Two hours had passed since Ethan and Jenny remained in the library.
Jenny placed the book on the table, a faint smile on her face.
Ethan's eyes sparkled with fascination after hearing the events of the book.
He had no choice but to hand her another one to read.
She took it gladly and began reading.
Twenty minutes later, Nicholas entered the tent, speaking in an irritated tone:
"Oh, there you are."
Everyone in the library signaled him to be quiet. He shut his mouth and walked toward them.
He sat at the same table and whispered to Jenny:
"I've been looking for you everywhere, you *****s. Stop disappearing like this."
Jenny replied with a stammer:
"I… I'm sorry. I got so absorbed in reading that I forgot about you."
He sighed quietly, then answered:
"Fine. Next time we'll meet in the same place so we don't get separated."
She replied:
"A… alright."
Nicholas raised his eyes, scanning the surroundings and watching the readers deeply engrossed in their books.
Among the most notable were Alexander Locke and Arthur Russo.
Both sat in chairs separate from the others, reading different books in silence.
Nicholas turned his gaze back to his companions and whispered:
"Anyway, I discovered something interesting. This village is divided into three main areas: the village itself, the hospital, and we can reach them through the grass. What do you say we go explore them while we wait?"
Jenny hesitated for a moment, thinking about what he said.
Ethan quickly nodded in agreement.
Nicholas:
"It's settled then. Let's go."
Nicholas and Ethan both stood and headed toward the exit.
Jenny remained seated, a trace of sadness on her face.
Nicholas turned to look at her and asked:
"Aren't you coming, or what?"
She answered hesitantly:
"Ah… n… no. I still want to read a bit before we leave."
Nicholas shrugged and replied:
"As you wish."
He and Ethan left the tent and continued toward the grass.
The moment they arrived, Nicholas turned to Ethan and warned him:
"Listen carefully. From the moment we enter the grass, don't you dare wander away from me. From what I've heard, the place inside is dangerous and easy to get lost in. One wrong turn and we'll find ourselves outside the village."
He knelt down, holding a thin thread that stretched into the grass.
"But as long as we have this thread with us, we can reach our destination without danger."
Ethan nodded in agreement and grabbed onto Nicholas's shirt.
They began pushing their way into the grass.
The moment they entered, the grass blinded their vision completely; they could no longer even see their own hands.
After forty minutes of walking, their eyes caught the sunlight, and they found themselves in a vast land filled with water.
Wide fields stretched before them, divided into large rectangular plots separated by narrow water channels that flowed slowly. The water was slightly dark and reflected the sunlight like broken mirrors.
Rice plants grew along the sides of the channels.
In the dry spaces between the channels, fields of wheat and corn spread out in different stages of growth.
Some were a vivid green, while others had yellowed and begun to dry.
Here and there, carefully stacked piles of straw appeared, along with old wooden carts left by the sides of the narrow dirt paths.
Dozens of farmers worked diligently at their tasks.
Nicholas looked around, squinting against the sudden sunlight, then whispered:
"The agricultural sector. A far more dazzling sight than the desert we live in."
He glanced at Ethan and found him completely captivated by the view.
Ethan let out a small sigh of admiration and took a step forward, breathing in the scent of the damp earth and the air of the fields—so different from the dry, harsh air of their village.
His eyes moved between the sunlight reflecting on the water channels and the tireless farmers moving lightly between the green rice plots.
Nicholas patted Ethan's shoulder and said in a low voice:
"Don't go too far. This place is easy to get lost in, especially since you're short."
The two of them began walking through the farm, watching the farmers go about their usual work.
After some time in the area, they noticed a man in the distance surrounded by guards, watching the farmers just as they were.
The man approached them after several minutes and stopped a few steps away.
They remained silent for six full minutes until the man finally spoke in a civilized tone:
"I haven't seen you here before. Are you from outside?"
Nicholas looked him up and down with mild surprise and replied:
"Yes."
The two of them began talking with cold expressions while watching the farmers.
The man:
"A pleasure to meet you."
Nicholas:
"Thanks… I assume from what I've heard that you're Adrian."
Adrian:
"Hahaha. It seems the bad rumors spread faster than I thought."
Nicholas:
"There's nothing interesting besides that anyway."
Adrian:
"I agree with you on that."
…
Nicholas:
"So when was the last time those disappearance things happened?"
Adrian:
"A week ago, as far as I remember."
Nicholas:
"Any developments?"
Adrian:
"Nothing new."
Nicholas:
"Good."
Nicholas lowered his eyes to the place where Ethan had been, and shock took over his features.
Ethan had disappeared.
Nicholas struck his own face in frustration and whispered:
"When I get my hands on that *******…"
The village chief noticed his anxiety and asked:
"What's wrong?"
