“Knock, knock…”
After an afternoon of investigation and interrogation, it was already close to evening. Through the gap in the curtains that hadn’t been fully drawn, the outside world was pitch black—so dark it felt like it could swallow everything whole.
In such deep, oppressive night, the knocking continued without pause, repeating over and over again.
“Knock, knock… knock, knock…”
It was extrely rhythmic. Each ti, it only sounded twice, and the intervals were so precise it almost felt calculated. Every three to four breaths, it would sound again—neither too heavy nor too light, just clear enough for everyone to hear.
“T-that can’t be wind or snow… Soone’s really knocking on the door?” The hotel owner, Joshua, stamred as he sought confirmation from Everly.
Yes. Without a doubt, such a regular sound could not be produced by natural forces.
But whether it was truly a “person” was another question entirely.
Thinking of this, Everly turned to the only supernatural specialist present. “Rebecca?”
“Mm, leave it to .”
Rebecca, who had been slacking off for quite a while, stretched lazily and stood up. She lifted her hand and pulled a hair tie from her wrist, tying her ssy wolf-tail hair back.
Once the disheveled strands were secured, she lifted her head again—and in that instant, her gaze sharpened. The lazy, indifferent aura around her completely shifted.
Earlier, the others had heard Lucas describe Everly’s group as mysterious. Combined with Everly’s earlier “unexpected move” of suddenly producing a stack of hidden surveillance caras when the investigation had hit a dead end, it had indeed shocked everyone. In the minds of the hotel guests, these four had already transford from “ordinary tourists” into Arican special agents passing through on a mission.
So when Everly called for Rebecca, they half-expected to witness a dramatic “special agent Rebecca” mont, stepping forward to handle everything with overwhelming force.
However, after tying her hair in a very cool and practiced motion, Rebecca did not imdiately go to open the door.
She stood at the doorway, unzipped her down jacket, and pulled a glass bottle from the inner pocket. While murmuring sothing under her breath, she used a peculiar technique to draw a horizontal line at the entrance and in front of the window with the pink, sand-like powder inside the bottle.
She looked exactly like a sorcerer from a film.
“W-what is she doing…?” soone’s jaw practically dropped as they watched.
Rebecca ignored the questions. After finishing the powder markings, she took out a small copper bell and gripped it tightly in her hand. Then, under everyone’s stunned gaze, she walked to the door, unlocked it, and pulled the tightly shut hotel entrance open.
Whoosh—!
The mont the door opened inward, freezing wind mixed with flying snow burst into the warm interior. The flas in the fireplace trembled violently. Cold air slipped through collars and pant legs, instantly seeping into their clothes. Everyone shivered uncontrollably, instinctively shrinking back.
Strangely, despite the strong wind, the pink powder scattered at the entrance remained completely unmoved, as if it were stuck to the ground.
When everyone adjusted to the sudden drop in temperature and looked outside, within the range of the doorway light, they saw a man.
He was ragged, covered in injuries, and more than half his body was buried in snow.
He wore thick mountaineering gear with a windbreaker layered on top. He must have fallen sowhere earlier—his clothes were torn and tattered, the bright yellow fabric stained with large patches of blood. On his lower legs, fresh wounds could still be seen beneath the torn cloth.
Aside from his clothing, the man only had a warm hat left on his head. Everything else required for survival in the mountains—gloves, goggles, trekking poles, even his shoes—was gone. There was no backpack on his hunched back either.
“You… y-you are… Mr. Daine?” After staring at his face for a mont, the hotel owner Joshua suddenly stood up, his voice filled with shock.
The man outside did not respond to Joshua’s words.
His consciousness seed to be in disarray. Even though the door had already been opened, he still stood in place, his left hand raised and reaching forward. His fingers bent in a knocking motion.
Each knock landed with perfect precision, stopping at exactly the sa position every ti—as if there was an invisible “wall” standing in front of him.
