Elias waited on the rooftop without moving.
The night wind brushed past him, tugging faintly at his coat, carrying with it the distant noise of traffic and the sharper scent of rust and damp concrete.
He crouched near the edge of the building, one knee bent, one hand resting lightly against the gravel-covered surface. From a distance, he looked like a statue someone had forgotten to remove, silent, unremarkable, easy to overlook.
That was the point.
He had learned long ago how to make himself small.
Below him, the street lay quiet. Too quiet. No pedestrians, no idling cars, no stray cats rummaging through trash. T
he lamps flickered faintly, casting long shadows that clung stubbornly to the walls. Elias's gaze remained fixed on the abandoned building across the narrow road, its windows dark, its doors sealed shut with old boards and newer locks layered together.
It did not look important.
He adjusted his breathing, keeping it slow and shallow. His heart beat steadily, betraying none of the unease building tight in his chest. The tattoo on his arm, a deep red umbrella etched into his skin feel warm beneath his sleeve, pulsing faintly, as though reacting to something nearby.
I really hate this, Elias thought.
He did not like ghosts.He did not like monsters.He liked even less the feeling of knowing he was close to both.
Movement caught his attention.
Three men appeared at the corner of the street, their footsteps deliberate, their presence heavy. They wore dark clothes and caps pulled low, their faces half-hidden in shadow. Between them, they carried a long, crudely wrapped shape.
A body.
Fresh.
Elias's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
The men spoke quietly, their voices low and hurried. One laughed, and the sound scraped unpleasantly against Elias's ears. They crossed the street quickly, stopping at the side of the abandoned building instead of the front.
There.
Elias leaned forward slightly.
One of the men reached toward the wall and pressed his palm against a patch of brick that looked no different from the rest.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the bricks shuddered and shifted, sliding inward with a soft grinding sound, revealing a narrow opening just wide enough for a person to slip through.
A hidden passage.
Elias exhaled slowly.
Jackal, he thought.
The men dragged the body inside. The wall sealed itself behind them, the bricks knitting together as though they had never moved at all.
Elias did not move for several seconds.
Then, reluctantly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
The call connected almost immediately.
"Where are you?" Celestia's voice snapped through the speaker before he could say anything. "Elias, don't tell me you—"
"I found them," Elias said quietly.
There was a pause.
"…What?"
"The jackal hideout," he continued, his tone calm, flat, carefully controlled. "It's an abandoned building near Old River Street. There's a concealed entrance on the west wall. Three men just brought in a corpse."
"What the fuck are you doing there?!" Celestia shouted. He could practically picture her expression, crimson eyes blazing, patience wearing thin. "Are you insane?! Stay where you are. Don't move. I'm sending people—"
Elias hesitated.
He stared at the building, at the place where the wall had opened and closed, at the faint residue of dark matter clinging to the bricks like mold.
If he waited, the trail might go cold.
If he left, more bodies would disappear.
"I'll stay nearby," he said, carefully avoiding a direct answer.
"Elias—!"
He ended the call.
His phone slipped back into his pocket. For a brief moment, he simply stood there, the city stretching around him, the weight of his choice settling in.
His stomach twisted.
I really, really hate ghosts, he thought again.
But he moved anyway.
Elias descended from the rooftop and crossed the street, his steps soundless. The closer he got to the building, the heavier the air became, pressing against his senses like an invisible fog. He stopped just short of the wall, studying the bricks.
There, a faint discoloration. A hairline seam.
He pressed his palm against it.
Nothing happened.
"…Right," he murmured.
He adjusted his angle slightly, touching the brick the man had pressed earlier. The wall responded at once, sliding inward with that same grinding sound, revealing the narrow passage beyond.
The darkness inside felt thick.
Elias swallowed and stepped through.
The passage sloped downward, narrow and uneven. The walls were damp, the stone cold beneath his fingertips as he brushed against it for balance. He kept close to the wall, instinctively minimizing his presence.
The red umbrella tattoo warmed further, its energy bleeding outward in a subtle haze. Elias felt it wrap around him, muting his presence, blending his aura into the surrounding miasma. The oppressive pressure lessened slightly.
Thank you, he thought without meaning to.