Nicholas answered, veins standing out on his forehead:
"The idiot who was with me has disappeared. And I just told him not to move."
Adrian chuckled lightly before replying:
"Ah, children. Always like that. You'd better look for him quickly before we end up with another disappearance case."
Nicholas turned immediately without wasting a single second and began his search for that little brat.
Elsewhere, inside the rice fields.
Ethan walked with slow steps, completely lost in thought, the shallow water completely covering his shoes.
The nearby farmers watched him with curiosity, since they had never seen him before.
He only wanted to touch the rice plants with his hand and see up close how the dark water flowed through those narrow channels.
He followed a colorful butterfly with strange wings—something he had never seen in their dry desert. It fluttered lightly from leaf to leaf, drawing him deeper and deeper into the flooded fields.
Ethan stopped the moment he heard footsteps approaching through the shallow water.
He turned quickly toward the source of the sound and was surprised to find an elderly farmer standing in front of him.
Ethan's eyes met those of the old farmer, whose face was deeply lined with wrinkles.
The old man wore a worn straw hat and held a small sickle covered in a layer of rust, while the mud of the fields coated his clothes up to his knees.
The old man did not speak immediately. Instead, he examined Ethan with puzzled, wary eyes, wondering to himself where this strange boy had come from.
Finally, the old man broke the silence in a rough, aged voice:
"What brought you here, child? This place is not for playing."
Ethan looked at him with indifferent eyes, then began touching the rice plants with a childlike expression.
The old man sighed with regret before continuing:
"So… are you interested in farming?"
Ethan nodded yes.
The harshness in the old man's features softened slightly, and the sharp tone disappeared, replaced by a faint, faded smile that nearly vanished among the wrinkles of his face.
He set the rusty sickle aside on the dry ground, then bent slightly and gently took hold of a nearby rice stalk, gesturing for Ethan to look at it closely.
The old man whispered in his rough voice:
"This little plant needs a lot of patience and dark water to grow. The land here gives us life, but it also takes a great deal from us."
He sighed for a moment before continuing:
"The best thing about this land is the quiet and the stillness. People's fear of being heard by those monsters has created a strange but comfortable atmosphere of constant silence. And the farm is the best place of all. Here you can hear the flowing water and enjoy its coolness—a kind of peace I never dreamed of in the old days… The world has ended, yes, and some think it's the worst thing that ever happened to humanity. But for some of us—at least for me—it's the best thing that ever happened."
Ethan looked at the farmer's hands, full of scars and mud, then returned his gaze to the dark water flowing very slowly beneath their feet.
In that moment, Ethan felt a hand seize his neck and violently twist him around.
His eyes met Nicholas's, blazing with anger.
Ethan waved at him, innocence dripping from his face.
Nicholas pressed hard on Ethan's neck while whispering through clenched teeth from sheer rage:
"You little brat… Didn't I tell you just minutes ago not to take a single step? You made me search for you like a madman!"
Ethan showed no extreme fear. Instead, he blinked innocently and directed his gaze toward the old man and the rice plants.
Nicholas turned toward the elderly farmer and slowly released Ethan's neck as the intensity of his anger subsided a little, making room for respect in the presence of the old man's age.
The old man tried to calm Nicholas:
"Settle down. He's still just a child."
Nicholas glared at Ethan with angry eyes:
"And that's exactly what I hate about him."
The old man:
"You need a little patience, young man. Calm down—you've found him. There's nothing left to worry about."
Nicholas:
"Yeah, yeah."
Nicholas grabbed the back of Ethan's shirt like a cat and pulled him gently, intending to get him away from the mud of the rice field. Then he turned to the old man and nodded his head in a sign of respect and farewell.
Ethan waved his small hand in goodbye to the old man, while the elderly farmer picked up his rusty sickle again and bent toward his plants, quickly disappearing into the absolute silence of the farm.
The two of them moved far enough away from the previous spot for Nicholas to release Ethan.
Nicholas:
"The view is beautiful here. Let's quickly visit the medical sector and then come back to this place."
He took hold of the end of the thread, and Ethan followed, grabbing onto his shirt.
The moment they took a few steps inside, the sunlight disappeared completely. The eerie silence of the grass took over, and the only sounds left were the rustling of dry leaves, the friction of their bodies against them, and the steady rhythm of their breathing.
Ten full minutes of continuous walking passed in this pitch-black darkness.
Nicholas talked a great deal, even though he knew Ethan would not answer him. At least it gave him some sense of comfort.
After thirty minutes, Nicholas reached the hospital.
There he found dozens of white stone huts arranged in front of one another in a regular pattern, forming something that resembled residential complexes.
Dozens of injured people wandered outside—some with injured legs walking on crutches, others with bandages wrapped around their eyes, and many more.
