The silence after the alley was deafening. Lloyd walked on, feeling his consciousness tear in two. His ordinary senses, sharpened to an animalistic state, screamed of danger in every stone, every shadow. But the inner compass was deaf to these warnings. It pulled only forward, in a straight line, toward the goal that beckoned him with an inexorable force.
"Straight ahead." — he uttered hoarsely, looking at a pile of sharp concrete slabs.
"The structure is unstable. It will collapse." — Arielle shot a glance at the gaping cracks in the concrete.
"I know. But this compass... it's persistent." — Lloyd's voice was weary. — "Sometimes I think it's trying to get us killed, just to see how long we'll last."
"Cheerful fellow. Definitely has a sense of humor." — Arielle said, stepping over sharp stones, trying to lighten the mood.
"Life is boring without humor." — Lloyd concluded.
He climbed the pile, every muscle tensed in anticipation of a collapse. The stone crunched under his feet, shedding small fragments. Arielle followed him in tense silence.
From the top, a vast, deserted square opened up. A perfect, straight path. But Lloyd's instincts screamed in unison.
"Stop." — his hand sharply blocked Arielle's path.
"What?" — She froze.
"The shadows." — was all he could force out.
There, on the spacious square, the shadows on the gray concrete shimmered, living a life of their own. Lloyd focused on his inner compass: it still pulled him relentlessly into the unknown.
"Maybe... they're dancing?" — he whispered.
Arielle, without taking her eyes off the shifting darkness, slowly bent down and picked up a rusty piece of rebar. With a sharp motion, she hurled it onto the square. The moment it touched the ground, something—a sharp spike blacker than the night itself—shot out from the nearest shadow. It pierced the metal, which began to smoke with a faint hiss.
"No." — Arielle stated grimly. — "Definitely not."
She found a shard of a broken mirror. A ray of light, caught and reflected, struck the shadow. A furious hissing sound filled the air as the darkness recoiled.
"They're afraid of the light." — her voice was low and collected. — "We move only in the light!"
Their journey across the square became a nightmarish ritual. A dash from one island of light to another. Lloyd felt the tension mounting with every minute.
"You know, shadows are linked to darkness." — he rasped, jumping onto the next lit patch. — "And I was afraid of the dark as a kid."
"Congratulations, your childhood fear turned out to be prophetic." — Arielle responded, barely dodging a tentacle stretching from a shadow. — "I hope you at least weren't afraid of spiders?"
Suddenly, she froze.
"Lloyd..."
In the center of the square, in the deep shadow of a colossal, ruined column, lay a body in a tattered uniform. A Resonator. And from it, unnaturally dense, motionless shadows radiated in all directions.
"He's... had quite the walk." — Lloyd swallowed.
In that same instant, the 'body' jerked sharply. It rose from the ground with abrupt, jerky movements devoid of all fluidity. Its head tilted back, and from under the hood, a seething, liquid emptiness stared at them.
A sound erupted from the entity in the hood—a screech of breaking metal mixed with a whisper.
"—Flesh..."
Lloyd and Arielle stood back-to-back, clutching shards of glass in their trembling fingers. Cold terror gripped their lungs, but there was nowhere to retreat—the ring of shadows had closed around them.
"Ideas?" — Arielle asked shortly, her voice low and collected, but Lloyd caught a thin thread of tension in it.
"Run?" — Lloyd suggested, scanning the impenetrable wall of living shadows.
"Brilliant. Pity we didn't think of that sooner." — Arielle let out a nervous chuckle.
The entity in the hood took a step forward. The shadows around them solidified, turning into blades aimed at the two living people. Lloyd's inner compass, which had until now simply pulled him forward, suddenly wavered. It wasn't a warning of danger—more like a short pulse of irritation, as if someone had distracted it from an important task.
Suddenly, Arielle focused on something and darted to the side—not toward the exit, but toward the base of the ruined column. Right toward the abomination.
"Watch the tentacles!" — she shouted.
Lloyd, without thinking, swung his mirror shard, using the reflected light to sever a shadowy tentacle reaching for her. Hissing filled the air. Arielle, crouching, searched for something among the debris. The entity emitted a grinding sound and accelerated its movement.
"Arielle!" — Lloyd's voice broke into a shout as two shadowy blades rushed at him simultaneously.
In the next instant, a blinding flash of white light cut through the square's gloom. Arielle, kneeling, held an old, rust-covered emergency lantern in her hands. Its beam, bright and furious, slammed into the hooded figure.
An inhuman shriek echoed. The entity fluttered as if in a windstorm, its outlines blurring. The clot of darkness that was its face became transparent, and for a moment, Lloyd thought he saw a human face contorted in pain beneath it. The shadows holding them in the ring wavered and retreated like frightened animals.
"Let's go!" — Arielle was already next to him, grabbing his sleeve.
They bolted for the square's exit, leaving the wounded shadow's howls behind them. Lloyd's heart hammered wildly, a ringing in his ears. They dashed into a narrow passage between ruins and, after running about fifty meters, collapsed behind a pile of broken crates, trying to catch their breath.
"Where... the lantern?" — Lloyd wiped sweat from his forehead.
"From that Resonator." — Arielle explained shortly. — "Noticed it when we were approaching."
