Crrrk… crrrk… crrrk…
The wood of the room groaned under his steps. The light was minimal, barely a halo rising from the still-smoking candles on the shelves. Every shadow moved to the rhythm of his footsteps, lengthening and contracting, as if the darkness itself were breathing around him.
The man advanced calmly. In his right hand he held a long-bladed knife, still gleaming with the dark red that stained his fingers. Every movement was deliberate. Every step, calculated.
Rrssshh… rrrshh…
The cloth between his hands rubbed the blood from the blade, emitting a faint wet sound that contrasted with the heavy silence of the room. His breathing was measured, almost musical. And as he cleaned, his mouth curved into a dark smile.
—Life… —he said in a deep voice, letting out a sigh— is a breath. A faint spark between the darkness. He leaned slightly toward the candle, watching how the flame trembled.—So short… so ephemeral… so… insignificant.
Crrrk… crrrk…
He climbed the first step. The wood complained under his weight, like a lament.
—We believe we understand it —he continued, walking with an almost hypnotic cadence—, we believe we control every instant… and yet, it slips away from us. Like sand between the fingers.
Another step. Another complaint.—We spend our lives searching for meaning… while the world watches, indifferent.
Crrrk… schk… crsshk…
The staircase seemed endless, its shadows embracing every corner. As he ascended, the knife gleamed, the blood shining under the trembling light. He leaned toward the banister and let a faint clink of metal against wood fall.
—I haven't forgotten what I must do today —he whispered, more to himself than to anyone—.—I know you've been anxious… wondering what will happen, what will be revealed…
Finally he reached the top. The hallway was deserted, impregnated with a silence so thick that every breath echoed like a drum. He turned toward the dark oak table.
Clink.
The knife sank into the wood with a dry thud, resonating like a heartbeat. The metal grazed the surface, vibrating.
He sat slowly in his chair. The wood protested, creaked under his weight. His fingers gently touched the open book in front of him. He caressed it with reverence and danger, as if he could extract secrets from the pages with his touch.
—Get ready —he said, with a crooked smile—. What follows… is the next chapter.
Frrrp… frrrp… frrrp…
He turned several pages until he stopped, the candlelight drawing reflections in his clear and calculating eyes.
—Chapter 3: Life or Death.
His gaze rose, direct, piercing.—Let's begin.
The lamplight swayed with each step, casting long shadows that twisted against the damp trunks. The fog swirled at ground level, thick, cold, seeping between the roots as if breathing. Henry advanced cautiously, swallowing the path he had left behind.
Schk… crk… schrrk…
The mud yielded under his boots with a viscous and unpleasant sound. The crack of small branches mixed with the constant murmur of the wind sliding through the high canopies.
Hoooooo… shhhhhhh…
He stopped for a moment. The air was colder in there, denser, laden with the smell of wet wood and something metallic he could barely identify. With tense fingers, he took the pocket watch from inside his coat. The metal was icy against his skin.
Click.
The lid opened with a clear snap that seemed too loud for that silence.
9:22 p.m.
The internal mechanism marked the time with almost cruel precision.
Tic… tac… tic… tac… tic… tac…
—Twenty-five hours have passed… —he murmured, feeling the real weight of those words— since I left London.
He closed the watch firmly.
Click.
He brought his hand to his forehead, pressing his temples as he raised his eyes to the dark night. There was no moon. No stars. Just a black ceiling that seemed to lean over him.
—Twenty-five hours…
He exhaled slowly. The vapor of his breath dissolved into the fog.
Haaaa…
He decided to continue. He couldn't stay still.
Schk… schrrk… crack…
Then he heard it.
It wasn't the wind.
Rrrsssshhhh…
He froze. The sound came from among the trees, beyond the path. Something was moving with weight. With intention.
His heart gave a violent thud against his chest.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
He raised the revolver with a slightly trembling hand, aiming into the darkness.
—Little bird… is that you? —he asked, trying to sound firm, though his voice vibrated.
Silence.
The forest seemed to hold its breath.
Then again.
Rrrshhh… crkk… rrssshhh…
It wasn't coming from the path. It was coming from deeper in.
Henry swallowed. He knew it was stupid. Following a noise in an unknown forest, at night, alone.
—It's absurd… completely absurd…
And yet he advanced, stepping off the path. The branches brushed his coat, scratching the fabric like insistent fingers.
