Damon always told himself the alley was harmless.
Just brick and pavement, dumpsters and graffiti
Nothing more.
But tonight, as he stood at its mouth, the dark slit between the buildings seemed to wait for him. The kind of waiting that pressed on the chest and whispered, don't go in.
He hesitated only a moment. The main road would take twenty extra minutes, and twenty minutes meant twenty fewer minutes of sleep before the next shift. His boss would notice if he dragged in half-dead again. Damon tugged his jacket tighter and forced himself forward.
The stink of damp garbage met him at once, thick and sour, like rot fermenting in the cracks of the brick. His footsteps slapped against the concrete, too loud, bouncing back at him as though the alley wanted to keep his sounds inside.
It's fine. Just walk.
He'd done this a hundred times.
Halfway through, the air changed.
It wasn't colder, not exactly, but heavier—like a storm pressing down, though the sky above was still and clear. Damon slowed without realizing it, each step careful, as if his body knew something his mind refused to name.
That was when he saw it.
At first, only a shape crouched near the far end. Small, hunched, wrong. Damon squinted, telling himself it might be a stray dog tearing into a bag of trash, or maybe some drunk curled against the wall. But the longer he looked, the less it resembled anything human.
The thing shifted.
And the light from a buzzing streetlamp fell across its body.
Damon's breath hitched.
It was slender, too slender, all angles and limbs stretched longer than they had any right to be. Its skin was bone-white, smooth and hairless, stretched too tightly over the frame beneath. It had no clothes, no genitals, no marks of humanity at all—just a blank pale body, like something half-finished.
It crouched over a man sprawled on the ground. Damon hadn't noticed the man at first—the twitching body, the faint jerks of his arms. Then came the light. Wisps, like glowing strands of breath, drifting from his mouth and eyes.
The creature bent low. Its teeth gleamed jagged and uneven as it sucked the light in. Each strand vanished between those teeth, pulled greedily into the dark maw.
The man convulsed once, weakly. Still alive.
Damon's stomach lurched. His body screamed to run, but his feet locked into the concrete.
The sound stopped.
The creature froze in place.
Then, slowly, its head turned.
Not like a human head turning. Not with the roll of muscles and bone. It snapped—sharp, unnatural, like a puppet yanked by invisible strings. Its hollow eyes fixed on him.
Damon couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
The thing smiled.
Its lips peeled back too far, the skin stretching until it threatened to tear, revealing rows of jagged teeth, yellow-white and stained. The grin was wrong, obscene, a mimicry of joy with no trace of it in the empty gaze.
The creature rose.
It unfolded in pieces, limbs unbending one after the other, knees and elbows jutting too sharply, like an insect standing upright. Its movement had no weight, no sound—each step too smooth, too precise, as if gravity didn't apply in the same way.
Damon staggered back, whispering, "No…" His voice broke into the thick silence.
The pale figure tilted its head at the sound. Slowly. Curiously. Its grin never faltered.
The man on the ground twitched once more, then went limp. The last thread of light was sucked between those jagged teeth. The creature licked its mouth with a long, colorless tongue, never breaking eye contact with Damon.
Damon's pulse thundered in his ears. His hand twitched toward his phone, but halfway there he froze. Who could he call? What could anyone do against this?
The creature stepped forward. Each motion precise, balanced, silent. Its body bent slightly forward, as if eager, it's fingers flexing open and shut.
Panic broke loose inside Damon's chest. His vision tunneled, the edges blurring.
Run.
He spun and bolted.
The alley stretched before him, endless, his steps slapping too loud, too clumsy. His lungs burned instantly, his body heavy with exhaustion and terror. Don't look back. Don't.
And yet, he heard it.
The sound.
A low rattle. A laugh.
Not booming, not loud—but raw, broken, scraping up through the air like something dragged over stone.
Damon's legs faltered. The alley seemed longer than it had ever been, the mouth of it shrinking farther away with every step. His breath tore ragged in his throat, heart hammering so hard it hurt.
The laugh followed him. Not closer. Not farther. Just there. Always there.
His mind screamed at him: You won't make it. It's already too late.
But his body, driven by sheer animal terror, refused to stop.
Because stopping meant death.