To those unaware of the situation, the scene looked extrely eerie. But Everly knew there truly was a “wall” in front of him—that was Rebecca’s defense line made of Himalayan pink salt, designed to isolate impure entities.
With every knock, the salt scattered on the ground was rapidly lting and disappearing.
“Help … please… help …”
Along with his knocking, the man’s voice drifted out in broken, fragnted whispers, thin and trembling like a thread about to snap.
Only then did everyone understand why they had only heard knocking earlier, but no speech—the man simply no longer had the strength to speak properly.
Indeed, he looked like soone who had been trekking through the snow for a long ti.
He was in a miserable state. Frost had ford thick layers over his eyebrows, nose, and beard. The fingernails on his exposed hands had fallen off, and blood mixed with snow had frozen into hard crusts. His feet were severely frostbitten—his toes were already torn and frozen together with his thin socks.
Behind him stretched a winding trail of footprints. If one looked closely, faint reddish traces of blood could still be seen in the depressions.
Anyone with even a shred of sympathy would instinctively reach out and bring him inside for treatnt. It was an instinct humans had developed over tens of thousands of years—to help their own kind survive.
At least at that mont, several people on the sofa had already stood up without thinking, instinctively stepping forward to help.
However—
“Don’t move! Everyone, sit back down!”
From inside the room, Rebecca sharply stopped them.
“What do you an…?”
“He’s clearly not going to make it. Why can’t we help him?”
The crowd couldn’t understand Rebecca’s intention. Their faces showed dissatisfaction, and they did not obediently return to their seats.
This kind of loosely organized group is exhausting to lead…
Everly, seeing the situation, let out a long sigh.
She stepped forward with her long legs and stood in front of the crowd. Her right hand extended slightly and gave a light flick. A compact, all-black pistol slid smoothly out from her sleeve and landed in her hand with practiced ease.
Without hesitation, she thumbed off the safety and pointed the still-warm muzzle at the group in front of her.
“Do as Rebecca says. If anyone sses with us, I’ll make sure you don’t see tomorrow’s sun.”
“W-what…?”
Joshua, who had been at the front, saw the black gun barrel pointed straight at him and instantly turned pale, his speech breaking apart from panic.
The United States was a country saturated with firearms. Here, when soone publicly pulled out a gun, no one’s first instinct was to question whether it was a toy—they either imdiately raised their hands and crouched, or scattered to find cover.
Violence was not a good thing, but it had to be admitted: sotis, violence was simply more effective than reasoning.
“We’d better listen to them.”
Lucas, who had been quietly observing, glanced at Rebecca by the door and offered a tily reminder.
They couldn’t afford not to listen anyway—because Everly had a gun.
Afraid of being shot by this girl who never played by the rules, everyone quickly complied. They raised their hands above their heads, then sat back down on the sofa as instructed, placing their hands neatly on their knees, not daring to move again.
While Everly was suppressing the chaos inside the room, at the doorway Rebecca had already stepped back half a pace. She reached into her coat and pulled out another weapon from her inner pocket—
A rust-covered tal spike, wrapped in layers of yellow oil paper and tanned leather.
“In the na of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, reveal your true form!”
Rebecca recited the Catholic prayer fluently in Spanish. As she spoke, she lightly brushed her fingertip across the iron spike. Wherever she touched, the rust-covered surface of the spike seed to emit a faint, almost imperceptible glow.
“What?”
Before anyone inside the room could even process what she ant, the young woman at the door suddenly shouted sharply. She gripped the tal spike and drove it forward with full force, aiming directly at the man’s face.
Thud!
Despite its rust-covered appearance, the spike was unbelievably sharp. With a soft, wet sound, it pierced straight through—like cutting through butter—and buried itself deep into the man’s forehead.
“Ahhh—!”
“What is she doing?!”
The people in the hall couldn’t hold back and scread in terror.
They had assud that with such a strike, the man outside would definitely die. Unexpectedly, even after such a long iron spike pierced into his brain, his body only swayed slightly in place—he did not fall.
