Into the Darkness: Chapter Four - Previous Chapter
Chapter 5
The hospital corridor was chaos.
Doctors and nurses poured out of Room 312, their shoes squealing on the linoleum, the air thick with the acrid scent of ozone and antiseptic. Someone was sobbing. Another retched into a waste bin. The charge nurse, pale as a ghost, clutched the doorway and stared in disbelief at what she had just fled.
Inside the room, Damien remained encased in the shadow cocoon—a black chrysalis, faintly pulsing, slick with an otherworldly sheen. The walls still wept with condensation from the storm of energy that had ripped through them. Shards of glass covered the floor, glittering like frost in the fluorescent light. The heart monitor lay in ruin, its screen a spiderweb of cracks.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the cocoon’s slow rhythm—thud… thud… thud…—like a second heartbeat superimposed upon the silence.
Then, without warning, the air changed.
It began as a faint hum, a tone barely perceptible, vibrating just beyond the threshold of hearing. From the center of the room, a sphere of white light bloomed into existence. It was neither bright nor dim, but perfect—a steady, living luminescence that filled every shadow, pressing them back against the walls.
The fragments of broken glass stirred. One by one they lifted from the ground, trembling in the air as if held by invisible threads. The shards turned lazily, aligning themselves in silent formation before sweeping together in a graceful dance—returning to their rightful places in the window frames with soft, crystalline clicks.
The smoking machines hissed once, then began to mend. Wires knitted themselves, screens cleared, and their indicator lights flickered back to life, restored to factory perfection. The scent of ozone thinned, replaced by the sterile tang of disinfectant and something faintly sweet—like lilacs on a cold wind.
The cocoon shuddered. Its surface rippled as if something within were breathing deep.
And then came the voice.
It was not heard so much as felt, sinking straight into Damien’s mind, heavy and ancient, threaded with command.
'Time for you to wake up.'
He stirred. The cocoon trembled, the pulse of shadow quickening.
'You are needed in Medan. North Sumatra.'
The voice faded like a dying echo, leaving only its weight behind—inevitable, insistent.
The black sheath began to melt away, folding in upon itself, threads of darkness seeping back into Damien’s skin. His body twitched as the last of it disappeared, leaving faint traceries of smoke that curled like ink in water.
Outside the doorway, the doctors hesitated, unable to look away.
He stood slowly. The movement was almost casual, too human. Muscles stretching, shoulders rolling as if waking from an ordinary nap. His eyes were clear, bright—alive.
The hospital gown he had been wearing hung in tatters, little more than scraps of fabric clinging to him. His suit jacket and shirt lay shredded on the floor, the once-fine cloth reduced to black ribbons.
Damien glanced down at them, sighed, and muttered under his breath, “Dammit… I was getting used to that suit.”
The words broke the silence like a stone through glass.
No one answered. The nurses simply stared, transfixed between awe and terror, as he ran a hand through his hair and flexed his fingers.
Something unseen moved just beneath his skin—the faint shimmer of shadow, like black water reflecting starlight. He smiled, slow and tired, a man whose dreams had finally caught up with him.
“Now then,” he murmured, glancing toward the nearest window, where the city lights burned against the night like scattered embers. “Medan, was it?”
He stepped forward, barefoot across the spotless floor, the repaired glass glittering faintly at his feet.
The monitors behind him pulsed in flawless rhythm—too flawless, each tone echoing the beat of a heart that might not be entirely his.
He paused before the window. The city sprawled beneath him, its lights trembling in the mist. For a moment he only stood there, hand pressed to the glass, feeling the faint vibration of the wind. Then, with a faint sigh, he unlocked the latch and pushed the window open.
Cold air poured in, carrying the smell of rain and exhaust and something older—earth, stone, night itself.
From the hallway came the sound of hurried footsteps. Voices, rising in panic.
“Don’t let him—!”
“Get security!”
Damien glanced over his shoulder, eyes glinting in the dimness. A faint smile touched his lips. “It’s all right,” he said softly, though no one could hear him. “I’m awake now.”
He climbed onto the ledge.
The door burst open behind him. Doctors and nurses flooded the room, shouting, but the words never reached him. In that instant, the air around him thickened—the shadows stretching, coiling, alive.
He let himself fall.
The screams from the room above dissolved into the night as black tendrils erupted from the darkness below, whipping through the air to meet him. They wrapped around his body mid-descent, tightening, pulling, spinning him into a silhouette of pure void.
Then, as swiftly as they appeared, the shadows folded inward—swallowing him whole.
Where Damien had fallen, there was nothing left. Not a trace. Only the faint shimmer of disturbed air, and the distant echo of a single heartbeat fading into the night.
The wind rose once, sharp and cold, rattling the newly repaired windowpanes before settling into stillness.
Inside the hospital, the machines continued to beep, steady and calm, as though mocking the silence that followed.
No one dared to speak.
And outside, far below, the city’s darkness rippled—as though something unseen had slipped quietly into its veins.