The passage opened into a vast underground space.
Elias froze.
It looked like a cathedral.
Not a holy one. Nothing here felt sacred. The structure mimicked one all the same. High arched ceilings disappeared into shadow.
Long stone benches lined the floor, arranged in neat rows. At the far end, a massive hole yawned open in the ground, wide enough to swallow a truck.
Cultists knelt before it.
They wore hooded robes marked with a jackal insignia, their faces hidden, their bodies swaying slightly as they chanted in low, rhythmic murmurs. The sound reverberated through the chamber, crawling along Elias's skin.
The stench hit him next.
Blood. Rot.
Elias pressed himself against a pillar, barely daring to breathe.
Then he saw it.
Something moved beneath the hole.
A shape, massive and indistinct, shifting in the darkness below. Glimpses of pale flesh and blackened limbs surfaced briefly before sinking back down. A low, wet sound echoed upward, like a creature breathing through a throat full of mud.
The men Elias had followed appeared at the edge of the hole.
They threw the corpse in.
Elias flinched despite himself.
The body vanished into the darkness. For a moment, there was nothing.
Then.
A sickening sound.
The creature beneath shifted, convulsed. Something was forced back upward, ejected violently from the hole.
Elias stared in horror.
The corpse came back out wrong.
Limbs bent at impossible angles. Flesh stripped and reattached crudely, like a child's broken toy. The thing hit the stone floor with a wet slap, twitching weakly before going still.
The cultists bowed.
Elias's hands curled into fists.
This is a horror novel, a detached part of his mind observed.Of course it is.
A whisper brushed past his ear.
"…There."
Elias nearly jumped out of his skin.
He clamped down on the reaction, his face remaining eerily calm as he turned his head slightly.
The bride ghost hovered beside him.
She looked the same as always, beautiful, tragic, dressed in red. Her expression was sharp, focused. She pointed toward the hole.
Souls.
Elias could see them now.
Faint, translucent shapes clinging to the edges of the pit, reaching upward with trembling hands. Some were children. Small bodies curled inward, faces twisted in confusion and pain. They tried to climb out, only to be dragged back down by unseen force.
"My son is in there," the bride ghost said softly.
Elias's throat tightened.
Whispers rose around him, brushing against his mind, fragmented and desperate. He felt them press against his consciousness, seeking acknowledgment.
He wanted to scream.
He wanted to run.
Instead, he stood still, his expression unchanged, his fear locked tightly behind his ribs.
"…I know," he said quietly.
The cathedral echoed with chanting.
The monster shifted below.
Elias stayed hidden until the chanting stopped.
One by one, the cultists rose from their knees. Their movements were unhurried, as if this grotesque ritual were nothing more than a routine prayer before sleep.
They spoke among themselves in low voices, words slipping past Elias's hearing, and then began to disperse through different passages branching out from the cathedral hall.
The underground space slowly emptied.
Only then did Elias breathe again.
The bride ghost drifted closer, her red dress trailing soundlessly above the stone floor. She pointed toward a narrow corridor to the left, where the shadows seemed slightly thinner.
"This way," she whispered.
Elias nodded.
Of course his luck would never allow anything to go smoothly.
He waited a full minute, counting his breaths, listening for footsteps. When he was reasonably certain no one lingered nearby, he slipped away from the pillar and followed the ghost into the corridor.
The passage twisted sharply, the walls closing in. The air felt older here, heavy with stagnant moisture and something faintly metallic. Symbols were carved into the stone at irregular intervals, some crude, some disturbingly precise. Elias avoided looking at them for too long.
He hated underground spaces. He hated enclosed darkness. He hated knowing that something massive and alive was breathing beneath his feet.
He followed the ghost until the corridor ended at a wooden door reinforced with iron bands.
The bride ghost paused.
Elias hesitated, then reached for the handle.
The door opened.
Right in front of him stood three men in jackal priest robes.
They stared at each other.
The cultists blinked, clearly not expecting to see a man in a trench coat staring back at them from the wrong side of their hidden corridor. One of them tilted his head slightly, confusion plain even beneath the shadow of his hood.
Elias reacted faster than his thoughts.
He slammed the door shut.
