The sound of the door shutting carved a permanent crack into Anik's ears.
The echo didn't stop—it reverberated inside his skull—Dong… Dong… Dong…
As if the old clock of the mansion now beat in rhythm with his own heart.
The darkness of the room wasn't just darkness.
It was alive, breathing, black.
The walls shimmered in blue-red hues, as if every brick carried a vein of blood pulsing through it.
Anik's body was no longer human.
His bones twisted from within, reshaped by invisible hands into a grotesque, impossibly elongated mixture of bone and flesh.
His muscles tore and separated, yet there was no pain.
Only a deep, infinite hunger—like a hollow cavern had opened inside him that could never be filled.
The black-eyed boy—the one given as a 'gift' to this room a century ago—stood before him.
The stench of rotting intestines did not emanate from him anymore.
It was Anik's own.
His own blood and the stench of decaying flesh.
The boy smiled.
His teeth were yellow, long, with fragments of his own teeth stuck between the gaps.
"Do you recognize me?" the boy whispered, his voice now a chorus of many.
"I am your uncle. And you… you are the next link.
This house is not made of bricks and stones, friend.
It is made of flesh and blood.
And in every brick, a part of us remains."
The walls awakened.
Shale-covered stones split open, revealing countless faces—eyes sewn shut, lips torn, tongues dangling.
They reached out together.
Their claws sank into Anik's skin.
Wherever they touched, flesh rotted and fell away.
New flesh rose from beneath—black, sticky, alive to the touch.
The central stone altar cracked open.
From beneath rose the massive meat mass—a living sphere of thousands of severed hands, feet, and heads.
It did not throb—it screamed.
Every hand lunged at Anik, every mouth called his name.
"Anik… Anik… join us…"
The skeletal creature stepped forward.
Its claws sank into Anik's stomach—slowly, deliberately.
His intestines twisted outward, yet no blood spilled.
The veins writhed like living serpents, merging directly into the meat mass.
Anik realized—his body was no longer his own.
He was now part of that flesh.
The boy came close to his ear.
Inside his eyes wriggled swarms of tiny black insects.
"Here, no one dies.
We only transform.
Your eyes will become the eyes of the corridor's stone sculpture.
Your skin will be the new curtain.
Your heart… it will be our new heartbeat."
Suddenly, row after row of jars shattered.
Inside, the hearts leapt—one by one merging into Anik's body—his chest, his stomach, his throat.
Each heartbeat pulsed in rhythm with his own blood.
Anik's mind melted.
Memories faded.
Only one thought remained: hunger.
Infinite, bottomless hunger.
The faces on the walls began to sing.
A grotesque, inhuman melody.
The vibrations shattered Anik's bones.
His body became an open wound.
From within, new hands sprouted, new mouths formed, new eyes appeared.
Outside, lightning struck.
In a flash, Anik saw his own shadow standing in the corner.
It slit its chest, and the blood wrote across the floor:
"I am your next."
The skeletal creature tore his heart.
But Anik did not die.
A new heart grew inside him—black, sticky, full of countless veins.
It did not beat.
It laughed.
The blood on the floor began pulling him downward, into the earth.
A dark cell.
Where his ancestors hung—alive, skinless, eyes open.
Every day, a single drop of blood was drained.
They smiled at him.
"Welcome… new brother."
The ceiling of the cell closed.
Anik's final thought: There is no end here.
Only the game.
The eternal game.
And now, he was not a player.
He was the toy.
And the source of hunger.
Outside, the dogs no longer howled.
They were silent.
Because they knew—
Another soul had been taken.
And the hunger of the mansion never ends.