Instead, a stream of black liquid began pouring from the wound, flowing down from his forehead. It looked like a dividing line, sharply slicing his face into two halves from top to bottom.
“Save … ghk… save… …”
Like a chanical puppet, the man stood rigidly in place, his eyes unfocused, still murmuring pleas for help.
The black fluid continued to gush from his forehead like a spring, increasing instead of stopping. The flowing liquid ford a dark line like a living vine, running from his nose bridge to his lips, down to his chin, and further along the contour of his jaw, sinking into his neck and collar…
The more it flowed downward, the weaker his voice beca. His words also began to glitch, like a broken tape: “Sa… save… sa-sa-save-save-save…”
Riiip… riiip, riiip…
The fading cries for help were gradually overtaken by another sound coming from the man’s body.
It sounded like paper being torn, or like sothing elastic being pulled apart. At first it was faint, barely noticeable—but as ti passed, the tearing sound grew louder and louder. Eventually, people realized it was coming from the man’s face.
Have you ever seen a stocking being stretched and ripped?
At that mont, the man’s face looked exactly like a tightly stretched elastic stocking. Sothing inside him was struggling violently, causing the “skin” of his face to bulge outward into finger-sized protrusions, then collapse again into wrinkled folds as if deflating.
Riiip… riiip…
The sound of tearing continued, growing sharper and more frequent. Within just over ten seconds, as whatever was inside him struggled violently, the black mark at the center of his face beca the axis—and his facial skin suddenly split open to both sides like the shell of an insect chrysalis.
“Sa… sa-save…”
Even though his face had already split into two halves, the man’s four lips were still moving, producing barely audible cries from deep within his body.
The sight was both horrifying and nauseating—so much so that it sent chills crawling up everyone’s spine.
But the even more disturbing scene ca next.
From the black opening in the center of his face, a pale, elongated finger suddenly pushed out. It had sharp, claw-like nails.
Then a second finger. A third.
In the blink of an eye, two massive, grotesque hands had forced their way out from inside his face.
“W-what… what is that thing…”
Faced with such an overwhelmingly disturbing sight, everyone in the hall turned pale. Minnie, the receptionist girl, stretched her neck forward—and then couldn’t hold it in any longer and vomited.
At a ti like this, no one dared to foolishly rush forward to “help” anymore.
Everly shifted her stance, moving the muzzle of her gun away from the people in the hall and aiming it instead at the creature outside, staying on full alert.
Outside the door, amid the bone-chilling sound of flesh tearing apart, everyone watched as the terrifying giant hands grabbed both sides of the torn skin and violently pulled outward.
Riiip—!
The flesh beneath the skin snapped and split inch by inch. The man’s entire face—and even his entire head—was ripped apart by the giant hands, hanging limply over both shoulders.
From the empty opening of his neck, sothing suddenly forced its way out: a massive arm covered in fine hair, with thick, jointed bones.
Before that arm had fully erged, another arm impatiently pushed through the gap, already half exposed.
When they first erged from beneath the clothing at the neck, the arms were still relatively thin. But once they moved away from the “black hole” at the neck and entered the open space outside, they began to change.
Like a balloon being inflated, accompanied by the creaking “crack—crack—” of bones stretching, the arms rapidly expanded in size. Each palm alone grew to nearly half a ter in length.
In an absurd mont, Everly suddenly thought of Doraemon’s pocket. From that small pouch, one could endlessly pull out objects far larger than its opening.
At this mont, the man’s neck had beco exactly that—a bottomless “pocket” leading to another dinsion, allowing the monster inside to crawl out.
After the two arms ca a branch-like deer antler. At its end was a white skull resembling that of a goat, erging sideways from the “pocket.” It was also enormous in size, evoking the image of so prehistoric beast.
Once the skull fully erged and returned to its proper proportions, the other half of the antler followed, slowly pulling itself out of the opening.
Crack… crack-crack…
After the head ca a body—dry, skeletal, and shaped like withered wood, its joints thin and brittle-looking.
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