Farda's House. 8:00 P.M.
Farda stared at her reflection in the hallway mirror. She traced a wrinkle near her eye with a manicured fingernail.
"Ugh," she muttered, pulling the skin back. "This damn old age is driving me crazy."
She was a woman obsessed with beauty. Her love for people, for herself, even for her late husband, had always been skin deep. And now, as her beauty faded, so did her patience.
She opened the main door, kicking off her expensive heels. "I'm home, Dasa! Where are you?"
Silence.
"Dasa?" she called out again, annoyed.
Dasa was her son. Seventeen years old. Once, he was a bright boy who dreamed of curing cancer. Now, he was a ghost in his own house, addicted to video games, hiding from a world that had broken him.
Farda walked to the kitchen. Outside, the sky growled. A storm was brewing.
The Roof.
Rain began to fall. Cold. Heavy.
A masked man stood on the roof of the garage. He looked down at his hand. A single drop of water rolled off his palm.
"Am I perspiring?" he whispered.
No. It was just the rain.
"Humph. Even the heavens weep before me," He murmured, a cold smile touching his lips. "These fools think nature can stop me? They have no idea how far I've already fallen."
He slipped through the unlocked window, moving like smoke.
The Kitchen.
Farda hummed along to the music on her phone, chopping vegetables. The blue light of a lightning strike illuminated the room for a split second.
She didn't hear the footsteps on the stairs. She didn't feel the presence behind her.
BANG.
A hard, precise strike to the back of her head.
Farda crumpled to the floor instantly. The world went black.
The Waking Nightmare.
"Ah, fuck..." Farda groaned. "Why does my head hurt like a bitch?"
She tried to rub her head, but her hand didn't move.
Her eyes fluttered open. Her vision was blurry, swimming in a haze of pain.
She blinked. She realized she wasn't on the floor. Her feet weren't touching the ground.
"What..."
She looked up. Panic exploded in her chest.
She was crucified.
Her right hand was tied to a rope pulled taut to one corner of the room. Her left hand was pulled to the other. She was suspended against the wall, displayed like a piece of meat.
"What the hell is going on?!" she screamed in her mind.
Then, she looked down.
Her stomach throbbed with agony. She looked at her midsection and screamed.
A patch of skin—perfectly rectangular—had been peeled away. The raw red flesh underneath pulsated with every heartbeat.
Standing in front of her was her son, Dasa. He was holding a vegetable peeler. His hand was shaking violently, and wet strips of skin were caught in the blade.
"Dasa!" Farda shrieked. "Free me! What are you looking at? Why are you holding that peeler?!"
Dasa didn't move. He looked like a statue made of ice, tears streaming down his face as he stared at the raw flesh he had just exposed.
"Dasa! What the hell do you think you are doing? I am your mother! How can you do this to me?"
"Come on, Dasa."
A voice spoke from the shadows. Cold. Calm. Demonic.
Farda froze. She looked past her son.
A figure stepped out of the dark corner. He wore a simple black mask. But it wasn't the mask that terrified her. It was the energy radiating off him—a heavy, suffocating darkness that filled the room.
"You did well," the Masked Man said gently to the boy. "Remember what she did to you."
He walked up to Dasa and placed a toy water gun in the boy's shaking hand, gently taking the bloody peeler away.
"Remember the pain you went through because of your mother."
Flashback.
It was a hot summer day. A younger Dasa ran home from school, clutching a report card.
"Mom! Dad! I got straight As!"
He rushed into his father's room. The smell of medicine was strong and sick. His father, gaunt and pale from cancer, was coughing violently. Blood stained his pillow.
Dasa looked at the corner of the room. Farda was sitting there. She wasn't helping. She wasn't holding his hand. She was simply sitting there, scrolling through her phone, visibly annoyed by the coughing sound.
"Look, Dad," Dasa whispered, trying to ignore his mother. "I promise... one day I will become a doctor. I will cure your disease. I will free you from this pain."
His father smiled weakly, a tear rolling down his cheek. He looked at Farda, wanting one last look of love, but she didn't even look up.