Shhhhrrrk… shhk… crssh…
The lamp illuminated fragments of the ground: protruding roots, disturbed earth, crushed leaves. Then he saw it.
Tracks.
Footprint after footprint marked in the wet mud.
He crouched slightly, bringing the light closer.
—Animals…
The marks were deep. Heavy.
—Dogs…?
He advanced following them. The ground was more churned the further he went.
Schk… schrrk…
And then the first stain appeared.
Dark.
Thick.
Barely visible under the damp earth.
Further ahead another.
And another.
Each one bigger.
His breathing became irregular.
THUD… THUD… THUD…
The metallic smell intensified.
A few more steps.
And then he saw it.
The deer lay on the ground, disfigured in a way his mind took time to process. The limbs twisted at impossible angles, the body opened and contorted as if struck by a brutal and incomprehensible force. A dark pool spread beneath it, slowly seeping between the roots like spilled ink.
Henry covered his mouth with his arm.
—Fuck… —he whispered with a broken voice—. What the hell is this…?
He looked away, unable to hold the image for long.
—Who could have done something like this…?
The forest didn't answer.
Shhhhhhhhh…
—No… I don't want to know anyway…
Crack.
The sound exploded behind him, dry and sharp.
Crkk… crkk… crkk…
Slow. Heavy. Approaching.
Henry turned with calculated movements, every muscle tense.
And he saw it.
The dog emerged from the shadows like a figure torn from a nightmare. It was huge, disproportionate, its white fur stained and matted. Its red eyes didn't reflect animal instinct, but something deeper.
Its body moved strangely, with irregular jerks, as if the joints didn't fit properly under the skin.
Crkk… crkk…
Henry stepped back one pace, then another, without lowering the weapon.
—Stay calm… stay calm…
His heart pounded in his ears.
THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD.
The dog tilted its head.
A deep growl vibrated in the air.
Grrrrrrrrrr…
And then it ran.
Explosive. Violent.
Henry's hands trembled.
He fired.
¡BANG!
The shot shook the entire forest. The echo bounced between the trunks like trapped thunder.
BAAANG… baang… baang…
The birds burst into flight in an explosion of desperate wings.
FRAAAAPPP! FLAP-FLAP-FLAP-FLAP!
But the dog moved with impossible speed, swerving in an unnatural turn, zigzagging as if anticipating the trajectory.
Henry tried to reload.
Click—click—
Too slow.
The dog leaped.
A brutal weight slammed into his chest.
¡THUD!
The air rushed out of his lungs in one go and the impact threw him backward with violence. His hat flew off in the collision, spinning in the air before disappearing among the wet leaves.
Flap—thud… rrssh…
The lamp was also thrown, rolling across the ground while the flame flickered wildly.
Crash… clink… rrrr…
The animal fell on him like an avalanche of muscle and fury.
¡THUD!
The impact crushed his chest, expelling all the air from his lungs in a choked gasp. Deep, guttural growls vibrated against his face. The dog's hot, fetid breath hit his skin like steam from molten iron, mixed with the acrid stench of old blood and rotten meat.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr—
The jaws closed with a brutal snap.
Henry raised his left arm on pure instinct, shoving it between the monster's teeth as if he could stop it.
Fatal mistake.
The fangs pierced the flesh like hot knives. It wasn't a clean bite: it was a slow, deliberate crushing. The teeth sank to the bone, crunching as they tore tendons and muscle. The upper and lower jaws closed like a steel trap, and then the dog shook its head violently from side to side.
¡CRRRRK! ¡SCHLUP! ¡RRRRRIP!
A blinding, white pain exploded in Henry's forearm. He felt the skin tear in long strips, the muscles separate into red and fibrous filaments. The dog didn't let go: it pulled, twisted, tore. The flesh came away in thick shreds, hanging like soaked ribbons from a careless butcher. The bone—the radius—splintered with a dry, nauseating crack, breaking into two irregular pieces that protruded from the wound like broken white teeth.
Hot blood spurted in jets, splashing the animal's snout, the ground, Henry's face. Each shake from the dog sent new waves of agony: the forearm twisted at an impossible angle, almost in an inverted Z, with the skin opened in an irregular and brutal gash from wrist to elbow. The edges of the tear were ragged, shredded, with pieces of muscle hanging like bright red shreds, pulsing to the rhythm of his terrified heart. Threads of torn tendons dangled loose, and the exposed bone gleamed under the trembling lamplight, splintered and stained with pinkish marrow.