The fall was silent.
The city of Salford vanished beneath Damien in a rush of darkness, swallowed whole by his own shadows. He didn’t fall so much as dissolve—his body a blur of black smoke drawn through an unseen rift. There was no up, no down, only motion and the distant hum of unseen voices whispering in a language he almost understood.
Then, with a sharp pull—like the world exhaling—he landed.
Warm air pressed against his skin. The chill of England was gone. He stood barefoot on uneven pavement slick with rain, the smell of gasoline and clove cigarettes heavy in the night.
Medan.
He knew it instantly. The name arrived unbidden, humming in his chest like an echo of command.
The street was narrow and dimly lit by a single yellow lamp, its glow wavering as a moth battered against the bulb. The air hung thick with humidity. Faint sounds drifted from somewhere beyond—a motorbike revving, the distant cry of a street vendor packing up for the night, laughter carried on the wind.
Damien blinked, disoriented. His hospital robe clung damply to him, streaked with soot and torn where the shadows had touched. He looked like a man who had crawled out of his own grave.
A stray dog emerged from the mouth of an alley—a thin, dusty creature with wary eyes. It stopped a few feet away, sniffing the air. Its ribs showed through its fur. When it saw Damien, its tail gave a tentative wag before it backed away again, whimpering softly.
He looked down at himself and sighed. “Yeah,” he muttered, voice dry. “Not exactly blending in.”
Then he noticed it.
Hovering a few feet away, just beyond the reach of the lamplight, was the white sphere—the same that had mended the hospital room in Salford. Smaller now, faintly pulsing, as though it had followed him across the world only to dim with exhaustion.
It drifted closer, humming softly. The air shimmered around it, bending faintly, and Damien felt warmth wash over his skin.
The tattered hospital robe fluttered once—then disintegrated into black dust that vanished before it touched the ground.
A moment later, new fabric settled over him. He looked down to find himself clothed in light linen trousers, sandals, and a dark buttoned shirt—simple, local, utterly unremarkable. The collar was still open, the sleeves rolled just so. He looked like any other traveller, tired but alive.
“Much better,” he murmured, brushing his hands along the material. “At least someone’s keeping track.”
The sphere pulsed once in response, a faint ripple of light passing through it, before floating higher into the humid air.
Damien glanced up at it. “You’re not done with me yet, are you?”
No answer came, but the sphere began to move—drifting slowly down the street, toward the darker end where the lamplight failed.
The stray dog barked once, a low sound, as if in warning.
Damien hesitated only a moment before following. His sandalled feet made no sound against the warm pavement. The night pressed in around him, dense and heavy, the air carrying the scent of rain-soaked concrete and spice.
At the street’s end, the sphere paused, hovering above an old wooden sign written in Bahasa Indonesia, its paint half-faded and letters almost unreadable. Beneath the sign stood a rusted gate, and behind that gate—an overgrown courtyard choked with vines.
As Damien approached, the sphere dimmed, its light fading until only the faintest outline remained.
Then it whispered, faint as breath:
'You are where you must be.'
And with that, the white sphere flickered once—then winked out, leaving Damien alone in the pale lamplight.
The silence that followed was unnerving. The hum of insects dulled. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
He stood before the gate, its iron bars wrapped in vines that glistened faintly with dew. The sign above creaked on rusted hinges, its letters almost erased by time. The courtyard beyond was a tangle of shadow and foliage—ferns, hanging creepers, and the faint outline of something larger, half-swallowed by darkness.
Damien hesitated, then pushed the gate. It resisted for a moment before yielding with a long, aching creeeeeak that cut through the stillness.
As he stepped over the threshold, the air changed.
The warm humidity of the Medan night collapsed into a sudden chill that ran down his spine. It wasn’t the kind of cold one felt on the skin—it sank deeper, into the marrow, into the heart.
Behind him, the stray dog growled—a deep, warning rumble that broke into short, nervous barks.
Damien paused, glancing back. The animal stood in the street’s yellow light, hackles raised, its gaze fixed not on him but on the darkness beyond the gate.
“Smart dog,” he murmured. “Stay there.”
He turned back and moved forward. The path beneath his feet was uneven, littered with wet leaves and shards of stone. The shadows of the trees seemed to shift as he passed, their shapes contorting, their branches reaching like arms.
Something brushed his ankle.
He stumbled, catching his balance too late, and fell to one knee. His hand sank into soft earth—not soil, he realised—but something looser, clumped and cold.
As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he saw her.
A woman—half-buried in the ground, her body upright as though she’d been forced into the earth. The dirt reached her waist; the rest of her hung limply forward, her hair a dark curtain over her face. Her skin was pale beneath the film of soil, mottled with bruises. Around her throat bloomed the purple shadow of strangling hands.
Damien froze. For a moment, there was only the pulse of blood in his ears and the faint tremor of the dog still barking in the distance.
Then the woman’s head twitched.
