Alex woke up to loud knocking. It wasn't soft or distant. It was sharp and repeated, like someone refusing to give up. His eyes opened slowly, and for a moment he didn't understand where he was. The ceiling above him was bright white, too clean, and the light didn't shift like sunlight. The air smelled sterile and heavy. His head hurt, and when he tried to move, a deep pain spread through his chest and ribs.
A nurse leaned over him. "Alex Carter? Can you hear me?" she asked gently. He turned his head slightly, and the movement sent pain down his side. A police officer stood near the wall, watching him carefully.
"You were unconscious for eight hours," the nurse explained. "You collapsed at your house."
The officer stepped forward. "We came to speak with you about your sister, Grace Carter, and your aunt, Margaret Carter," he said. "We knocked several times. No one answered. The television was still on, though. Through the front window, we could see your reflection in the hallway mirror. You were lying on the kitchen floor and not moving."
The memory returned slowly. The red banner on the screen. The list of names. Grace's name. The spoon slipping from his hand.
"We forced entry," the officer continued. "Paramedics brought you here."
Alex swallowed. His throat felt dry and raw. "Where's my sister?" he asked.
The officer hesitated. "That's what we're trying to understand. There have been multiple disappearances. Same night. Same kind of reports."
"What reports?" Alex asked.
Before the officer could answer, the lights flickered. Once. Then again. Half the hallway outside the room went dark. The constant hospital noise suddenly dipped into an uneasy quiet.
Then glass shattered somewhere down the hall.
Something heavy scraped across the floor. Slow. Deliberate.
Screams followed.
Through the open door, Alex saw chaos unfold. Stretchers overturned. Patients cried out. Nurses tried to move people out of the way. Police officers raised their weapons toward something at the far end of the corridor.
It stepped into the emergency lights.
It was too tall and too broad, its shape wrong in a way that made it hard to focus on. Its body looked like shadow wrapped tightly around muscle. The light bent around it instead of touching it properly.
The officers fired.
The bullets disappeared the moment they touched it, as if they had never existed.
"It's not working!" someone shouted.
The creature let out a roar that didn't just echo in the hallway but seemed to press inside Alex's skull. His vision blurred, and for a moment everything felt distant.
Then he moved.
He didn't move away. He moved toward it.
He pulled the wires from his chest and stumbled out of bed. Pain tore through his ribs, but he pushed forward anyway. The hallway was filled with noise and fear, alarms screaming as people tried to escape.
As he ran, something shifted inside his mind.
For a split second, he wasn't in the hallway anymore. He was standing in a dim hospital room from years ago. Machines hummed softly. His mother lay in the bed, pale and weak, her breathing shallow. She turned her head and looked at him with tired but gentle eyes.
"Take care…" she whispered.
The heart monitor beside her sped up. Doctors rushed into the room, pushing him aside. Then one long, flat sound filled the air.
The memory shattered.
Reality snapped back violently.
The creature swung its massive arm toward him. Alex stepped forward instead of back and kicked its knee with all his strength. A sharp cracking sound echoed through the corridor, and the creature stumbled slightly.
It hit him in return.
The force threw him into the wall. The air left his lungs as he crashed down. Pain spread through his body, but he forced himself back up.
They collided again, knocking over equipment and cracking tiles beneath their feet. The creature grabbed him and lifted him off the ground. One hand wrapped tightly around his throat, cutting off his air. The other hand rose slowly toward his face.
Alex struggled, clawing at its arm, but it didn't move.
Its hand closed around the right side of his face.
Pressure exploded through his skull. A tearing pain shot through his eye, and something inside it snapped with a wet, sharp sound. Blood ran down his cheek. Half of his vision went black instantly.
He screamed.
The creature held him there for a moment, almost studying him. Then it threw him across the hallway. He hit the floor hard, and the world spun violently around him.
Through the fading light in his remaining eye, he saw something strange.
The creature stopped moving. It didn't attack anyone else. It didn't charge forward or swing again. Instead, it slowly turned toward Alex. There were no eyes on its face, nothing human to read, yet Alex felt it clearly. Its attention locked onto him completely, like the rest of the hallway no longer existed. Like he was the only thing that mattered. Like it had finally found what it had been searching for.
The heat behind his ruined eye burned deeper, pulsing in a way that didn't feel normal. For one long second, everything seemed frozen. The creature began to lift its arm again, its massive shadow stretching across the broken tiles.
Then a deep sound echoed through the hallway.
Not from the creature.
From behind it.
Heavy boots stepped over shattered glass. Not rushed. Not chaotic. Controlled.
A group of soldiers moved into the corridor in dark uniforms, their formation tight and disciplined. They weren't panicking like the police had been. They moved like they understood exactly what they were facing.
And behind them walked an old man.
His hair was gray, his face marked by age, but his posture was straight and steady. He didn't look afraid. He didn't hesitate. His expression was calm, almost unreadable.
The creature turned toward him.
The old man simply raised his hand.
He didn't shout. He didn't run. He just lifted his hand into the air.
The atmosphere changed instantly. The air felt heavier, like pressure building inside the hallway. The creature froze mid-motion. Fine cracks began spreading across its shadowed body, thin lines of pale light cutting through the darkness that formed it.
The old man slowly lowered his hand.
The creature shattered.
Not with an explosion. Not with fire. It broke apart into fine black dust that drifted in the air for a few seconds before fading completely, leaving nothing behind.
Silence settled over the wrecked hallway. People cried in shock. Doctors rushed between the injured. Police shouted commands, trying to regain control. The floor was covered in debris and blood.
The old man turned his head slowly and looked at Alex.
There was no surprise in his eyes. No confusion.
Only recognition.
Alex's vision blurred. Blood pooled beneath his head, spreading across the cold tiles. The burning behind his ruined eye pulsed one last time. The sounds around him faded into a dull hum.
The last thing he saw was the old man walking toward him through the wreckage.
Then everything went dark