The sound echoed violently through the passage.
"Fuck," Elias muttered, abandoning any pretense of composure.
He turned and ran.
The corridor stretched ahead of him, splitting again and again like a living thing trying to confuse him. His footsteps pounded against the stone, each echo sounding far too loud in his ears. He turned left, then right, then left again, following instinct rather than logic.
Behind him, voices rose.
Shouts. Angry. Alarmed.
Footsteps followed.
Elias's heart hammered violently against his ribs, though his face remained unnervingly calm. His lungs burned as he ran, coat brushing against damp walls, his shoes slipping slightly on uneven stone.
The red umbrella tattoo pulsed with warmth, miasma thickening around him, obscuring his presence. It helped, but not enough. The cultists were familiar with this place. He was not.
The bride ghost hovered close, urging him forward, pointing at turns that seemed safer than others.
"This way," she whispered urgently. "No, not there. Turn."
Elias obeyed without question.
He ran until his legs ached and his breath grew shallow. The passages blurred together, stone and shadow repeating endlessly. He took another turn, then another, and burst through an archway into a wide open space.
He stopped short.
The cathedral.
The same vast hall.
The same benches.
The same enormous hole yawning at its center, the darkness beneath it shifting faintly, as though something inside had sensed his return.
Elias stared.
"…You have got to be kidding me," he said quietly.
The underground maze had led him right back to the heart of it.
The air felt heavier now. The monster beneath the hole stirred more openly, a low, wet sound rolling upward like distant thunder.
Elias stood closer than before, close enough to see movement within the darkness below. Pale shapes slid against one another, flesh grinding softly, limbs dragging across unseen stone.
He felt sick.
Across the hall, a door opened.
Cultists poured in.
More than before.
They spread out in a semicircle, blocking every visible exit. T Others raised their hands, dark energy gathering around their fingers.
Elias straightened slowly.
He frowned.
Not in fear.
In irritation.
"Damn it," he muttered.
The bride ghost floated to his side, her expression tight. Her gaze flicked toward the hole, then back to the cultists.
"They will not let you leave," she said.
"I noticed," Elias replied calmly.
A man stepped forward from the group, his robe more ornate than the others, the jackal insignia stitched in silver thread. His hood fell back, revealing a narrow face and eyes that gleamed with unsettling fervor.
"Well," the priest said lightly, as if greeting a guest. "You are either very brave or very stupid."
Elias did not respond.
The priest's gaze swept over him, lingering on the calm, lifeless expression, the way Elias stood without shaking, without visible panic.
"…Interesting," the man murmured. "You walked in here alone. No protection. No chant. No blessing."
Elias glanced briefly at the hole behind him.
The monster shifted again, closer now, something vast pressing against the edge of the darkness. He could feel it watching him, an awareness crawling across his skin.
"I was just passing through," Elias said. "Wrong door."
A few cultists snorted.
The priest smiled wider.
"You see everything, do you not?" he said softly.
Elias said nothing.
He did not want to hear this man speak. He did not want to be here. He did not want to be involved.
But his feet stayed planted.
The priest lifted a hand slightly.
"Do you know what lies beneath us?" he asked.
Elias met his gaze at last.
"Yes," he said. "Something that should not exist."
The priest laughed.
Behind Elias, the hole responded.
A massive limb surfaced briefly, slick and pale, scraping against the stone before retreating again. The sound echoed through the hall, a wet, hungry noise.
The cultists bowed their heads in reverence.
Elias's stomach twisted, fear rising like bile. His hands trembled faintly inside his sleeves, though his face remained empty, his eyes cold.
The bride ghost leaned closer.
"You cannot run anymore," she whispered. "But you can still choose."
Elias closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.
He thought of the empty coffins.Of the parents kneeling in front of him.Of the children's souls clawing at the edge of the hole.
He opened his eyes.
Across from him, the priest raised his hand higher.
"Seize him," the man ordered.
The cultists stepped forward.
Elias exhaled slowly.
"…Celestia," he murmured under his breath, rubbing his thumb against the umbrella tattoo. "You better hurry."
The red sigil beneath his skin pulsed once.
The monster beneath the hole shifted again, closer than ever.