Just a fraction—barely a movement—but enough to stir the hair from her face. Her eyes were open. Wide. Clouded with the stillness of death, yet fixed on him as though she saw.
The night closed in tighter, the air colder still. The vines along the wall rustled, whispering in a language made of leaves and breath.
Damien took one slow step back.
“What happened to you?” he whispered.
But the woman did not answer. Her mouth hung slightly open, lips cracked, and from within escaped a faint, almost inaudible sound—like the soft inhale of someone about to speak.
The dog barked again, frantic now.
And somewhere deep within the courtyard, behind the veiled darkness of the trees, something else moved.
Damien’s breath came shallow as his gaze swept the courtyard.
There were others.
Dozens of them. Figures half-swallowed by the earth, all women—some slumped, some upright, each one with the same dark bruise-rings circling their throats. Their faces were half-rotted masks of agony, their hands frozen mid-reach, as though clawing at the world that had buried them alive.
“This is real,” Damien murmured, his voice a tremor in the thick air. “A haunting… a spirit long gone, back to finish what it started.”
He rose to his feet, brushing soil from his hands, and looked toward the hulking building at the end of the path. Its windows were mostly black, but one on the second floor pulsed faintly—light flickering like a dying candle.
Drawn forward, Damien stepped onto the veranda. The wooden boards bowed beneath his weight, groaning like something waking from a long sleep. He pushed the door open.
The hinges screamed.
Inside, the air was heavy with the scent of mildew and rot. Wallpaper hung in ribbons, curling away from walls slick with damp. Furniture had sagged into itself, the once-polished surfaces bloated and blackened with age. Every step Damien took echoed softly, as though the house itself were listening.
Then—voices.
Upstairs. Four, maybe five of them, low and nervous, their words muffled through the warped floorboards.
“Ask it… go on, ask if the spirit’s still here!”
“I don’t want to—”
“Just do it!”
A pause.
Then a sharp, shrill scream split the silence—a woman’s voice, raw with terror. The crash of something overturning followed, and the voices dissolved into panicked shouts.
Damien didn’t hesitate. His body moved before thought could catch up. He took the stairs three at a time, the railing cold under his hand. Dust exploded in the air as his foot hit the landing.
The bedroom door loomed ahead, its wood cracked, the paint blistered. He kicked it open.
The scene inside froze mid-chaos: a circle of young people, flashlights scattered, candles guttering. In the center—a girl hung in the air, her limbs limp, her mouth open in a silent scream.
Damien’s shadow stretched across the floor, long and alive, as if it sensed what needed to be done. It coiled outward—tendrils lashing forward like a living thing.
The air snapped with sudden cold.
The girl convulsed, her body jerking as the unseen force that held her began to dissolve. The temperature dropped further still—every breath a mist, every heartbeat echoing like thunder in Damien’s skull.
Then, just as quickly, the pressure broke.
The shadows withdrew, curling back into Damien’s body like serpents returning to their den. The girl slumped forward, her descent slowed by a final whisper of darkness that caught her before she hit the floor.
Damien exhaled slowly. His hands trembled, not from fear but from the lingering surge of something else—something that wasn’t entirely human.
And then he saw it.
On the floor between the scattered group, etched in dust and candle wax, sat an Ouija board. The planchette quivered slightly, though no one touched it. Its glass window gleamed with the faint reflection of something that wasn’t in the room—something vast and formless, hovering just beyond the veil of sight.
Damien’s gaze fixed on it.
He could feel it, deep inside—an ancient awareness staring back.
The girl coughed violently, her body shaking as air clawed its way back into her lungs. Her fingers clutched at her throat, the skin already blotched with deep red marks.
“Get her water,” Damien snapped, his voice sharp enough to cut through the panic. “Now.”
Someone fumbled for a bottle, spilling half of it in their haste. The girl drank greedily, trembling, eyes wide and unfocused.
Damien’s gaze raked the group—wide-eyed, pale, the thrill of their séance now curdled into horror. “And someone,” he growled, “explain what the hell is happening here.”
A boy stepped forward. Barely twenty, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. “We—uh—we were dared,” he stammered, “to… to make contact with the sorcerer who used to live here.”
Damien’s stare was glacial. “A dare.”
The boy swallowed hard. “We didn’t think it would work! It’s just… local stories.”
“Continue,” Damien said, his tone brooking no argument.
The lad nodded nervously. “They say a shaman once lived in this house. Long ago. He claimed he was visited by his father in a dream—a spirit that told him he could gain power over life and death. But to earn it, he had to kill seventy-two women.”
The air in the room seemed to thicken, the candle flames shrinking to trembling pinpricks of light.
“He managed forty-two,” the boy whispered. “He strangled them. Buried them up to the waist in the garden, so their spirits couldn’t walk free. He… drank their saliva, said it made him strong. When they caught him, they executed him by firing squad.”
The planchette twitched.
A small, sharp movement—barely noticeable, but enough to send a ripple through the circle. The girl whimpered, clutching Damien’s arm. The temperature dropped again, the walls exhaling a chill that carried the faint scent of old blood and wet soil.