Reality.
"Shoot, Dasa," the Masked Man commanded.
"No..." Dasa whimpered.
The Masked Man leaned in, his voice dropping to a clinical whisper.
"There are three layers to the human skin. The Epidermis—the outer shield. The Dermis—full of nerves. And the Hypodermis—the deepest layer protecting the muscle."
Narrator's Note: This specific method is a highly effective torture technique used in military interrogations to break enemy spies. By stripping away the first two layers, the nerves are left completely exposed without protection. Even a slight breeze on the innermost layer feels like a bullet impact. It does not kill the victim; it is designed to inflict a level of suffering that the human mind cannot process—a pain far more brutal than death itself.
He pointed to the peeled red patch on Farda's stomach.
"You have removed the first two layers perfectly, Dasa. The nerve endings are exposed. Raw. Naked."
He looked at the water gun.
"Imagine what a jet of salty water will feel like. It won't kill her. But it will cause a pain worse than death."
"I said... SHOOT."
SQUIRT.
Dasa pulled the trigger. A thin stream of water hit the raw, peeled flesh.
"AAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
Farda's scream tore through the house. It wasn't just a scream; it was the sound of a soul breaking. Her body thrashed against the ropes, her veins popping out of her neck.
"It burns! It burns!" she wailed, tears streaming down her face. "I am your mother! Son! Why?!"
"SHUT UP!" Dasa screamed back. His eyes were wild. "I wanted to become a doctor! But you made my life a living hell!"
Flashback.
Three months after the funeral. Farda married Mr. Masqood. A rich businessman.
Dasa was sitting in the living room, reading his biology books. He loved them. They were his only connection to his promise.
Mr. Masqood walked in, drunk. He saw the books.
"I told you to study business!" Masqood shouted. He grabbed the biology books. He grabbed Dasa's notes. He threw them into the fireplace.
"No! Please!" Dasa screamed, trying to save them.
Masqood shoved Dasa to the floor and kicked him. Dasa looked up, crying. He looked at the sofa. Farda was sitting there.
She saw her husband burning her son's dreams. She saw her son bleeding on the carpet.
She didn't stand up. She didn't scream. She simply picked up the remote and turned up the volume on the TV to drown out Dasa's crying.
Reality.
"You knew!" Dasa shouted, firing another stream of water.
SQUIRT.
The salty water hit the nerves like liquid fire. It shocked Farda's system like electricity.
"AAAAH! STOP! PLEASE!" Farda writhed in agony.
"You knew what he was doing to me! And you stayed silent! You watched him burn my life and you watched TV!"
"I did it for your future!" Farda sobbed, gasping for air.
"Future?" Dasa laughed, a broken sound. "You were madly in love with him! Even when Dad was alive!"
Farda went still. The truth hung in the air.
"Your father was ill," she spat out, trying to justify herself. "He wasn't paying attention to me! I was young! I was beautiful! My body needed validation! It's not my fault masqood fell for me!"
"That's why he abandoned us when your so-called beauty faded!" Dasa screamed, emptying the water gun onto her wound.
Farda couldn't speak. The pain was blinding. She looked at the Masked Man.
"Please..." she whispered. "Dasa, don't listen to him. Save your mother."
The Masked Man walked toward her. His footsteps synced with her terrified heartbeat. Thump. Thump.
"Why are you wearing a mask?" Farda gasped. "Are you scared of me?"
The Masked Man reached up. He pulled the mask off.
Farda's eyes went wide.
"You..." she whispered. "Damn you."
She recognized him.
"You think you are smart?" she hissed, her ego flaring up one last time. "Making my son kill me? You are a disgusting piece of shit. A failure!"
"I am a reflection of you," He said calmly. "People like you gave birth to people like me. I am as disgusted by myself as you are."
He leaned in close. His eyes were infinite black pits.
"Tell me, FARDA. Can you see death in my eyes?"
Farda looked. She felt like she was falling into a black hole. Her arrogance shattered.
"Please," she begged, sobbing. "I was wrong. I did wrong to you. Please... save me from this monster."
