— We discovered that the cult was officially created six years ago — the detective began, his eyes fixed on the documents. — At least, under the name that appears on social media like Facebook and on some darker forums. They're active in esoteric communities, alternative forums, astrology groups, and spirituality circles. At first, they seemed harmless — generic posts about energy, inner healing, lunar cycles… But it's all a facade.
He flipped through a few more pages.
— We also identified hidden accounts on Instagram and TikTok. They post content related to alternative spirituality, prophecies, and Amazonian symbolism, but they don't have a significant number of followers. What's disturbing is the constant activity. They're always there, always trying to attract people. Before 2019, we traced subtler movements — anonymous posts, suggestions on forums, coded messages… It was as if they were testing the waters before revealing themselves.
Michel held the report with tense fingers. His eyes scanned the paragraphs, but couldn't focus on them. He hadn't slept properly. He had resorted to two different teas in an attempt to erase the memories of the previous night, but nothing seemed enough. The argument with Cauã echoed like tides — sometimes gentle, sometimes devastating.
He just wanted to rest. To forget. But the world kept turning. And he still had clients waiting, contracts to review, commitments to honor. Life didn't stop — not even when your heart was bleeding.
He was already back in the car when the phone rang. Cauã's name appeared on the screen. Nearly two days of complete silence — and now, finally, a call. Michel hesitated for a second. He was still hurt, but part of him desperately wanted to hear the doctor's voice. He answered, struggling to maintain composure, suppressing the relief that threatened to spill into a smile.
— Hello — he said, with the calmest and firmest voice he could manage.
But on the other end, it wasn't exactly the voice he expected. Metallic interference distorted the sound, making it harsher and strange. And yet, unmistakable.
— Come to the Camelier Manor — the voice ordered, muffled by distant static. — And come alone. If you involve the police… I hope you enjoyed your goodbye.
Michel's blood ran cold. His stomach dropped, as if he had fallen into a sudden abyss. A second of silence stretched like a century.
His hand tightened around the steering wheel.
— I'm on my way.
How was that possible? What had happened?
Camelier Manor wasn't far away, but every meter felt like an abyss. Could he warn the authorities? His mind tried to rationalize, to build a plan, but his thoughts came slowly, tangled, suffocated by fear. What if they were armed? What if they had hurt Cauã? Tortured him? The idea made him flinch involuntarily, as if his own body was trying to shield itself from the impact.
He rested his forehead against the steering wheel, trying to breathe. His chest tightened as though a knot had formed between his ribs. He couldn't leave him there. Not Cauã.
Anger came in waves — against himself, against the cult, against that filthy world still trying to survive. He needed to do something. But what?
He gripped the steering wheel tightly. With his other hand, he searched through the backpack on the back seat. He found the pocketknife, the pepper spray. Ridiculous now. Just as useless as the calm he kept trying to summon.
He'd think later. First, save him.
And, with his heart pounding louder than the engine, he started the car and drove off.
Camelier Manor still carried, beneath the wreckage of time, the marks of a golden age. Built during the height of the rubber boom, it had once been one of the architectural prides of the Pará Belle Époque — an imposing structure with elaborate façades, ornate columns, and arched windows that once reflected the opulence of the great Amazonian barons.
But now… it had surrendered to decay.
The faded paint bled down the walls like old tears, while the crumbling plaster exposed veins of brick like open scars. The windows, many stripped of glass, looked like hollow eyes staring at a past that would never return. The iron gates and railings, once black and polished, were now twisted with rust, corroded by moisture and abandonment.
Vines crawled through the corners, spreading like fingers reclaiming the space. Tall weeds consumed the once-geometric garden, now nothing more than a mass of wild vegetation. The crest above the entrance, partially cracked, still revealed a fragment of lost nobility — a symbol that no longer meant anything except: "A time once lived here… and died in silence."
The manor, drowned in shadow and neglect, exuded a strange aura — as if something still breathed within its walls, trapped in the damp stone, the shattered stained glass, the corridors where echoes were louder than any voice.
It was, at the same time, a tomb and an altar.
And Michel knew something was waiting for him inside. Something ancient, rotten… and alive.
