Dante was a farmer. One day, after returning home from the field, exhausted from a long day's work, he washed his face and cleaned his feet. As he prepared his meal for dinner, he noticed a quiet voice singing from afar. There was no other house around except his small hut, which made him wonder, with a strange unease, where the voice could be coming from. He stepped outside, looking around, listening carefully. The voice was faint but hauntingly beautiful, a lady singing with an angelic tone, as if carried from heaven itself. Yet the language was foreign, strange, and unfamiliar, sending a shiver down his spine. Then, suddenly, someone whispered his name right at the back of his ear. Terrified, his heart racing, he spun around to see who had called him—but there was no one arround.
He quickly went inside and shut the door behind him, his hands trembling slightly. After a while, as he calmed down, he returned to his cooking, trying to shake off the strange chill that lingered in the air. As the sun sank slowly below the horizon, painting the sky with streaks of crimson and gold, he lit a candle and placed it on his small dining table. The flickering flame cast long, dancing shadows across the walls of his humble hut. Exhausted from the day's labor, he ate only a little, then cleaned up the table and prepared for bed.
As he drifted into sleep, a sudden pounding in his chest jolted him awake. His body refused to move; he was frozen, paralyzed, unable even to lift an arm. All he could see was a small hole in the ceiling, and through it, a giant full moon hung in the night sky, casting a cold, silvery light into the room. The faint, acrid smell of burning candle wax filled his nose, strange and unsettling. Panic and confusion surged through him, but he forced himself to try to move his arm—yet it remained unmoving, as if bound by some unseen force.
As he struggled to move, his eyes caught sight of a small grasshopper clinging to the ceiling. He tried again to lift his arm, but his body remained heavy and unresponsive. Then, from somewhere deep within his head, an eerie sound began to rise—a distant siren, faint at first, then climbing into a sharp, high-pitched wail that made his skull throb. Over it all, he heard a single, continuous female voice whispering gibberish, calm and unbroken, flowing like a strange, hypnotic melody that made his mind reel. He fought against the invisible weight holding him down, desperate to break free, when he noticed the small hole in the ceiling slowly widening. It grew and grew until the full, blinding light of the moon poured through, as though the moon itself was descending toward him.
As he struggled to keep his sanity amid this nightmare, a sudden whip-like splash shot from the hole in the ceiling, snatching the small grasshopper in an instant. His eyes stayed fixed on the opening, and slowly, a massive silhouette emerged—a giant gecko, the size of a human, crawling through the widening hole. Its scales were marred with scars and bruises, as if it had survived some deadly, unknown battle. With a thunderous crash, it fell to the ground, writhing in agony, its enormous body shaking the hut with every movement. After a tense moment, it dragged itself toward the door and slithered out into the night, leaving Dante staring in stunned silence, heart pounding, unsure what he had just witnessed.
After the giant gecko disappeared through the door, Dante felt a sudden surge of warm air rise from his chest, spreading through his body. Slowly, sensation returned to his feet, and he cautiously lifted his hands to touch his face, taking deep, steadying breaths to chase away the lingering fear. As his consciousness fully returned, a fierce curiosity ignited within him—he wanted to know more about the enormous creature. Grabbing his machete, he crept toward the door, following the faint trail of the gecko into the night, every step filled with a mix of trepidation and awe.