**Chapter 2: The Black orb**
At 4:45 a.m., the city streets were mostly empty except for the occasional car slicing through the night. A girl stumbled along the sidewalk, her steps unsteady, breath heavy with the sharp smell of cheap whiskey. Her mascara had run into dark streaks down her cheeks. She muttered curses under her breath, words aimed at the boy who had dumped her just hours earlier.
"Stupid jerk… thinks he can just walk away… I'll show him…"
Something caught her eye—a small, perfectly round black ball lying on the cracked pavement. Even in the dim streetlight, it gleamed with an unnatural shine, almost like liquid obsidian catching moonlight that wasn't there. She blinked hard, then crouched down and picked it up. The surface was cool and smooth, heavier than it looked. For a second she smiled, imagining it was some lost diamond or rare jewel.
Then a sharp cry echoed from the half-built construction site across the road—high, panicked, human.
Curiosity overpowered the alcohol haze. She shoved the black orb into her pocket and walked toward the building, heels clicking unevenly on the uneven ground. Inside, the air was thick with dust and the smell of wet cement. She followed the sound into a half-finished room on the ground floor. Moonlight spilled through gaps in the walls, illuminating scattered debris: a few torn red clothes, a rusted metal rod… and one long, slender sword lying alone in the center of the floor.
She frowned. No one was here. The shouting had stopped.
She turned to leave.
A cold hand clamped over her mouth from behind.
At 5:50 a.m., Viraj was hurrying along his usual route to school, backpack bouncing against his shoulders. The same abandoned construction site loomed ahead. He was already running late, but a sudden scream—muffled, desperate—stopped him cold.
Without thinking, he ducked through the gap in the fence and ran inside.
In the same dusty room, the girl from earlier was on her knees, trembling, pointing into the far corner. "There… look there…"
Viraj followed her finger.
From the deepest shadow, something emerged.
It walked slowly, deliberately. A man—no, not a man. Too tall, impossibly thin, limbs unnaturally long. Its entire body was bone-white, skin stretched tight over strange angles. Its eyes were bottomless black pools that seemed to drink the light rather than reflect it. They glowed faintly, like dying coals.
The girl whipped her head toward Viraj, voice shaking. "You can see him, right? You can see him, can't you?"
The creature tilted its head. Its mouth opened—too wide—and a voice slithered out, low and wet. "You can see me, boy… Look at me."
The girl's eyes widened in terror. "You heard it! You heard it too!"
Viraj's heart hammered. Some instinct screamed at him: *If you admit you see it, you're dead.* He forced his voice steady, even though his hands were shaking.
"What are you talking about? There's no one here. I don't see anything."
The girl stared at him, disbelief twisting her face. "You're lying…" She scrambled to her feet and bolted toward the exit.
She almost reached the gap in the wall.
Then she simply… came apart.
One moment she was running. The next, her body split into clean, impossible pieces—torso, arms, legs, head—falling separately with wet thuds. Blood sprayed in bright arcs across the concrete. Organs spilled out in a steaming pile. The air filled with the coppery stench.
Viraj's knees buckled. He stared, unable to scream.
Behind him, the creature crouched over the remains. Long white fingers dipped into the blood. It brought them to its mouth and licked slowly, savoring.
Viraj's vision tunneled. The world tilted.
Darkness swallowed him.
When he woke, the room was silent.
No blood. No body parts. No girl. The concrete floor was dry and clean, as if nothing had happened.
He sat up slowly, head throbbing. The sword and red clothes were gone too.
*Hallucinations again,* he thought, chest tight. *God, not this crap again…*
He grabbed his bag, checked his watch—7:35 a.m. He was horribly late.
As he stumbled toward the exit, something small and dark caught his eye on the ground: the black orb the girl had picked up earlier. It lay there innocently, still shining with that strange inner light.
Viraj hesitated, then scooped it up and shoved it into his pocket. *What even is this thing?* No time to think. He broke into a run.
Halfway down the road, he glanced over his shoulder.
The tall white figure was there—silently following, long legs covering impossible distance without seeming to hurry. Those black eyes locked on him.
Viraj's breath hitched.
*Just hallucinations,* he told himself. *Just hallucinations.*
He ran faster anyway.
To be continued..