Cauã couldn't tell how much time had passed. Time inside that place felt different — slow, viscous, heavy. His body ached as though every muscle had been twisted apart, and darkness surrounded him even with his eyes open. It wasn't merely the absence of light; it was a living darkness, breathing, draining warmth and every trace of strength from him.
He tried to move, but a deep crack echoed beneath him — old, damp wood creaking under his weight. He was tied up. His arms were bound behind the chair, wrists throbbing from the friction of rough ropes. His legs were tightly restrained as well, and the forced position made his muscles tremble. The pain was constant, pulsing, proof that this had been going on far too long.
He took a deep breath. The air was heavy, moldy, nearly rotten. There was something in it — something beyond dust and moisture — a presence creeping into his lungs, as if even the air itself were complicit in his imprisonment.
And then he realized it.
He wasn't alone.
Even without hearing footsteps, even without seeing shapes, he knew there were two presences with him in the darkness. Motionless. Constant. As though they had been there the entire time, merely watching — or perhaps feeding on what was left of him. Spirits? Not like the ones he was used to seeing. These were denser, older. They didn't float; they settled. Like invisible fungi, growing through the room itself.
And he knew: if he stayed there too long, he would become soil for that thing as well.
Even on the verge of collapse, he closed his eyes and searched within himself for the spark that still burned. He released his energy slowly, as if every thread of it were a silent scream. The room trembled, reverberating with ancient murmurs — an ancestral prayer, older than his memories.
His mind throbbed. He knew what Kaike intended, and the urgency tightened around his chest like chains. Then he threw himself against the floor with all the strength he had left. The chair groaned and shattered with dry cracks. The ropes snapped. The shadows around him quivered, thickening, hungry for his exhaustion.
Even in absolute darkness, he could feel — beneath the cold floor — living roots, dormant seeds, mold embedded deep within the structure, breathing like flesh. He could do this...
— Guardian of the ancient forest, spirit with backward feet... — he whispered weakly. — I offer you what I have. My fear. My pain. My blood. Help your child, please...
He stained the rotting leaves around him with his own blood and continued, trembling, barely conscious. His essence was fading — but it was not the end yet.
The air grew dense. An unnatural silence swallowed the room. Not even the shadows dared to move.
From the ceiling, from the cracks in the floor, from the mold slithering across the walls, unbearable heat began to radiate, as if the very heart of the forest were about to explode. The roots trembled. The smell of burnt leaves, vines, sap, and fresh blood invaded the space.
A sharp, rhythmic laugh — half childlike, half insane — echoed through the darkness.
Tac-tac. Tac-tac.
Footsteps sounded backward, twisted feet walking as though time itself were rewinding. Cauã's eyes, blurred and fading, caught sight of the small silhouette with hair made of flames, skin the color of living earth, and teeth sharp as tucumã seeds.
The Curupira emerged from the corner of the room as though he had grown from the wall itself.
— You called for me, child of clay... You spat fear and faith onto the same ground. Did you hear the cries of the forest? She answered. — His voice sounded like wind brushing through the leaves of an ancient vine.
The shadows hesitated. One of them tried to advance.
The Curupira snarled.
An emerald flame exploded in the center of the room. The Obsessor recoiled, its scream tearing through the space as though lightning had split the spirit world apart.
— These hungry spirits forgot the law of the forest... now they'll remember. — He spat onto the floor, and from it grew a burning vine that slithered like a serpent, wrapping around the spirit and scorching it with ancestral fire.
Cauã collapsed to his knees, exhausted and gasping.
The Curupira stared at him, eyes blazing.
— Your blood still pulses with truth, but your fight is far from over... The serpent is already stirring beneath the Sé. And if the heart is weak, it will not return to sleep. — He touched Cauã's forehead with a burning finger. — Rise. Walk. There are still people who need you.
The heat of the burning wood beneath his feet was almost as alive as the fire blazing inside his chest. The spark left behind by the ritual was not merely flame — it was an answer. A call answered. The shadows retreated for a moment, confused, afraid. Cauã didn't know how long that truce would last, but he needed to climb.
The stairs groaned as though screaming against his weight and urgency, each step threatening to collapse. But he didn't hesitate. The pain in his muscles, the scratches across his skin, the bitter taste of blood and dust — none of it was stronger than the fear of being too late. Too late to stop the ritual. Too late for Michel.