Dozens of doctors wearing identical clothing stood among the patients.
Nicholas let out a soft whistle mixed with astonishment as he studied the orderly pattern of the white stone huts. The sharp smell of disinfectants and medicinal herbs filled the air.
He turned back with a smile and said:
"Aren't you looking at this? This place is amazing in every sense of the word."
Nicholas waited for a reply—or at least a nod or a light tug on his shirt, as he had grown used to from the absent-minded little one—but he felt no movement at all.
He lowered his head to look at Ethan, who should have been bouncing around like a child in the place.
His eyes widened at the horror of what he saw, and red veins stood out in the whites of his eyes.
Ethan had disappeared, and a piece of his clothing had been torn off.
Nicholas took a deep breath, then growled in frustration:
"Oh, no…"
Back to Ethan, lost in the middle of the grass.
He walked without a clear destination, still clutching the torn piece of Nicholas's clothing in his fist.
He moved with trembling steps through that narrow, suffocating green corridor, his small eyes darting left and right in a desperate attempt to pierce the absolute darkness that enveloped the place.
Ethan's foot, still wet with the mud of the fields, tripped over a protruding plant root, and he fell to his knees. He accidentally dropped the piece of cloth. When he bent down to the cold, muddy ground to feel for it and pick it up again—
He felt something…
A strange metallic texture in the soil—something that should not have been there at all.
He moved closer and closer, feeling the metal piece more clearly.
He found a circular metal hatch with writing on it that he could not understand.
Without hesitation, he began trying to remove the metal cover.
Despite its great weight relative to his small body and slender frame, Ethan pressed with all his strength, using his mud-stained fingers and pushing with his entire weight upward, until he managed to remove it, revealing a worn metal ladder leading into the depths of the earth.
He did not hesitate long. He slowly turned his body and lowered his mud-stained knees to place his first foot on the top rung of the ladder, then began to descend.
With every step he took downward, the tunnel grew colder, and the absolute darkness swallowed what little faint light still came from the circular opening above him, along with the smell of stagnant, rotting moisture.
Ethan stopped in place and closed his eyes for a few seconds until his pupils adjusted to the extreme darkness.
When he opened them, he found himself standing in a vast, extended underground corridor from which narrow concrete sewer channels branched off, carrying dark water that flowed very slowly, producing the monotonous sound of dripping that echoed through the place.
Ethan took one step forward, driven by his endless curiosity, but he froze completely the moment he heard a violent metallic vibration coming from above.
He began running with all the strength he had away from the place.
His clothes mixed with the filthy water, and his breathing grew choked from the smell.
After some time of running, he came upon a metal door in front of him. He opened it and entered immediately.
He took two steps backward, leaning his small body against a solid wall, and struggled to catch his choked breath while dirty water mixed with mud dripped from his soaked clothes onto the floor.
He remained frozen for a while, trying to process what was happening.
Five minutes later, he began to hear footsteps outside the room he was in.
Human footsteps in the sewer corridors, drawing closer and closer to him.
He turned to escape—
But his body froze the moment he looked away from the door.
Behind him were two opposing cells.
Inside each of them were creatures of distorted human form.
One body belonged to an adult male, but it was completely stripped of skin, as if the outer protective layer had been carefully peeled away.
The red muscles, tendons, and flesh fibers were fully exposed, pulsing coldly.
His hands looked as though they had been torn from their places and forcibly reattached to his back; the surgical threads were still clearly visible.
He had no eyes and no nose—only a distorted mouth.
In the other cell was a slightly smaller creature that walked on all fours, its feet replaced by human hands.
Its skin was rough like a crocodile's, and its eyes were completely white.
Ethan swallowed hard as he looked at them.
But the footsteps were approaching, and he had no time to wait.
He began walking with slow, quiet steps, trying not to draw their attention.
He passed by one of them and found it lying on the ground, covering the place where its eyes should have been with its hands while making human crying sounds.
It trembled continuously, its emaciated body contracting with every sobbing breath that escaped its distorted throat.
Meanwhile, the echo of the human footsteps outside reached its peak. The sound of walking through the filthy water suddenly stopped, replaced by the strong friction of a body against the metal door, followed by the sharp, violent sound of a heavy lock being opened from the outside.
Ethan cast a quick, terrified glance at everything around him in those final narrow seconds, searching frantically for any space to hide in this corridor.
But he found nothing.
Suddenly he remembered that the door opened on his side of the room, not the opposite one.
He lunged toward the narrow corner next to the door's wall hinges. He pressed himself completely against the wall and squeezed his body into it.
In the same second, the heavy metal door swung open violently inward.
The door slammed shut over Ethan, trapping him in temporary safety between the back of the door and the cold stone wall.
No one could see him, and he could not see anyone, but he heard slow footsteps entering the room.
