eerie shadows against the concrete walls.
Without hesitation, he sprinted down.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Each step echoed in the confined space, his hurried breaths bouncing off the walls as he pushed himself to catch up. But as he descended further, an unsettling feeling began to creep into his gut. His pace faltered slightly as his eyes flickered to the stairs beneath him.
A crack.
A familiar crack on one of the steps.
He had seen it before.
At first, he ignored it. But a few flights down—
There it was again.
The same jagged crack splitting through the concrete like an old wound.
Another flight down.
There it was again.
And again.
And again.
Tomoya’s breath hitched as his feet came to an abrupt halt. His heart pounded against his ribs, sweat clinging to the back of his neck despite the cold air.
This wasn’t right.
As Tomoya stared at the crack, his breath unsteady, a sound pricked at the edges of his awareness—
Soft footsteps.
Light, deliberate, almost hesitant.
They came from behind him.
His entire body tensed. He hadn't heard the emergency door swing open. He hadn't heard anyone coming down the stairs above him. No distant echoes of movement. Nothing.
The sound simply appeared.
Like it had always been there, just waiting for him to notice.
A cold prickle ran down his spine, spreading like ice through his veins. He swallowed hard, forcing himself to stay still, to listen.
The footsteps were slow, calculated. Too light for an adult, too rhythmic for something aimless. They stopped just a few steps behind him—close enough that if he reached out, his fingers might brush against something.
But the air around him remained still.
Too still.
The hairs on the back of his neck rose, an instinctual warning. He didn’t want to turn around.
Because some primal part of him knew, whatever was behind him wasn't supposed to be there.
Suddenly, a soft voice drifted from behind him, singing—
"Tili tili bom… hmm hmm hmm hmm hmmmm…"
Tomoya's breath hitched.
A child's voice.
Sweet. Off-key. Wrong.
His body screamed at him to run, but his feet—his feet...
He couldn't move.
It wasn't just fear rooting him in place. The air felt thick, heavy, pressing against his skin like a damp, suffocating veil. His legs twitched, desperate to flee, but when he glanced down his eyes grew bigger when he saw rotten hands.
A tangle of them, erupting from the cracks in the stairs, mottled with decay and stinking of something vile. Fingernails blackened and peeling. Wrists twisted at unnatural angles.
They clutched at his ankles, their grip cold and wet, squeezing just enough for his bones to groan in protest.
"Tili tili bom,
krichit nochnaya ptitsa…"
The child’s voice trailed into a murmur, playful, as though it were enjoying his suffering.
The walls were shifting. Shrinking. The concrete swallowed the light, curling in at the edges, pressing closer, closer—
A breath ghosted against his ear, icy and damp.
"Hmm hmm hmm…"
Tomoya's body trembled uncontrollably. His breath came in short, shallow gasps, his chest constricting as though unseen hand, this time, were wrapping around his ribs, squeezing tighter with every second.
His instincts screamed for him to move, to break free, but the grotesque, rotting hands gripping his ankles tightened, nails digging into his skin.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed the bile rising in his stomach. Think. Move. Do something. But his body refused to listen.
And then—
A shadow shifted beyond the iron balusters.
At first, he thought it was just the darkness playing tricks on him, a figment of his fear. But then it leaned in.
Something was watching him.
A grotesque and twisted thing peered between the rusted iron bars, its head tilted at an unnatural angle. Its face—if it could even be called that—was stretched into a wide, jagged grin. A grin too wide. The corners of its mouth had torn apart, raw flesh and sinew peeling back in a nightmarish mimicry of a smile.
Its eyes—bulging, milky, too large for its hollow sockets—rolled in different directions before settling directly on him.
Tomoya’s breath hitched. His stomach clenched in cold, raw terror.
The creature’s grin twitched. Then, with slow, deliberate precision, it began to move.
Its long, skeletal fingers wrapped around the bars, joints cracking as it pulled itself forward. Its body was wrong, grotesquely thin yet somehow brimming with unnatural strength. The thing slithered closer, its grin stretching even wider as a wet, gurgling sound escaped from its ruined throat.
"Run!"
Tomoya clenched his jaw so hard he thought his teeth might crack. He can't run! If he did, he'd get caught seeing him.
His body refused to move either, trapped in the suffocating grip of pure, unfiltered terror. He squeezed his eyes shut, an old habit from childhood—if I can't see it, it can't see me—but deep down, he knew.
This wasn’t a ghost.
Ghosts didn’t jerk when they moved, their limbs snapping forward in unnatural, broken motions as if their bones had been shattered and reassembled incorrectly. Ghosts didn’t crawl with their ribs scraping against the floor, each movement producing a sickening wet crunch.
And ghosts didn’t breathe right into your ear.
A wave of putrid air rolled over him, thick with the stench of decay, mold, and something worse—something rotting.
"Ti-li ti-li bom… Ty slyishish, kto-to ryadom?
pritailsya za uglom I pronzaet vzglyadom."
The whisper was so close, so near, that he could feel the syllables twisting around his ear like cold fingers. The creature's breath was warm, almost human—but the thing behind him was anything but.
Tomoya’s hands curled into fists. Move. Just move. Do something.
But when he finally dared to open his eyes—
A grotesque face was inches from his own.
The thing had pushed itself through the gaps of the iron balusters, its head twisting in ways no living thing’s should. Its lips, peeled back to reveal jagged, needle-like teeth, trembled in a mockery of a smile.
Tomoya swallowed hard, his throat dry and constricted. He wanted—needed—to take a deep breath, to steady himself, but the fear lodged deep in his gut made it impossible. A sickening nausea clawed at his insides, tightening his stomach like a vice. If he let it overtake him, if he so much as gagged, he knew he would be caught.
His pulse thundered in his ears.
The portal. That damned door. Had it done something to him? Was it warping his mind, making him see things that weren’t real? Or had it simply peeled away the veil that kept these creatures hidden? Whatever the truth was, there was no denying it now—these things were real.
He gritted his teeth, his fingers digging into the rusted handrail, using it as an anchor to force his body forward. His legs felt heavy, sluggish, as if wading through thick tar. Move. Move! With one final effort, he pushed through, dragging himself past the grotesque figure blocking his path.
As expected, its body wasn’t solid.
It was like walking through smoke—thick, freezing, suffocating. The moment he passed through, his vision darkened, his surroundings warping into a formless void. A second stretched into eternity. He could feel something wrapping around him, whispering, brushing against his skin like decayed fingertips. Then—light.
He staggered forward, gasping for air, relief flooding his veins. He had made it through. He had—
A sharp pressure against his abdomen.
Tomoya froze.
A small poke. Light at first, almost teasing, before it pressed harder. His breath stalled as a cold dread settled over him. No.
His trembling gaze dropped down.
A knife.
Sleek. Polished. Deep.
A sharp sting shot through his nerves as the realization hit—he was stabbed.
His wide, panicked eyes snapped up to the figure in front of him. A man. Dressed in a black hooded jacket, his face concealed behind a mask, revealing only a pair of unreadable eyes. The dim lighting obscured their color, turning them into voids.
Tomoya tried to move—to shove him back—but the man gave the blade a cruel twist.
Pain erupted.
White-hot, searing agony shot through Tomoya’s body, forcing a strangled groan from his throat. His knees buckled. Blood bubbled up his throat, spilling past his lips in thick, crimson streaks.
Desperately, he grasped at the attacker’s arm, fingers trembling against the fabric. But the man was unfazed. If anything, he seemed amused.
And then—he plunged the dagger in deeper.
Tomoya gasped, his body convulsing as the pain swallowed him whole.
••• PS: Book Two will be published soon.