— Just hold on a little longer... — he muttered through clenched teeth.
The memory of Michel invaded his mind, alive and pulsing: the smell of unfinished stroganoff, the sweetness of his laughter, the touch that warmed his sanctuary. Doubt no longer mattered. It wasn't magic. It was love. And it hurt more than his own flesh in that moment.
And that was what kept him standing.
The moment Michel crossed the rusted gates and pushed open the heavy front door, he smelled it. A mixture of ancient dust, damp wood, and something dead — maybe rats, maybe time itself. The air felt thicker inside, as if the rooms themselves struggled to breathe.
The entrance hall, once majestic, lay in ruins. The stained-glass windows by the doorway had shattered, and shards tinted red, blue, and amber still clung stubbornly to the corroded frames. The light slipping through the cracks cast mournful beams across the room, revealing layers of dust suspended in the air, as though time had stopped there — or worse, died within those walls.
The walls, once covered with noble wood and imported wallpaper, were now peeling and stained by water damage that formed chaotic maps of mold. Some vines had invaded the interior, sprouting through the cracks like green fingers reclaiming what nature had never forgotten.
The floor cracked beneath every step. The hydraulic tiles, typical of the Pará Belle Époque, still carried traces of a former beauty, now shattered, covered in filth and dried blood. The railing of the main staircase hung loose, dangling like a broken arm.
Everything in that place screamed abandonment and memory. But it wasn't an ordinary emptiness. Michel felt as though something there was watching him. Not with human eyes, but with presence. The entire manor seemed soaked in pain, as if it held the echoes of every scream that had never been heard.
He swallowed hard.
— What a fucked-up place...
Yet even in all that rotten decay, there was something solemn about it. As though that ruined temple had been waiting for the promised sacrifice.
And he knew it. Cauã was somewhere inside.
And time was against him.
Michel moved carefully. Every step he took betrayed the funeral silence of the place. The floor creaked like aging bones beneath their own weight, and the air — thick with mold, dried incense, and stagnant energy — seemed to fight against entering his lungs. There were presences around him. Invisible, but alert.
He knew he wasn't alone.
— So it's you... the chosen one meant to bring the rebirth. — The voice cut through the darkness with a chilling calmness.
At the far end of the corridor, beneath the weak glow of an oil lamp, stood a man Michel had never seen before. He looked restrained, somewhere between his mid-thirties and forties, with brown skin, features carved by sleepless nights, and eyes disturbingly intense — as though they could see through flesh itself. He wore spotless white clothes with pale blue details along the sleeves and collar. Far too clean for a place like that. Like an inverted mirage.
— Cauã has... peculiar taste. — he remarked disdainfully, as though commenting on a crooked painting hanging in a noble hall.
Michel clenched his fists.
— Where is he? I came, didn't I? Isn't that what you wanted? — His voice came out steady, even while his heart raced and every part of him screamed Cauã's name. He wanted to run, invade the place, tear it apart. He needed to know he was alive.
But he knew he couldn't show fear.
Not there.
— I would never hurt a brother. — Kaike smiled with rehearsed sweetness, almost like a mask, as if he were performing onstage. — Someone who grew up beside me, yet refuses to see the purpose. You are a sinner, Michel. Your family is an abomination that should never have existed. And today... today your legacy ends. The birth of a new era demands sacrifices...
— Enough with this delusional bullshit! — Michel cut him off with disgust, eyes blazing. — You must be Cauã's missing friend. A lunatic who kidnaps his own brother to justify some messianic fantasy.
Kaike laughed. A low, bitter laugh, like someone listening to a child trying to explain the world.
— You would never be worthy. You would never understand what lives inside him. — he said firmly, like a judge delivering a sentence.
The words struck Michel harder than he wanted to admit. His fists tightened instinctively, nails nearly cutting into his palms. Now it made sense — Cauã's hesitation, the sudden fears, the way he had pulled away. The seed of doubt had not appeared on its own; it had been planted. By someone who knew Cauã deeply, someone who knew exactly where to press to make him doubt even himself.
And that certainty throbbed inside him. The bitter truth: there had been someone before him. Someone rooted too deeply in Cauã's past. Rational or not, Michel felt the sharp taste of jealousy rising in his throat.
