The smile did not disappear. It remained etched into the cara screen, unnatural and unwavering, as though the creature had discovered sothing it was never ant to understand. Ayaan’s fingers tightened around the device, his breathing growing shallow as his mind hovered between the instinct to flee and the compulsion to keep watching. Zara, however, made the choice for both of them. She grabbed his arm, her voice cutting sharply through the dead silence of the city, urging him to leave imdiately.
But the mont she spoke, the screen flickered. The image didn’t glitch in a familiar way—it twisted, stretched, as if sothing from within the footage was trying to push outward. The smiling figure’s face elongated, its hollow eyes widening unnaturally, pressing against the boundaries of the lens like a prisoner testing the limits of its cage.
Then the pulse returned.
Stronger.
The rooftop trembled beneath their feet, a deep vibration rising through concrete and bone alike. Zara stumbled back, her balance shaken as realization crept into her voice—this was no longer sothing buried deep below. Ayaan, still staring at the cara, whispered that it was rising.
And then the power died.
The faint red glow of the recording light blinked twice before vanishing, plunging everything into darkness. The city seed to hold its breath. There was no wind, no distant hum, no sign of life—only a suffocating stillness that pressed against their senses.
Then ca a sound.
A breath.
Not theirs.
Zara froze instantly, her body stiff with fear as she whispered Ayaan’s na. He didn’t respond, because he felt it too—sothing behind them. Close enough to sense, yet impossible to see. The air shifted, thick with a rotten, wet stench that felt almost alive. Slowly, cautiously, Ayaan turned, expecting to face whatever had followed them into the darkness.
There was nothing.
The rooftop stood empty.
Yet the presence remained, lingering at the edge of perception like sothing that existed just outside reality’s reach. Zara’s voice broke the tension in a whisper as she warned him not to look through the cara again, explaining in a trembling tone that whatever they saw could see them in return.
Before Ayaan could question her, a scream tore through the silence below. It was sharp, human, and unmistakably real. Both of them rushed to the edge of the rooftop and looked down. For the first ti since the stillness had taken hold of the city, the street was no longer empty. A man was running, barefoot and bleeding, his movents frantic and desperate.
Behind him, they ca.
The sa figures from the footage—only now they were real. Their bodies moved with terrifying precision, limbs bending at unnatural angles as they closed the distance between them and their prey. The man stumbled and fell hard against the pavent, and in that instant, everything seed to pause.
The creatures did not attack.
They surrounded him slowly, deliberately, as though participating in sothing ritualistic rather than predatory. Zara’s voice trembled as she questioned why they weren’t killing him, but Ayaan’s focus had shifted elsewhere—to the ground beneath the man.
It was moving.
Not cracking or breaking, but breathing. The surface of the street rippled like living flesh, responding to an unseen force beneath it. The man scread as his hands pressed against the ground, only to sink into it as though the concrete had chosen to accept him.
Then the pulse struck again.
Directly beneath him.
The street opened—not like a fracture, but like a mouth. Dark, endless, and waiting. The man wasn’t falling; he was being pulled, dragged downward by sothing unseen. His scream warped into sothing unrecognizable before vanishing completely.
And then it was over.
The street sealed itself instantly, flawless and untouched, as if nothing had ever happened. The creatures remained where they stood, motionless, silent.
Then, slowly, they looked up.
Not at the sky.
Not at the buildings.
But directly at the rooftop.
At Ayaan.
At Zara.
Zara stepped back, her voice barely audible as she whispered that they knew. Ayaan tightened his grip on the lifeless cara, his gaze fixed on the figures below as he quietly corrected her. They didn’t know.
They were waiting.
And from beneath the city, the pulse answered again—closer than ever before.
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