Damien could feel it—the pressure, the presence gathering. The very air hummed with anticipation.
“Back away from the board,” he ordered.
The group stumbled back, huddling near the far wall. Damien stepped forward. His shadow elongated across the warped floorboards, dark tendrils whispering and coiling at the edges of the circle.
The candlelight flickered once, twice—then died.
In the blackness that followed, the sound came: a dry, rasping inhale, as though something buried deep beneath the floor had taken its first breath in centuries.
Damien’s eyes narrowed. He spread his hands, the shadows responding like trained beasts.
“Sorcerer,” he said, his voice low but ringing with authority. “Show yourself.”
The air snapped. A gust of wind whipped through the room, scattering papers and candles. The Ouija board flipped over, slamming against the floor with a hollow crack.
A shape began to rise from the darkness at its center—mist first, then something denser, forming a human outline that twitched and shuddered as though stitched together from smoke and memory.
A face began to emerge, faintly luminous, half-rotted, the mouth twisted in a perpetual smile.
Damien felt the pressure mount, the air so cold it bit his skin.
The shadow-tendrils around him rose higher, alive with purpose.
This wasn’t a simple haunting. This was a call-and-response between predator and prey—except neither of them knew which one they were yet.
Damien lifted one hand, fingers curling as though he were gripping invisible threads. His shadow obeyed instantly—black tendrils coiling around the spirit, pinning it mid-air. The shape writhed, half smoke, half the memory of a man, its eyes like hollow lanterns burning from within.
With his free hand, Damien flicked his wrist.
The Ouija board and its trembling planchette lifted from the floor, floating through the stale air. They hovered for a heartbeat before settling in front of the terrified group.
“Close your session,” Damien said, his tone sharp and unwavering. “Now. Don’t dawdle.”
The group scrambled, voices shaking as they whispered the words to end their rite. The candles sputtered. The planchette quivered again, twitching violently across the board as though resisting the command.
The spirit screamed—an inhuman sound that made the glass windows vibrate and the hair on Damien’s arms rise. Its form stretched and buckled, struggling against the shadows that bound it.
“Hold,” Damien muttered through gritted teeth, the veins in his neck taut, the room’s light bending slightly toward him as his tendrils tightened.
“Spirit of the damned,” he said, his voice echoing with something older, deeper than his own, “your circle is broken. You have no anchor here.”
The last word of the group’s chant fell like a stone into silence.
The planchette stilled. The circle closed.
Damien’s eyes flared black for an instant. He snapped his wrist.
The Ouija board and planchette shot forward like fired projectiles, slamming into the spirit’s chest. There was a blinding flash—then fire.
Blue-white flames erupted, consuming the board in a heartbeat. The spirit’s scream turned guttural, furious, shaking the walls.
Damien stood his ground as the burning specter twisted and shrieked, its edges fraying into ash. Then, behind it, the wall itself began to shift—plaster cracking, the boards bending inward as though a great mouth had opened to swallow the thing whole.
With one last defiant howl, the spirit was pulled backward, its form unravelling into dust and light, until there was nothing left but the faint scent of smoke and the low hiss of cooling air.
The wall sealed itself shut.
Silence returned.
Damien exhaled, the shadows that had gathered around him retreating like a tide. His heartbeat steadied, though his hands still trembled faintly from the effort.
He looked at the group—pale, trembling, clutching each other in the dim half-light.
“It’s over,” he said quietly. “But next time… don’t call things you can’t name.”
The floor creaked beneath his step as he turned toward the door, the cold beginning to lift.
Outside, through the broken slats of the window, the first blush of dawn began to seep into the horizon.
The last echo of the spirit’s scream faded into the rafters, leaving the room thick with smoke and silence.
Damien’s steps were soundless as he crossed to the girl. She sat trembling on the floorboards, her face pale and wet with tears, breath catching in shallow bursts. Gently, he knelt before her and lifted her chin. The bruises around her throat stood out like ink stains against her skin—ugly reminders of the thing that had tried to claim her.
He traced one fingertip lightly along the edge of the mark. The girl flinched, a tiny sound escaping her lips. For an instant, the room seemed to dim, the air tightening around them.
Then—light.
A faint shimmer rippled beneath his touch, golden and soft as the breath of dawn. When he withdrew his hand, the bruises were gone, her skin clear once more. The girl’s eyes widened, confusion mingling with awe.
Damien rose, his expression unreadable. “Get out of here,” he said quietly, his voice carrying an edge of command that brooked no argument. “And never come back. Ever.”
The group didn’t hesitate. They scrambled for the stairs, shoes slipping on the warped boards, their panicked breaths echoing down the hall. Within moments, the house fell still again, the air settling like dust after a storm.
One of them turned at the door, glancing back into the ruined room—
but Damien was already gone.
Only the faint scent of smoke lingered where he had stood, and the soft flutter of a curtain stirred by a breeze that hadn’t come from any open window.
