Noir's chest heaved, his lungs burning as he collected his thoughts and stood up. The grove was still, but that stillness pressed down on him like a living weight.
The thugs lay sprawled across the damp earth, grotesque in death—their twisted faces frozen in expressions of shock and fury—but the nightmare wasn't over.
Something else had been awakened. He could feel it, a subtle vibration that rippled through the soil and trees, a disturbance in the air that set his teeth on edge.
The ruby pendant at his chest pulsed faintly, almost as if it were alive. The warmth seeped into his skin, comforting and suffocating all at once.
Whispers tugged at the edges of his mind, faint voices layered over one another, fractured and indecipherable.
He clutched the stone harder, feeling its pulse sync with the frantic hammering of his heart. Panic swelled, and with it came a chilling realization: the darkness he had fled from all his life was now aware of him.
The shadows between the trees thickened unnaturally, writhing as if alive. Noir's stomach twisted.
From the darkness, a grotesque form began to emerge. Limbs bent at impossible angles, skin stretched over jagged bone, eyes gleaming with malice, teeth too sharp, claws too long. Each movement radiated hunger, an instinctive, predatory energy that pressed into Noir's chest.
A Glock from one of the nearby fallen thugs caught his attention. Noir snatched it and bolted away.
Branches slapped his face and tore at his clothes, but he didn't dare look back. The forest blurred into streaks of black and silver under the moonlight. His boots hammered the ground, breath ripping from his lungs in sharp bursts. He had no plan—just pure terror pushing him forward.
Behind him came the sound.
Not footsteps.
Not anything human.
A scraping, dragging, clicking noise—like bone claws scraping bark, like something too large to move that fast.
Noir risked a glance over his shoulder.
And his heart immediately stuttered.
Its eyes were mouths.
Wide. Grinning.
Rows of teeth where its eyes should have been.
The mouths blinked.
Then all of them screamed.
The sound stabbed into Noir's ears like needles. His knees nearly buckled.
He pushed forward with a choked breath, sprinting harder.
The ripper gave chase, speeding through the trees with crab-like claws snapping and grabbing at the air. Its limbs moved at odd angles, like it didn't care how joints worked. The forest bent around it as if the shadows wanted it to pass.
"No—stay back!" Noir shouted over his shoulder, voice shaking.
He grabbed the Glock tightly and fired blindly behind him.
The bullets punched straight through the ripper's body. Holes tore open—clean, perfect circles.
For one second Noir thought he had a chance.
Then the holes closed.
Like the creature was made of liquid shadow.
Like nothing solid could stop it.
"What the hell—what the hell is this thing?" Noir snapped, breath ragged, mind spiraling. He had never seen a monster. Never believed in monsters.
But this wasn't something new.
It wasn't random.
His mind flashed to that day.
The Devil's Cradle.
The sky turning red.
The metal taste in the air.
Millions dying without warning.
The unseen force he felt as a child—the one that surrounded him when the sky bled—
This thing felt exactly like that.
Like the same darkness had followed him.
Found him.
He sprinted harder, but the ripper was faster.
Its scream tore through the forest again—higher, sharper, like glass splitting in his skull.
Noir's body locked.
His muscles froze.
His breath stopped.
The world spun, and his legs gave out.
He tumbled down a slope, crashing through roots and dirt until he slammed onto his back at the bottom. His lungs seized. His hands trembled violently. His vision shook.
The ripper loomed above him.
Its crab claws clicked slowly, almost gently.
Then they snapped shut around his leg.
Noir shouted—not begging, not pleading—just raw panic:
"Let go! I said—LET GO!"
But the creature didn't listen.
It hoisted him upside down like he weighed nothing.
Blood rushed to Noir's head. The forest spun around him. The ripper's mouth-eyes blinked hungrily as it lowered him toward its real mouth—a huge, gaping pit in its chest lined with endless layers of jagged teeth.
Noir felt something cold touch his skin.
Then it wasn't just his body.
A tearing pressure yanked at the center of his being, as if invisible fingers were sinking into him and pulling something vital loose. His vision flickered. His heartbeat faltered. His thoughts scattered into static.
"Stop—" he hissed, voice breaking—not out of weakness, but because something inside him was literally being torn apart.
"My soul… it's pulling out my soul!"
His vision flickered. He felt something tugging inside him, ripping away piece by piece. His body jerked in the creature's grip.
"Stop! Just stop!"
He clawed at the air. At the claws. At nothing.
The pain was unbearable—an invisible hook dragging him out of himself. He could feel his thoughts slipping, thinning, stretching toward the creature's open mouth.
"I'm dying… I'm actually dying…"
His mind scrambled for something—anything—to hold onto.
And one thought cut deeper than fear:
"I won't even get to find the bastard who killed my mother…"
The world dimmed. The pull grew stronger.
Noir felt himself slipping—helpless, upside down, soul half-torn from his body—as the ripper prepared to swallow him whole.