—FUUUUUCK! FUCK! LET GO!
The scream came out hoarse, broken, as they struggled in the mud. The ground dissolved beneath them into a viscous, hot mire.
Schrrrk… rrssshhh… crkkk… splat…
Blood and mud splashed with every movement. Henry's heart beat so hard he felt it would burst his ribs.
THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD—
With his right hand, half-numb from panic, he groped for the revolver sunk in the mud. His fingers slipped in his own blood, in the dog's matted fur. He finally grabbed it, the barrel cold and slippery.
The animal kept shaking the mangled arm like a trophy, growling with its mouth full of flesh.
Henry raised the weapon, the barrel trembling inches from the dog's temple. The animal's red eye stared at him fixedly, unblinking, as if it knew.
He aimed.
He fired.
¡BANG!
The blast was deafening, straight against the skull. The recoil jolted his good shoulder. The dog's head snapped back violently, a jet of blood and brain matter sprayed the air like black rain. The body convulsed once, twice, and then fell sideways with a dull thud, finally releasing the mutilated arm.
Henry's forearm hung limp, a dangling disaster of open flesh, splintered bone, and torn tendons. The blood continued to pour in thick pulses, each heartbeat sending a red thread that mixed with the mud and formed dark pools around him.
Henry stayed there, gasping, trembling all over, the still-smoking revolver in his good hand.
Haaaa… haaa… haaa…
The forest seemed to hold its breath.
And then the silence broke only with his own ragged breathing… and the slow, constant dripping of his own blood falling to the ground.
Plip… plip… plip…
The pain arrived in delayed waves, so intense it clouded his vision.
But he was still alive.
But… the dog began to recompose itself, staggering, moving with erratic spasms.
Crkk… krshh… crkkk…
Then it began to convulse again, but in a more erratic way.
Its body arched backward in an unnatural movement. Beneath the skin something seemed to move, swelling, expanding like roots growing too fast under the earth.
The air grew heavy. Charged.
The ground vibrated slightly.
Vmmmm…
A dark mass emerged beneath its fur, deforming the animal's silhouette until it became unrecognizable.
And then—
A dull, wet explosion.
¡WHUMP!
The sound wasn't explosive like a gunshot, but deep, contained, like something breaking from the inside. A hot, dark rain splattered the nearby trunks and the ground around.
Then silence.
Absolute silence.
Only Henry's trembling breathing.
Haaaa… haaa… haaa…
Henry couldn't stop shaking.
His entire body vibrated as if the echo of the impact, the growl, the shot was still inside him. His legs failed almost immediately. He tried to lean on an exposed root, but the wounded arm gave way like a wet rag. He fell to his knees first, then face-first into the cold, sticky mud.
Schlup… schrrrk…
The ground stuck to his face, to his stubble, to his eyelashes. He breathed through his mouth, short, wet gasps. The smell of blood—his, the dog's, the mangled deer's—filled his nose, slid down his throat like bile.
—Shit…
Henry looked at his arm for a few moments.
His stomach churned.
—Fuck… fuck… fuck…
Cold sweat ran down his forehead, his temples, stung his eyes. He wiped his face with his good sleeve, leaving a dark smear. With his right hand—the one that still obeyed—he pushed against the ground. His muscles screamed. The pain rose like liquid fire from his elbow to his shoulder, piercing his chest.
He got to his feet halfway, staggering, and almost fell again. He leaned his back against a trunk. He breathed through his mouth, hard, ragged.
Haaaa… haaa… haaa…
—Shit… shit…
His eyes went to the hat. It was a few meters away, overturned among the wet leaves, the brim bent. He walked toward it dragging his feet, each step a reminder that his whole body protested. He crouched carefully—too carefully—and picked it up. The movement tore a muffled groan from him. He put it on slowly, pulling it down to his eyebrows, as if that simple gesture could give him back some dignity.
He looked back.
The dog's corpse—or what was left of it—lay sprawled in a pool of black entrails and matted fur. The flesh had burst outward like a rotten flower, revealing cracked ribs, burst organs, a shapeless mass that still steamed faintly in the cold. The smell was unbearable: iron, rot, something chemical and wrong.