Chapter 5
The hospital corridor was chaos.
Doctors and nurses poured out of Room 312, their shoes squealing on the linoleum, the air thick with the acrid scent of ozone and antiseptic. Someone was sobbing. Another retched into a waste bin. The charge nurse, pale as a ghost, clutched the doorway and stared in disbelief at what she had just fled.
Inside the room, Damien remained encased in the shadow cocoon—a black chrysalis, faintly pulsing, slick with an otherworldly sheen. The walls still wept with condensation from the storm of energy that had ripped through them. Shards of glass covered the floor, glittering like frost in the fluorescent light. The heart monitor lay in ruin, its screen a spiderweb of cracks.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the cocoon’s slow rhythm—thud… thud… thud…—like a second heartbeat superimposed upon the silence.
Then, without warning, the air changed.
It began as a faint hum, a tone barely perceptible, vibrating just beyond the threshold of hearing. From the center of the room, a sphere of white light bloomed into existence. It was neither bright nor dim, but perfect—a steady, living luminescence that filled every shadow, pressing them back against the walls.
The fragments of broken glass stirred. One by one they lifted from the ground, trembling in the air as if held by invisible threads. The shards turned lazily, aligning themselves in silent formation before sweeping together in a graceful dance—returning to their rightful places in the window frames with soft, crystalline clicks.
The smoking machines hissed once, then began to mend. Wires knitted themselves, screens cleared, and their indicator lights flickered back to life, restored to factory perfection. The scent of ozone thinned, replaced by the sterile tang of disinfectant and something faintly sweet—like lilacs on a cold wind.
The cocoon shuddered. Its surface rippled as if something within were breathing deep.
And then came the voice.
It was not heard so much as felt, sinking straight into Damien’s mind, heavy and ancient, threaded with command.
'Time for you to wake up.'
He stirred. The cocoon trembled, the pulse of shadow quickening.
'You are needed in Medan. North Sumatra.'
The voice faded like a dying echo, leaving only its weight behind—inevitable, insistent.
The black sheath began to melt away, folding in upon itself, threads of darkness seeping back into Damien’s skin. His body twitched as the last of it disappeared, leaving faint traceries of smoke that curled like ink in water.
Outside the doorway, the doctors hesitated, unable to look away.
He stood slowly. The movement was almost casual, too human. Muscles stretching, shoulders rolling as if waking from an ordinary nap. His eyes were clear, bright—alive.
The hospital gown he had been wearing hung in tatters, little more than scraps of fabric clinging to him. His suit jacket and shirt lay shredded on the floor, the once-fine cloth reduced to black ribbons.
Damien glanced down at them, sighed, and muttered under his breath, “Dammit… I was getting used to that suit.”
The words broke the silence like a stone through glass.
No one answered. The nurses simply stared, transfixed between awe and terror, as he ran a hand through his hair and flexed his fingers.
Something unseen moved just beneath his skin—the faint shimmer of shadow, like black water reflecting starlight. He smiled, slow and tired, a man whose dreams had finally caught up with him.
“Now then,” he murmured, glancing toward the nearest window, where the city lights burned against the night like scattered embers. “Medan, was it?”
He stepped forward, barefoot across the spotless floor, the repaired glass glittering faintly at his feet.
The monitors behind him pulsed in flawless rhythm—too flawless, each tone echoing the beat of a heart that might not be entirely his.
He paused before the window. The city sprawled beneath him, its lights trembling in the mist. For a moment he only stood there, hand pressed to the glass, feeling the faint vibration of the wind. Then, with a faint sigh, he unlocked the latch and pushed the window open.
Cold air poured in, carrying the smell of rain and exhaust and something older—earth, stone, night itself.
From the hallway came the sound of hurried footsteps. Voices, rising in panic.
“Don’t let him—!”
“Get security!”
Damien glanced over his shoulder, eyes glinting in the dimness. A faint smile touched his lips. “It’s all right,” he said softly, though no one could hear him. “I’m awake now.”
He climbed onto the ledge.
The door burst open behind him. Doctors and nurses flooded the room, shouting, but the words never reached him. In that instant, the air around him thickened—the shadows stretching, coiling, alive.
He let himself fall.
The screams from the room above dissolved into the night as black tendrils erupted from the darkness below, whipping through the air to meet him. They wrapped around his body mid-descent, tightening, pulling, spinning him into a silhouette of pure void.
Then, as swiftly as they appeared, the shadows folded inward—swallowing him whole.
Where Damien had fallen, there was nothing left. Not a trace. Only the faint shimmer of disturbed air, and the distant echo of a single heartbeat fading into the night.
The wind rose once, sharp and cold, rattling the newly repaired windowpanes before settling into stillness.
Inside the hospital, the machines continued to beep, steady and calm, as though mocking the silence that followed.
No one dared to speak.
And outside, far below, the city’s darkness rippled—as though something unseen had slipped quietly into its veins.
The fall was silent.
