The transition was always absolute. At exactly 23:00, the neon-drenched bustle of Guangzhou didn't wind down; it died. It wasn't a curfew enforced by police, but by nature—or whatever the creatures were. One minute, the street below Lei's fifth-floor window was full of delivery scooters and late-night noodle vendors; the next, the sound was snatched away, leaving behind a silence so deep it felt pressurized.
Lei, seventeen years old and thin as a reed, stood by the window, watching the phenomenon. He wasn't watching the humans scatter; he was watching the Ghosts.
The government called them Jìngwù (Silent Things) or sometimes, more clinically, 'Nocturnal Apex Predators, Class 4.' The kids called them Ghosts, or, darkly, the Whispering Blade. They emerged only between 23:00 and 05:00. The terrifying, unifying fact about them was that they were blind. Completely, biologically blind. Their eyes were useless, scarred-over black pits beneath smooth, obsidian exoskeletons.
They didn't need eyes. They heard everything.
This was the terrifying reality: the daily grind was realistic and mundane—school, work, traffic jams, arguments over dinner. Then, the Quiet Hours arrived, turning the city into a deadly, sonar-mapped labyrinth.
Tonight, Lei had to break the rules.
He wore his suit: soft canvas joggers, a worn cotton shirt, and heavily padded boots—every surface chosen to absorb sound. He checked his bag: three rolls of high-density acoustic foam tape, a pair of noise-canceling earbuds, and the photo. It was a faded print of him and Mei, standing by the Pearl River Tower last spring. She had the brightest, most exasperated smile he'd ever seen.
Mei hadn't made it home three nights ago. She worked a double shift at a logistics warehouse across the river, and her bus was delayed past 23:00. She hadn't been found among the few, carefully cataloged remains. Her last message to him was a single, cryptic character: 'G.'
Lei slung the bag over his shoulder. His mission was simple: reach her apartment complex in the Tianhe district, three kilometers away, and find the tablet she'd been raving about—the one she claimed contained her research on the Ghosts.
He pulled out the most important piece of gear: the Mute-Box. This was the government's countermeasure, commercially available to those who could afford it. It was a palm-sized device that projected high-frequency white noise, audible only to the Ghosts, confusing their auditory mapping. It was heavy, battery-intensive, and only offered a thirty-second window of confusion.
He pressed his ear to the wall, listening for his parents' slow, rhythmic breathing. Good. They were deep under the sleep aid the government encouraged for the Quiet Hours.
Lei eased his window open, pushing it only enough to slip through, the frame letting out a single, faint creak. He froze, his heart hammering out a deafening rhythm against his ribs.
On the street below, a Ghost was passing. It was bipedal, standing just over two meters tall, its limbs segmented like an insect's. The sound it made was horrifying—not a roar, but a constant, low whisper of friction, the gentle click of its own weight shifting on the pavement.
It stopped.
The blind, silent creature tilted its head toward Lei's window. It didn't see him, but the faint creak had been an anomaly in the city's blanketed silence, a change in the environment's acoustic signature.
Lei held his breath until his vision blurred. The Ghost remained stationary for five long seconds. Then, sensing nothing further, it continued its slow, mechanical patrol.
Be brave, be quiet, Mei's voice echoed in his memory.
Lei climbed out onto the narrow concrete ledge, pressed his body against the building's rough stucco, and began his terrifying walk towards the fire escape, three floors above the city's most dangerous hunters. Three kilometers lay between him and answers, and he knew that every step he took, no matter how quiet, was a prayer in the language of the dead.