"Time has come, Farda," He said. "Say goodbye."
He pulled his fist back and punched her directly in the stomach—right on the raw, peeled wound.
CRUNCH.
The force ruptured her internal organs. Farda coughed, spitting blood.
"Dasa..." she wheezed, looking at her son one last time. "I know I wasn't a good mom... but I still love you... my love is pure..."
Her head dropped. Silence.
"Mom? Mom!" Dasa dropped the water gun. He rushed to her body, shaking her. "Respond! Why aren't you saying anything?!"
He turned to masked man . "Why isn't she speaking?! You said we were just teaching her a lesson!"
Masked man calmly walked to the sink. He turned on the tap and washed the blood from his hands.
"I said... why did you kill her?!" Dasa screamed.
He turned off the tap. He dried his hands on a towel.
"Calm down, my friend," He said softly. "You are free now. Go. Become a doctor. Make medicine for cancer so no one suffers like you did. You have achieved free will."
He walked to the window.
"I believe in you."
The Interrogation Room. The Next Morning.
Hirey stared at the monitor, her brow furrowed. Inside the interrogation room, Dasa wasn't just crying; he was unraveling.
He huddled in the metal chair, his fingernails digging frantically into his own arms, scratching red lines into his skin as if trying to peel away the memory of what he had done. His breathing was jagged, hyperventilated gasps.
"It wasn't me! It wasn't me!" Dasa screamed, his voice cracking into a high-pitched wail. He looked wildly at the corners of the room, his eyes wide, bloodshot, and terrified. "He was there! The shadow! He spoke to me... he... he knew about Dad!"
Dasa looked down at his trembling hands and let out a strangled sob. "The skin... oh god, the skin... I didn't want to! He made me! He put the gun in my hand! He knew everything!"
He slammed his forehead against the metal table. Thud. Thud. Thud.
"He disappeared! Like smoke! I tried to catch him but he wasn't human! Please! You have to believe me! There was a monster in the room!"
In the observation room, the Senior Officer sighed, rubbing his temples. "He has gone completely crazy. Guilt broke his brain."
Hirey narrowed her eyes. "A doctor could tell us more," she said confidently, though her voice lacked its usual steel. "To me, it is clear. He is traumatized. He killed his mother out of years of resentment and is now blaming a 'monster' to cope with the horror of his own actions. I have seen cases like this before. The entity... it's a hallucination."
"I want this case closed," the Senior said, turning to leave. "We have enough work to do. Write it up."
"Yes, sir," Hirey replied.
But as she watched Dasa claw at his own face, terrified of the empty air around him, a small, cold doubt scratched at the back of her mind.
A monster in the dark...
Z's Room:LATER THAT NIGHT
Huzaifa sat at the small table, staring at the chess board.
The house was quiet.
Huzaifa moved his pawn forward. Tuk.
Suddenly, the air in the room shifted. A heavy, familiar energy filled the space. The shadows seemed to lengthen, but Huzaifa didn't flinch. He didn't look around. He felt the change in gravity, the arrival of predator, but he sat still, his face set in stone.
Footsteps approached the door. Not the light steps of a recovering patient, but the heavy, deliberate tread.
Thump... Thump... Thump.
The door creaked open. Z walked in.
He didn't look like the confused, innocent boy from yesterday. He stood with a terrifying stillness. His posture was perfect, his presence overwhelming. The sunlight from the window seemed to bend around him.
Z didn't say a word. He didn't need to. His mere existence in the room demanded submission.
"So," Huzaifa said, his voice steady and cold. He didn't look up from the chessboard. He held his hand level with his face, staring at his pawn. "Finally... the guest has left, and the owner has returned."
Huzaifa gripped the pawn firmly. Slowly, deliberately, he turned his head.
He locked eyes with his best friend. He saw the infinite, abyssal void in Z's eyes, but he met it with his own burning resolve. He wasn't a victim. He was the only one who knew the truth.
"Tell me..." Huzaifa demanded, his voice hard as iron. "Who the hell you really are, Z?"