The city of Salford vanished beneath Damien in a rush of darkness, swallowed whole by his own shadows. He didn’t fall so much as dissolve—his body a blur of black smoke drawn through an unseen rift. There was no up, no down, only motion and the distant hum of unseen voices whispering in a language he almost understood.
Then, with a sharp pull—like the world exhaling—he landed.
Warm air pressed against his skin. The chill of England was gone. He stood barefoot on uneven pavement slick with rain, the smell of gasoline and clove cigarettes heavy in the night.
Medan.
He knew it instantly. The name arrived unbidden, humming in his chest like an echo of command.
The street was narrow and dimly lit by a single yellow lamp, its glow wavering as a moth battered against the bulb. The air hung thick with humidity. Faint sounds drifted from somewhere beyond—a motorbike revving, the distant cry of a street vendor packing up for the night, laughter carried on the wind.
Damien blinked, disoriented. His hospital robe clung damply to him, streaked with soot and torn where the shadows had touched. He looked like a man who had crawled out of his own grave.
A stray dog emerged from the mouth of an alley—a thin, dusty creature with wary eyes. It stopped a few feet away, sniffing the air. Its ribs showed through its fur. When it saw Damien, its tail gave a tentative wag before it backed away again, whimpering softly.
He looked down at himself and sighed. “Yeah,” he muttered, voice dry. “Not exactly blending in.”
Then he noticed it.
Hovering a few feet away, just beyond the reach of the lamplight, was the white sphere—the same that had mended the hospital room in Salford. Smaller now, faintly pulsing, as though it had followed him across the world only to dim with exhaustion.
It drifted closer, humming softly. The air shimmered around it, bending faintly, and Damien felt warmth wash over his skin.
The tattered hospital robe fluttered once—then disintegrated into black dust that vanished before it touched the ground.
A moment later, new fabric settled over him. He looked down to find himself clothed in light linen trousers, sandals, and a dark buttoned shirt—simple, local, utterly unremarkable. The collar was still open, the sleeves rolled just so. He looked like any other traveller, tired but alive.
“Much better,” he murmured, brushing his hands along the material. “At least someone’s keeping track.”
The sphere pulsed once in response, a faint ripple of light passing through it, before floating higher into the humid air.
Damien glanced up at it. “You’re not done with me yet, are you?”
No answer came, but the sphere began to move—drifting slowly down the street, toward the darker end where the lamplight failed.
The stray dog barked once, a low sound, as if in warning.
Damien hesitated only a moment before following. His sandalled feet made no sound against the warm pavement. The night pressed in around him, dense and heavy, the air carrying the scent of rain-soaked concrete and spice.
At the street’s end, the sphere paused, hovering above an old wooden sign written in Bahasa Indonesia, its paint half-faded and letters almost unreadable. Beneath the sign stood a rusted gate, and behind that gate—an overgrown courtyard choked with vines.
As Damien approached, the sphere dimmed, its light fading until only the faintest outline remained.
Then it whispered, faint as breath:
'You are where you must be.'
And with that, the white sphere flickered once—then winked out, leaving Damien alone in the pale lamplight.
The silence that followed was unnerving. The hum of insects dulled. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
He stood before the gate, its iron bars wrapped in vines that glistened faintly with dew. The sign above creaked on rusted hinges, its letters almost erased by time. The courtyard beyond was a tangle of shadow and foliage—ferns, hanging creepers, and the faint outline of something larger, half-swallowed by darkness.
Damien hesitated, then pushed the gate. It resisted for a moment before yielding with a long, aching creeeeeak that cut through the stillness.
As he stepped over the threshold, the air changed.
The warm humidity of the Medan night collapsed into a sudden chill that ran down his spine. It wasn’t the kind of cold one felt on the skin—it sank deeper, into the marrow, into the heart.
Behind him, the stray dog growled—a deep, warning rumble that broke into short, nervous barks.
Damien paused, glancing back. The animal stood in the street’s yellow light, hackles raised, its gaze fixed not on him but on the darkness beyond the gate.
“Smart dog,” he murmured. “Stay there.”
He turned back and moved forward. The path beneath his feet was uneven, littered with wet leaves and shards of stone. The shadows of the trees seemed to shift as he passed, their shapes contorting, their branches reaching like arms.
Something brushed his ankle.
He stumbled, catching his balance too late, and fell to one knee. His hand sank into soft earth—not soil, he realised—but something looser, clumped and cold.
As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he saw her.
A woman—half-buried in the ground, her body upright as though she’d been forced into the earth. The dirt reached her waist; the rest of her hung limply forward, her hair a dark curtain over her face. Her skin was pale beneath the film of soil, mottled with bruises. Around her throat bloomed the purple shadow of strangling hands.
Damien froze. For a moment, there was only the pulse of blood in his ears and the faint tremor of the dog still barking in the distance.
Then the woman’s head twitched.
Just a fraction—barely a movement—but enough to stir the hair from her face. Her eyes were open. Wide. Clouded with the stillness of death, yet fixed on him as though she saw.
