The growl came again—low, throaty, and close enough that Ethan could feel it vibrating in his teeth. The air turned thick, like syrup, and every candle flame along the corridor guttered, bowing toward the noise.
Ethan whispered, "Okay, not to alarm anyone, but that's the universal sound of 'run.'"
The ninja didn't move. Her hand hovered above her katana, eyes scanning the carvings crawling across the stone. "We can't. These marks… they're reacting."
"Reacting?!" Ethan hissed. "What are they, motion sensors for demons?!"
Before she could answer, one of the sigils cracked. The stone beneath it split open with a sound like shattering glass, and from that fissure, something slithered out—black, wet, and gleaming.
Ethan took a step back. "Oh, nope. Nope. Nope. I don't do anything that moves like bad sushi."
The thing unfolded. It wasn't one creature but several, their bodies fused together—arms sprouting from torsos, heads pressed into walls, mouths that opened sideways. Their eyes glowed faint red, blinking independently, like broken Christmas lights.
The ninja girl whispered something under her breath and drew her blade. The steel hissed, ghostlight gleaming along its edge.
Ethan grabbed the first object he could find—a piece of stone shaped like a brick. He pointed it like a gun. "Alright, back up, freaky centipede monster, or I'll… throw this very aggressively!"
The thing screamed. Not a normal scream, but a hundred overlapping voices, male, female, young, old—all begging, all angry. The walls pulsed with it.
Ethan's grip trembled. "Okay, new plan! Maybe we… talk to it? Monsters love heart-to-hearts, right?"
The ninja lunged first. Her blade cut through one of its arms, but the wound didn't bleed—it smoked. The cut limb melted into the wall, and from the ceiling, another arm grew in its place.
"Yeah, that's fair," Ethan muttered. "Why kill it once when you can fight its entire family tree?"
He dodged a swing that nearly crushed him, rolling across the floor. The stone burned under his palms. He looked up—and froze.
There, above the creature, glowing faintly through the cracks in the ceiling, was a symbol. One he'd seen before. The same pattern carved into his welcome mat back home.
"Oh, hell no," Ethan breathed. "It's the same thing. You're telling me this house, this church, this thing—they're all connected?"
The creature lunged. The ninja slashed upward, yelling, "Move!"
Ethan didn't think—he moved. He slammed his makeshift brick into one of the sigils glowing on the wall. The moment it cracked, a burst of light exploded outward.
The monster screeched, folding in on itself, every limb writhing like it was being torn apart by invisible chains.
The ninja fell back, panting. "What did you do?!"
Ethan blinked at his hand. "I broke stuff. It's my best skill."
The walls began to pulse faster now—marks lighting up like veins of fire. One by one, they shattered, flooding the corridor with red light.
The creature shrieked one last time, then vanished, sucked into the cracks as though the world had inhaled.
Silence.
Smoke drifted. Dust rained. Ethan coughed.
"…So, uh," he said after a long moment, "do I get a medal for that or just therapy?"
The ninja gave him a look that was equal parts disbelief and reluctant respect. "You're insane."
"Thanks. I get that a lot."
Before either of them could breathe properly again, a voice echoed faintly through the corridor—calm, smooth, familiar.
"You broke the seal, Ethan."
Ethan froze. He knew that voice.
The man from the sanctuary.
"Now," the voice said, "it will come for you both."
The floor cracked beneath them.
The world tilted.
And then—they fell.