Michel opened his mouth to answer, but he never got the chance. He felt a presence rushing toward him from behind — fast, brutal. A man larger than normal, his face hidden beneath a ceremonial hood, appeared with a curved dagger in hand. Michel reacted instinctively: he twisted his body, and the blade tore across his arm instead of his chest.
He stumbled backward, gasping. The pain burned, but it was bearable. Thank God they weren't using firearms. With his free hand, he pulled the pepper spray from his pocket — aimed — and fired directly into the attacker's face. The man screamed, staggering blindly from the burning in his eyes before collapsing.
And then Michel did what he had always known how to do, ever since he was born:
He attracted them.
The atmosphere changed. The walls of the manor trembled, the windows cracked with dry snaps. The air became thick, heavy as a drenched burial cloth. Spirits began emerging — from the ceiling, the floor, the cracks in the walls, the shattered mirrors. A legion.
Laments echoed through the manor, a chorus of agony sharp enough to freeze the spine. Forgotten entities, muddy presences crawling across the floor, visages with clouded eyes, specters bent beneath pain, hunger, and longing for a body. Spirits too ancient to remember why they remained there — but that recognized Michel as a beacon.
The man on the floor screamed in terror before they even touched him. The mere presence of those entities suffocated him, crushing his chest until he fainted.
Michel felt the weight of it too. It was like carrying an entire city on his back. But he had been born with that curse — or gift — and had learned to live with it. Now, everyone inside that place would have to feel it too.
Kaike narrowed his eyes, his once serene expression now marked by irritation. His followers, previously hidden in the shadows, began to stagger. Some vomited, others trembled, crushed beneath the spiritual pressure overwhelming their fragile bodies.
— Weak. — Kaike spat with contempt.
From within his ceremonial robes, Kaike pulled an ancient dagger, its gleaming blade wrapped in delicate shards of gold. Beautiful at first glance, but something about its vibration was profoundly wrong. The metal sang in silence, carrying the stain of countless stolen lives. The energy it radiated was not merely dissonant — it was corrupted. Almost as malevolent as the man now wielding it.
And Kaike walked forward with conviction. Calm steps. Steady eyes. The dagger pointed toward Michel's throat.
The lawyer tried to step back, but his body hesitated.
Because he was not alone.
Michel felt it before he saw it — a presence utterly different from everything around him. It was not merely a spirit or an obsessor, but something beyond what his mind could comprehend. An entity. An ancient being. A creature that had abandoned every trace of humanity long ago.
Every hair on his body stood on end. His breathing faltered. The air turned glacial.
Behind Kaike, wrapped in a dark cloak that seemed to absorb every shred of light in the room, it appeared. Its eyes burned like embers within the shadow-covered face. Its mere presence made time itself seem unstable, as though the world wavered between now and never.
Michel couldn't move. It felt as though the entity's gaze had pinned him to the floor, shackled him in invisible chains. Every instinct screamed at him to run, but his muscles refused to obey.
The energy in the room roared, and Michel understood — that thing had not been summoned.
It had chosen to be there.
And it was hungry.
It had no name, no definitive form. The thing hovering behind Kaike was not merely a presence — it was the absence of everything. A living void. A wound in reality itself.
The figure wore a cloak dark as aged oil, spilling across the floor without ever truly touching it. The fabric moved without wind, as though breathing with lungs that did not belong to this world. Its feet — if it even had feet — made no sound. Wherever it passed, time seemed to bend, and light hesitated to remain.
Its face, buried beneath shadows deeper than night itself, held two burning eyes. They did not glow — they smoldered. Red like live coals, yet utterly cold. Dead fire. An ancient warning. The threat of a future that had not yet arrived, but somehow already existed.
Michel felt cold sweat spread across his skin. The air around him thickened, every breath becoming harder than the last. As though oxygen itself were being devoured. Not from lack of air — but from fear.
And then he heard it.
Not a voice.
Not a sound.
But something inside him breaking. As though his soul recognized that entity from past lives. Or from a future that should never come to pass.
It was an ancient hunger. A terror older than language itself. A presence carrying within it the pain of the forgotten, the nameless dead, the souls consumed by broken promises.