The night closed in tighter, the air colder still. The vines along the wall rustled, whispering in a language made of leaves and breath.
Damien took one slow step back.
“What happened to you?” he whispered.
But the woman did not answer. Her mouth hung slightly open, lips cracked, and from within escaped a faint, almost inaudible sound—like the soft inhale of someone about to speak.
The dog barked again, frantic now.
And somewhere deep within the courtyard, behind the veiled darkness of the trees, something else moved.
Damien’s breath came shallow as his gaze swept the courtyard.
There were others.
Dozens of them. Figures half-swallowed by the earth, all women—some slumped, some upright, each one with the same dark bruise-rings circling their throats. Their faces were half-rotted masks of agony, their hands frozen mid-reach, as though clawing at the world that had buried them alive.
“This is real,” Damien murmured, his voice a tremor in the thick air. “A haunting… a spirit long gone, back to finish what it started.”
He rose to his feet, brushing soil from his hands, and looked toward the hulking building at the end of the path. Its windows were mostly black, but one on the second floor pulsed faintly—light flickering like a dying candle.
Drawn forward, Damien stepped onto the veranda. The wooden boards bowed beneath his weight, groaning like something waking from a long sleep. He pushed the door open.
The hinges screamed.
Inside, the air was heavy with the scent of mildew and rot. Wallpaper hung in ribbons, curling away from walls slick with damp. Furniture had sagged into itself, the once-polished surfaces bloated and blackened with age. Every step Damien took echoed softly, as though the house itself were listening.
Then—voices.
Upstairs. Four, maybe five of them, low and nervous, their words muffled through the warped floorboards.
“Ask it… go on, ask if the spirit’s still here!”
“I don’t want to—”
“Just do it!”
A pause.
Then a sharp, shrill scream split the silence—a woman’s voice, raw with terror. The crash of something overturning followed, and the voices dissolved into panicked shouts.
Damien didn’t hesitate. His body moved before thought could catch up. He took the stairs three at a time, the railing cold under his hand. Dust exploded in the air as his foot hit the landing.
The bedroom door loomed ahead, its wood cracked, the paint blistered. He kicked it open.
The scene inside froze mid-chaos: a circle of young people, flashlights scattered, candles guttering. In the center—a girl hung in the air, her limbs limp, her mouth open in a silent scream.
Damien’s shadow stretched across the floor, long and alive, as if it sensed what needed to be done. It coiled outward—tendrils lashing forward like a living thing.
The air snapped with sudden cold.
The girl convulsed, her body jerking as the unseen force that held her began to dissolve. The temperature dropped further still—every breath a mist, every heartbeat echoing like thunder in Damien’s skull.
Then, just as quickly, the pressure broke.
The shadows withdrew, curling back into Damien’s body like serpents returning to their den. The girl slumped forward, her descent slowed by a final whisper of darkness that caught her before she hit the floor.
Damien exhaled slowly. His hands trembled, not from fear but from the lingering surge of something else—something that wasn’t entirely human.
And then he saw it.
On the floor between the scattered group, etched in dust and candle wax, sat an Ouija board. The planchette quivered slightly, though no one touched it. Its glass window gleamed with the faint reflection of something that wasn’t in the room—something vast and formless, hovering just beyond the veil of sight.
Damien’s gaze fixed on it.
He could feel it, deep inside—an ancient awareness staring back.
The girl coughed violently, her body shaking as air clawed its way back into her lungs. Her fingers clutched at her throat, the skin already blotched with deep red marks.
“Get her water,” Damien snapped, his voice sharp enough to cut through the panic. “Now.”
Someone fumbled for a bottle, spilling half of it in their haste. The girl drank greedily, trembling, eyes wide and unfocused.
Damien’s gaze raked the group—wide-eyed, pale, the thrill of their séance now curdled into horror. “And someone,” he growled, “explain what the hell is happening here.”
A boy stepped forward. Barely twenty, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. “We—uh—we were dared,” he stammered, “to… to make contact with the sorcerer who used to live here.”
Damien’s stare was glacial. “A dare.”
The boy swallowed hard. “We didn’t think it would work! It’s just… local stories.”
“Continue,” Damien said, his tone brooking no argument.
The lad nodded nervously. “They say a shaman once lived in this house. Long ago. He claimed he was visited by his father in a dream—a spirit that told him he could gain power over life and death. But to earn it, he had to kill seventy-two women.”
The air in the room seemed to thicken, the candle flames shrinking to trembling pinpricks of light.
“He managed forty-two,” the boy whispered. “He strangled them. Buried them up to the waist in the garden, so their spirits couldn’t walk free. He… drank their saliva, said it made him strong. When they caught him, they executed him by firing squad.”
The planchette twitched.
A small, sharp movement—barely noticeable, but enough to send a ripple through the circle. The girl whimpered, clutching Damien’s arm. The temperature dropped again, the walls exhaling a chill that carried the faint scent of old blood and wet soil.