Henry looked away.
Schk… schrrk…
He approached the lamp. It was still rolling a few steps further, the flame miraculously alive, flickering among the wet leaves. He crouched again—the pain cut his breath—and picked it up with his good hand. The metal was warm. He held it close to his chest as if it were the only solid thing left in the world.
—Shit… —he whispered, voice hoarse, almost inaudible.
A single tear slid down his dirty cheek, tracing a clean furrow between the mud and the blood. He didn't bother to wipe it.
He raised his eyes to the black sky. There was nothing to see. Only fog and branches outlined like veins against the darkness.
Then he screamed.
A raw, torn scream that came from the bottom of his chest and ripped through the forest silence.
— ¡Aaaaahhhhhhhhh!
The birds burst again in a cloud of wings and shrieks.
FRAAAAPPP! FLAP-FLAP-FLAP-FLAP!
The echo bounced between the trees, lost in the fog.
Henry stayed there, gasping, his chest rising and falling violently. Sweat soaked his shirt under his coat. His arm hung like dead weight.
And then he saw it.
In the distance.
A grayish thread rising between the treetops.
Smoke.
He blinked, confused.
—Is that…?
His heart gave another thud.
He advanced.
The branches scratched his face, pulled at his coat. He pushed them aside with his good hand, the lamp trembling in his fist.
Schk… crkk… shrrrk…
The smoke grew denser, closer. It smelled of burning wood, resin, home. Something human.
—Help! —he shouted, his voice fractured, broken—. Help! Can anyone hear me!
The shout came out hoarse, desperate.
—Please! Help!
Branches cracking under his boots.
Crkk… crkk… schrrk…
His breathing came in gasps. The pain in his arm was a constant drum, unbearable. His legs felt like lead.
And then, after rounding one last huge tree, he saw it.
A cabin.
Small, made of dark logs and moss in the cracks. A smoking chimney. A small window with warm light inside, like a yellow eye in the night.
Henry stopped.
The lamp trembled in his hand.
Haaaa… haaa…
—Shit… —he whispered, almost laughing in disbelief, in relief, in residual terror.
And he took one more step.
Toward the light.
Toward whatever was inside.
Crrrk… crrrk… crrrk…
The wood of the room groaned again, but this time not from ascending steps, but from the slight rocking of the chair as it leaned back. The man reclined slowly, elbows resting on the armrests, fingers interlaced under his chin. The nearest candle sputtered, sending a spark that died in the air.
Silence.
And then…
¡CLAP! ¡CLAP! ¡CLAP!
Slow, deliberate applause, resounding in the empty room as if coming from everywhere and nowhere. The echo bounced off the wooden walls, off the low ceiling, off the open book in front of him.
The man smiled. A wide, satisfied, almost tender smile.
—Bravo… —he murmured, his voice deep and velvety—. Bravo, Henry. What an exquisite spectacle.
¡CLAP! ¡CLAP! ¡CLAP!
The applause accelerated for an instant, as if the invisible audience were standing, excited, before slowing again.
—Look how he trembles… —he continued, his eyes gleaming with delight under the trembling light—. How life slips through his fingers, drop by drop, plip… plip… plip… Just like the sand I spoke of at the beginning. Do you remember?
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. The knife remained embedded in the wood, vibrating slightly with each word.
He rose slowly. The chair creaked one last time.
Crrrk…
He took the knife from the table with two fingers, spun it once in the air—the blade reflected the flame—and cleaned it with the cloth once more, though it was already clean.
—Thank you for joining me in this chapter, dear spectators. —His gaze rose directly, as if he could see them through the pages—. Thank you for holding your breath with every THUD, for shuddering with every CRRRRK, for tasting iron in your mouth when the blood spurted in jets. You have been… an exemplary audience.
A low laugh, almost a purr.
—But don't go too far. Life is a breath, remember. A faint spark. And the next time we meet… perhaps it will be someone else's turn to feel it slip through their fingers.
Clink.
The knife sank back into the wood, deeper this time.
—Chapter 3: Life or Death… concluded.
He closed the book with a sharp thud.
Thump.
The candles all tilted at once, as if an invisible current had brushed them.
The light dimmed.
And in the remaining gloom, only his voice was heard, soft, almost whispering:
—Until the next chapter… sleep with one eye open.
Crrrk… crrrk…
Silence.