They sat, leaning against the cold metal, listening as the distant shriek on the square gradually faded. It seemed they had won. But the relief was short-lived.
Lloyd was the first to sense something wrong. Not through his gift—that still pulled him stubbornly toward the temple. No, this was something else. A faint vibration coming from the wall he was leaning against. Then a quiet, wet sound, as if something large and heavy was slowly slithering over the roof of their shelter.
He slowly raised his head. Right above them, hanging over the edge of the pile of crates, half a meter from his face, was a pale, skinless head the size of a torso. Two huge, cloudy eyes with vertical pupils stared at him without any expression. A long slit of a mouth slowly opened, revealing a palisade of bony needles.
It had been here all this time. And now it was looking right at him.
Lloyd froze, unable to tear his gaze away from the pale face looming over him. Time slowed. He saw droplets of murky fluid trickle down the skinless head, heard the quiet, wheezing whistle with which the creature breathed.
"Don't... move..." — he whispered, staring into the cloudy eyes.
Arielle, sitting with her back to the threat, understood everything from his tone. Her shoulders tensed, but she remained motionless.
"How bad?" — her voice was even, as if she were asking about the weather.
"Comparable to a square full of shadows." — Lloyd replied just as quietly. — "Only now it's right on top of us. And it has... lots of teeth."
The creature slowly, almost weightlessly, slid off the pile of crates and lowered itself to the ground before them. Its body, long and worm-like, was covered in pale, pulsating flesh. It filled the entire narrow passage, blocking any path of retreat.
"I... am hungry..." — it rasped, its voice like the creaking of rusty hinges.
Lloyd slowly raised his hand with the mirror shard, but the beam of light, reflecting off the pale flesh, caused the creature no harm. It merely squinted, as if mildly inconvenienced.
"Light... doesn't hurt..." — the monstrosity hissed. — "Haven't... eaten... in so long..."
Arielle slowly turned, careful not to make any sudden moves. Her eyes met the huge pupils.
"And what if we offered you something better than food~?" — she said, and a cloying, almost sing-song note, unlike her usual self, entered her voice.
Lloyd stared at her, not believing his ears.
"What?..." — the creature rasped, tilting its head.
"Food is boring." — Arielle continued, slowly running a hand over her backpack. — "But I can offer you... something interesting. You see, I have this little thing here..."
She slowly, very slowly, began to undo the buckle on her backpack. The creature watched her movements with curiosity, like a child following a new toy.
"What are you doing?" — Lloyd whispered, feeling chills run down his spine.
"Improvising." — she replied just as quietly, not taking her eyes off the monster. — "Do you have a better plan?"
Lloyd did not have a plan. His inner compass was frantically pulling him away from this place, but physically, escape was impossible.
Arielle pulled from her backpack not a shiny artifact or a weapon, but... a worn-out book in a leather binding.
"This is a diary." — she said, demonstratively flipping through the yellowed pages. — "The diary of a man who studied the Gates of Darkness. It holds secrets you couldn't even dream of. Much more interesting than two skinny travelers."
"Knowledge... is also... sustenance..." — The creature extended a pale, trembling appendage, resembling a hand, toward the book.
"Exactly!" — Arielle pulled the book back, behind her. — "But first, you escort us. Safely. Show us a short path. Understood?"
The monster froze, its huge eyes narrowing. It seemed to be considering the offer. Lloyd held his breath. This venture was insane, but he saw no other way out.
"Where... to?" — it finally hissed.
"There. To the temple." — Lloyd nodded without hesitation in the direction his inner compass pulled him relentlessly.
Hearing that word, the creature shuddered strangely. Its pale skin rippled, and something remotely resembling fear flashed in its eyes.
"Can't... go there..." — its hiss grew louder. — "They... are watching..."
"Who is watching?" — Arielle leaned forward immediately.
But the creature seemed to already regret saying too much. It crawled back several meters, its body writhing in a strange, anxious dance.
"Won't go... there..." — it rasped. — "Better... stay... hungry..."
And before Lloyd or Arielle could say or do anything, the worm-like creature jerked sharply up the wall, dissolving into the darkness between the rubble, leaving behind only the smell of dampness and a quiet, frightened whisper drifting down from above:
"...don't want... them... to watch... me..."
Lloyd and Arielle remained sitting in complete silence, staring at the empty space where the monster had just been.
"Well then..." — Lloyd finally broke the silence, slowly rising to his trembling feet. — "Now we know your diary can scare off monsters. A useful property."
"That's not a diary." — Arielle retorted, putting the book back into her backpack. — "It's my old recipe notebook. The binding just looks similar."
Lloyd stared at her.
"You risked our lives by waving a cookbook around?"
"It worked, didn't it?" — she parried, standing up and brushing herself off. — "Now tell me, Lloyd... what is this 'temple' we're heading to, and why is the local fauna so terrified of it? And most importantly... Who are 'they' who are 'watching' from there?"
She looked at him, and in her dark-honey eyes, there were neither jokes nor fear. There was only a cold, demanding interest.
Lloyd was silent. He had no answers. But in his chest, over the pulling call of the compass, a new, unfamiliar, and far more unpleasant tenant had taken up residence—a soul-chilling fear.