The entity did not walk. It drifted like a fever. Its shadow was denser than the space surrounding it, and the manor walls trembled faintly wherever it passed — as though the building itself wished to recoil.
And when its eyes turned toward Michel, something inside him froze. Not his body.
His faith.
His logic.
His identity.
Michel felt small, fragile, like a single particle being observed by something incapable of understanding mercy.
The terror was not in being killed by that creature.
It was in being seen by it.
Michel collapsed to his knees, hands clutching his own throat as he struggled to breathe whatever air remained. His chest heaved, cold sweat pouring down his skin — and it wasn't only fear. It felt as though life itself were being drained away by something invisible and inevitable.
Around him, the spirits he himself had attracted began to scatter. The lamentations ceased. The muddy obsessors, once bold, now retreated with muffled whimpers, dragging their rotten existences away from the presence that silenced them.
The air grew heavier.
A loaded silence fell over the hall.
Kaike approached slowly, triumphant. He crouched before Michel like a priest before a fragile altar, gripping his chin with icy fingers. He forced him to keep eye contact — a gesture that blended sick affection with perverse domination.
— It's alright. — he whispered with monstrous calmness. — Now your existence will finally have meaning. At last.
And then, Vitória. The ceremonial blade. Beautiful and terrible. Its golden shards shimmered beneath an almost visible energy — dissonant, impure. It slid across Michel's skin as though destiny itself had guided it: a thin, precise cut opening the flesh from his collarbone to the edge of his chest. His suit jacket tore apart as easily as soaked paper.
But before the final blow could be struck, a brutal collision erupted.
Cauã's body appeared like lightning.
The impact was direct and violent. The doctor threw himself onto Kaike with every ounce of strength he had left, screaming without sound. The blade still grazed Michel's chest — a shallow cut, a warning of the tragedy that almost happened — but it did not sink deeper.
Kaike was hurled against the decayed wall of the manor. Rotten wood and ancient plaster failed to withstand the force. The crack thundered through the room. A dull impact. Dust and fragments of the past collapsed alongside him.
And for one brief second, time itself seemed to stop.
Michel gasped for air, trembling. Blood ran slowly down his chest. His gaze lost somewhere between terror and disbelief.
Cauã rose shakily from the rubble.
The entity shrieked — a sharp, tearing sound, like metal twisting inside living flesh. It stretched its spectral arms toward the doctor, starving for his spirit... but it had no time.
Crackling fire exploded through the corridor.
An ancestral chaos took shape within the flames: the Curupira. Wild. Furious. Colossal in presence, his flaming hair spiraling like living fire. It was the forest itself revolting. The strength of the earth against the abyss.
The unnatural being tried to resist, extending its tendrils of darkness, tearing through the air like a rupture in the fabric of reality. But the Curupira did not hesitate. He lunged forward with a ragged, savage laugh, as natural as thunder itself.
— You need to be dragged back into the abyss. You are not nature... you are filth accumulated into form. Parasitic.
With every word, the flames advanced, licking across the walls, the ruined paintings, the past fossilized within ancient wood. And then he pushed.
The void roared — an ancient, vengeful roar — as it was dragged away by the enchanted forest fire. The tendrils unraveled like smoke. The manor trembled, windows exploded outward, and the heat rose like the end of the world.
Cauã tried to stand, muscles shaking violently, his body at the edge of collapse. They needed to leave. They needed to run.
But he didn't have time.
Kaike was still there.
With a sick gleam in his eyes and a maddened smile twisting across his lips, he drove the sacred dagger through Cauã's hand, piercing flesh, blood, and wood, pinning him to the floor like a martyr.
— No. — he whispered softly, gentle as a twisted prayer. — We're turning to ashes together. I always wanted it this way. In the ashes... where no one can ever separate us again.
Cauã screamed. A raw, choked sound, sharp pain ripping through his throat while hot blood streamed between his fingers.
— Your boyfriend is going to burn alive. — Kaike continued, eyes wide with cruel delight. — And he's going to awaken the Great Serpent. No matter what you do.
The heat intensified. The world was collapsing around them. Tears filled the doctor's eyes, not only from pain, but from the horror of everything about to be lost.
Kaike leaned closer, whispering deliriously:
— He won't leave you here. And because of that... he'll die with you. This is the end.