The footsteps suddenly stopped in the middle of the room, and absolute silence fell. He could hear only his own racing heartbeat and the heavy, steady breathing of the unknown person—breathing that indicated extreme calm and deep confidence.
Then a calm, cold, and pure voice rang out through the stone room:
"Here's your food for today."
The cold, pure voice echoed through the room, immediately followed by the sound of a heavy impact.
The unknown person continued:
"This should be enough for you today…"
Even so, the creatures did not approach their food.
The crying one remained withdrawn, while the second creature drifted into sleep.
The unknown person sighed in regret and whispered:
"You're trying to starve yourselves to death, from what I can see… Sad, but I'll need you soon."
The unknown person turned lightly after hearing a faint buzzing behind the door.
He immediately rushed toward it and opened it…
The unknown:
"…No one… I must have been imagining it."
Outside, Ethan had already slipped a good distance away.
He removed his shoes and began running with all the speed he had deeper into the sewers.
After several minutes of continuous running, Ethan felt severe exhaustion and shortness of breath. He gradually slowed until he stopped, leaning his wet back against a cold concrete wall.
He raised his eyes to his new surroundings and found a dead end in front of him, with a worn metal door beside it.
He inhaled the polluted air with regret, then continued toward the door.
He reached for the handle and tried to open it, but the door refused to move.
He tried again, putting all the weight of his small body on the handle, but it was no use—the door was firmly locked.
He gave up after several attempts and turned back, hoping to find another way out of this place.
The moment he turned his back to the door and walked a few meters away, he heard a faint metallic sound behind him.
He slowly turned his head, his eyes wide with terror, to examine the source of the sound.
His pupils dilated with dread.
The metal door was open by several inches.
Dozens of fingers were extending from that crack from top to bottom.
From inside the place came the sound of dozens of humans whispering at the same moment:
"Doctor… w… w… we were w… w… waiting for you."
Without any hesitation, Ethan turned in the opposite direction and fled.
At the same moment, the door burst open violently, the sound of its impact echoing through the sewers.
The speaker emerged from the darkness.
A creature five meters tall.
Its body was massive and bloated, covered in sores.
It had ten arms on each side, each arm five meters long.
The arms were human in shape but stitched together in a brutal and disgusting manner; the torn shoulders were connected by thick, dark surgical threads from which black, clotted blood oozed.
Nine human heads were attached to its body.
Each head had been stripped of all its features except one.
One head still had the eyes, two had the noses, and the rest retained the mouths.
The missing organs were transplanted into various parts of the body.
Its entire body was covered in threads as if it had been assembled by hand, and worm-like tentacles flowed from it.
The monster screamed savagely:
"Doctorrrrrr!"
Its footsteps accelerated across the wet concrete floor, aiming for the fleeing Ethan, who was cutting through the darkness of the tunnels with gasping steps.
The monster's irregular body made it stagger left and right, slamming violently into the concrete walls of the tunnel.
Yet its arms gave it a strange balance and terrifying speed, as they clung to the ceilings and walls and pulled it forward with insane force.
Ethan's breathing quickened, and his heart pounded like drums.
Every step he took increased his exhaustion, and every second that passed reduced the distance between him and the monster.
After four minutes, at one of the turns,
Ethan noticed a group of four people in the distance.
Three of them wore metal armor and carried weapons, and Adrian Volk was coming out of one of the doors.
Ethan immediately headed toward them and began waving for help.
One of the guards noticed him and shouted:
"Stop right there! And how did you get here?!"
But Ethan continued advancing toward him. The others noticed their comrade's shouting and aimed their weapons at him.
The small boy crashed into the metal-armored body of the guard, clinging tightly to the cold metal while gasping frantically, his pale eyes fixed on the dark turn he had come from.
Before the guard could push him away or question him, the concrete walls of the corridor shook violently, and the darkness at the turn split open as the monster emerged in all its rage.
Their faces all went pale with terror. The guard slapped Ethan away from him.
Ethan hit the muddy floor, pain tearing through his bones.
He raised his eyes helplessly toward them and watched as they fled, leaving him behind.
The monster continued closing the distance more and more. All that remained for him was to close his eyes and wait for his inevitable fate.
But the moment did not come.
Instead of dying, he felt the monster's footsteps moving away from him.
He slowly opened his eyes.
With a mixture of shock and terror, he watched them being killed.
The monster stretched out its hands, seizing each of them by the neck and lifting them into the air.
With pure savagery, dozens of worms emerged from its hand and immediately entered their necks.
In mere seconds, their necks were broken.
The monster dropped them one after another.
The bodies hit the muddy floor with muffled sounds, and the worms continued moving for a moment inside the wounds before withdrawing back into the monster's arm as if they had never come out.
To be continued…