Inside a place in the Km lands : Januany.
At night :
In the cracking cold night a man with a overcoat hanging and his head covered with a long hat walking in the streets empty and cold . Calm as there was nothing there ever.
A man silently walking through the streets with no lights in anywhere near sight . He walked like nothing could stop him , he had no fear of the dark . He walked and stretches and adjusts his hat . A middle aged man with a cold face - a traveller .
He stood in the middle of the road as if he was waiting for someone in there . He saw around everywhere near him. He saw a man waving his hands from the corner of a house his face and body hidden . He follows the path and walks behind him silently. The man had a mask on his face . The silence continued as they walked .Noone broke the ice as if they were forced to be silent . The man took him to a house , empty and cold house and on the desk of the house there was an envelope.
The masked man said ," Sit here . it's coming here tonight . Information is hundred percent right . " I am going to the other room , I will observe from there . You do your job properly and i will see you . "
Delivering that line he went inside a room inside the house and shut the door .
The man removed his coat . The door gets knocked .
The winds flew quicker and sounds of different types became loud which were unpleasant. The man unfazed looks at the mirror and smiled,"This is where the fun begins "
*Scratch. Scratch. Click.*
"
He didn't reach for a weapon. Instead, his hand slid calmly over the table, bypassing the brass key entirely, and slipped the sealed black envelope into his inner coat pocket. He patted it once, ensuring it was secure.
Behind him, the heavy oak door finally gave way.
It didn't crash open; it swung inward with a slow, agonizing creak, letting in a rush of freezing air and a thick wave of the glowing mist. Standing in the threshold, framed by the swirling darkness of Januany at 1:30 AM, was the visitor.
It was taller than any man, its silhouette jagged and wrong against the faint light of the streetlamps outside. It stepped into the room, its heavy, metallic claws scraping against the floorboards, its eyes burning like twin embers through the fog.
The traveler slowly turned around to face it. He didn't flinch. He didn't retreat.
He just adjusted his collar, took a step forward, and welcomed the nightmare.The towering, jagged silhouette in the doorway began to ripple. The twin embers of its eyes bled into a pale, watery blue, and its monstrous height collapsed inward with the wet, sickening sound of shifting bones and compressing shadow.
Within seconds, the terrifying beast was gone.
In its place stood an old person, wrapped in a threadbare shawl, shivering violently in the damp cold of the doorway. The transformation was too fast, too seamless, leaving behind a face covered in fragile, trembling wrinkles that didn't quite match the predatory stillness in their eyes.
The old person looked up, their expression twisting into an unsettling, practiced mimicry of vulnerability.
In a voice that sounded rusty, disjointed, and entirely wrong, they spoke awkwardly:
"Let me in." The shapeshifting ability clearly didn't amuse the traveller - the man
The traveler didn't flinch. He didn't even step back as the splinters of the door settled around his boots. He simply looked down at the weeping, trembling figure, his dark smile never wavering.
"Whenever you want," the traveler replied, his voice cool and entirely unbothered.
Instantly, the creature's desperate wailing cut off, choked back into a sudden, suffocating silence. The tears of black ice vanished from its cheeks.
Slowly, the figure straightened. The fragile, shivering posture of the old person shifted, settling into the heavy, deliberate frame of an old man. He stepped over the ruined threshold, his worn leather shoes crunching softly on the shattered remains of the oak door.
As he crossed the boundary into the room, the temperature plummeted. The old man looked around the dark, ledger-lined walls with a cold, ancient curiosity, the faint phosphorescent fog swirling lazily around his ankles. He was inside.
The old man stopped in the center of the room, his gaze slowly shifting away from the rows of ancient ledgers until it locked directly onto the traveler. Up close, his eyes were too wide, too perfectly still to be entirely human.
The traveler, unbothered, leaned back slightly against the scarred wooden table and crossed his arms.
"What do you want?" the traveler asked, his voice steady, cutting through the freezing, heavy silence of the room.
The old man didn't answer right away. Instead, he tilted his head at an awkward, unnatural angle, a faint, papery click echoing from his neck. A slow, thin smile crept onto his wrinkled face, mimicking the traveler's own calm demeanor, though it didn't reach his watery blue eyes.
"I want what is written," the old man whispered, his voice dry as rust. He pointed a trembling, pale finger toward the inner pocket of the traveler's coat—right where the sealed black envelope was hidden. "And I want the one who hid in the other room."
The traveler blinked, the dark smile on his face twitching for a fraction of a second as the sheer absurdity of the moment hit him.
He looked at the ancient, shape-shifting creature of the night, then down at the finger pointing at his chest, and let out a soft, sharp laugh.
"What about some snacks?" the traveler asked, completely derailing the terrifying tension in the room. He reached past his coat pocket—ignoring the black envelope entirely—and patted his sides as if checking for loose change. "I mean, it's 1:30 in the morning, the winds outside are brutal, and you just spent a lot of energy crying and breaking a perfectly good oak door. You must be starving."
The old man froze, his tilted head snapping back to a normal position with a sharp *crack*. The eerie, predatory light in his watery blue eyes flickered, replaced by pure, unadulterated confusion. A creature of ancient nightmare, built to strike terror into the hearts of men, was currently being offered midnight refreshments.
"Snacks?" the creature rasped awkwardly, the word sounding completely foreign on its tongue.
"Yeah, snacks," the traveler said, turning around to rummage through the drawers of the scarred wooden table. "I think the guy locked in the next room left some peppermint creams in here. Or maybe some stale biscuits? Let's see what Januany has to offer a guest."
The traveler paused, his hand still resting on the handle of the table drawer. He slowly turned back to face the creature, the smile on his face softening into something strangely pitying. He didn't reach for a weapon, and he didn't step back.
"Violence is not the solution," the traveler said softly, his voice carrying a calm, absolute certainty that seemed to cut right through the freezing air.
The old man blinked, the chorus of monstrous voices in his throat catching with a dry click.
"Laws can be renegotiated," the traveler replied, finally pulling his hand out of the drawer. He didn't hold a weapon. Instead, he held out a small, foil-wrapped square he'd found tucked away. "Especially when there are better options on the table. Now, are we going to keep playing this ancient, exhausting game, or are we going to sit down and talk about what's actually in this black envelope?"
The soft, pitying look vanished from the traveler's face as quickly as the light had died in the room. He tossed the foil-wrapped square onto the table with a soft *thud* and stepped directly into the creature's space, closing the distance between them until they were mere inches apart.
When he spoke, his voice wasn't loud, but it possessed a sudden, terrifying weight that made the swirling fog at their feet instantly freeze solid.
"Let's get one thing straight," the traveler said, his tone dropping into a low, lethal purr that vibrated through the floorboards. "Violence isn't the solution because it would be incredibly messy for *you*. I gave you a polite alternative. I suggest you take it, step back, and remember exactly who walked into this room smiling."
He didn't draw a weapon, but the sheer, radiating authority in his posture made the room feel even smaller than it was.
The old man's watery eyes widened. For the first time tonight, the creature didn't ripple out of hunger or malice—it rippled out of genuine, instinctual hesitation. The monstrous chorus in its throat died down to a faint, fearful whimper. The predator had just realized it might be standing in front of something much higher on the food chain.
Slowly, awkwardly, the old man took a long step backward, his leather shoes dragging against the splinters of the door.