Damien could feel it—the pressure, the presence gathering. The very air hummed with anticipation.
“Back away from the board,” he ordered.
The group stumbled back, huddling near the far wall. Damien stepped forward. His shadow elongated across the warped floorboards, dark tendrils whispering and coiling at the edges of the circle.
The candlelight flickered once, twice—then died.
In the blackness that followed, the sound came: a dry, rasping inhale, as though something buried deep beneath the floor had taken its first breath in centuries.
Damien’s eyes narrowed. He spread his hands, the shadows responding like trained beasts.
“Sorcerer,” he said, his voice low but ringing with authority. “Show yourself.”
The air snapped. A gust of wind whipped through the room, scattering papers and candles. The Ouija board flipped over, slamming against the floor with a hollow crack.
A shape began to rise from the darkness at its center—mist first, then something denser, forming a human outline that twitched and shuddered as though stitched together from smoke and memory.
A face began to emerge, faintly luminous, half-rotted, the mouth twisted in a perpetual smile.
Damien felt the pressure mount, the air so cold it bit his skin.
The shadow-tendrils around him rose higher, alive with purpose.
This wasn’t a simple haunting. This was a call-and-response between predator and prey—except neither of them knew which one they were yet.
Damien lifted one hand, fingers curling as though he were gripping invisible threads. His shadow obeyed instantly—black tendrils coiling around the spirit, pinning it mid-air. The shape writhed, half smoke, half the memory of a man, its eyes like hollow lanterns burning from within.
With his free hand, Damien flicked his wrist.
The Ouija board and its trembling planchette lifted from the floor, floating through the stale air. They hovered for a heartbeat before settling in front of the terrified group.
“Close your session,” Damien said, his tone sharp and unwavering. “Now. Don’t dawdle.”
The group scrambled, voices shaking as they whispered the words to end their rite. The candles sputtered. The planchette quivered again, twitching violently across the board as though resisting the command.
The spirit screamed—an inhuman sound that made the glass windows vibrate and the hair on Damien’s arms rise. Its form stretched and buckled, struggling against the shadows that bound it.
“Hold,” Damien muttered through gritted teeth, the veins in his neck taut, the room’s light bending slightly toward him as his tendrils tightened.
“Spirit of the damned,” he said, his voice echoing with something older, deeper than his own, “your circle is broken. You have no anchor here.”
The last word of the group’s chant fell like a stone into silence.
The planchette stilled. The circle closed.
Damien’s eyes flared black for an instant. He snapped his wrist.
The Ouija board and planchette shot forward like fired projectiles, slamming into the spirit’s chest. There was a blinding flash—then fire.
Blue-white flames erupted, consuming the board in a heartbeat. The spirit’s scream turned guttural, furious, shaking the walls.
Damien stood his ground as the burning specter twisted and shrieked, its edges fraying into ash. Then, behind it, the wall itself began to shift—plaster cracking, the boards bending inward as though a great mouth had opened to swallow the thing whole.
With one last defiant howl, the spirit was pulled backward, its form unravelling into dust and light, until there was nothing left but the faint scent of smoke and the low hiss of cooling air.
The wall sealed itself shut.
Silence returned.
Damien exhaled, the shadows that had gathered around him retreating like a tide. His heartbeat steadied, though his hands still trembled faintly from the effort.
He looked at the group—pale, trembling, clutching each other in the dim half-light.
“It’s over,” he said quietly. “But next time… don’t call things you can’t name.”
The floor creaked beneath his step as he turned toward the door, the cold beginning to lift.
Outside, through the broken slats of the window, the first blush of dawn began to seep into the horizon.
The last echo of the spirit’s scream faded into the rafters, leaving the room thick with smoke and silence.
Damien’s steps were soundless as he crossed to the girl. She sat trembling on the floorboards, her face pale and wet with tears, breath catching in shallow bursts. Gently, he knelt before her and lifted her chin. The bruises around her throat stood out like ink stains against her skin—ugly reminders of the thing that had tried to claim her.
He traced one fingertip lightly along the edge of the mark. The girl flinched, a tiny sound escaping her lips. For an instant, the room seemed to dim, the air tightening around them.
Then—light.
A faint shimmer rippled beneath his touch, golden and soft as the breath of dawn. When he withdrew his hand, the bruises were gone, her skin clear once more. The girl’s eyes widened, confusion mingling with awe.
Damien rose, his expression unreadable. “Get out of here,” he said quietly, his voice carrying an edge of command that brooked no argument. “And never come back. Ever.”
The group didn’t hesitate. They scrambled for the stairs, shoes slipping on the warped boards, their panicked breaths echoing down the hall. Within moments, the house fell still again, the air settling like dust after a storm.
One of them turned at the door, glancing back into the ruined room—
but Damien was already gone.
Only the faint scent of smoke lingered where he had stood, and the soft flutter of a curtain stirred by a breeze that hadn’t come from any open window.