The evening breeze brushed against my face as I parted ways with my friend and began walking back to my apartment.
The streets were busy, as they usually were around this time. Vehicles crawled through the traffic, their headlights illuminating the road ahead, while pedestrians hurried past one another beneath the fading orange sky. Shops were beginning to light up, vendors called out to potential customers, and the smell of freshly cooked food drifted through the air.
It was an ordinary evening.
At least, for everyone else.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and continued walking, weaving through the crowd without paying much attention to the people around me.
Or rather, I tried not to pay attention.
There were things in this world that most people couldn't see.
Things that had no business existing in the first place.
Ghosts.
Monsters.
Whatever the hell they were.
I had been seeing them since I was fourteen.
It started shortly after I moved to my grandparents' village following my mother's death. At first, I thought I was imagining things. Strange shadows in the corners of my eyes. Unfamiliar shapes lingering beneath trees. Small, oddly proportioned creatures scurrying across the ground whenever I looked away.
Some were tiny, almost cute in a peculiar sort of way. Others were so hideous that even looking at them for a second made my stomach churn.
I remember the first time I saw one clearly.
It was a small, round creature sitting on the windowsill of my grandparents' house. Its body was pale and translucent, and its two enormous eyes stared blankly at the wall. It had no visible nose, and its mouth was little more than a thin line stretched across its face.
I thought it was some kind of insect at first.
Then it turned its head all the way around and looked directly at me.
I screamed.
My grandparents came running, only to find me pointing frantically at an empty windowsill.
There was nothing there.
They thought I was having nightmares. I thought so, too.
Until I started seeing more of them.
They appeared everywhere.
Some crawled along walls and ceilings. Others lurked beneath beds or hid behind furniture. I would wake up in the middle of the night and find strange silhouettes standing at the foot of my bed, staring down at me with eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness.
Sometimes, they would disappear when I blinked.
Other times, they wouldn't.
The worst part was that they weren't confined to the house.
They were outside, too.
I couldn't step beyond the front door without encountering at least a few of them. They rummaged through garbage bins, slithered beneath parked vehicles, and peeked out from behind trees and walls. Some floated aimlessly above the rooftops, while others wandered through the streets as though they had somewhere to be.
And then there were the ones attached to people.
Those were the strangest.
I would see a perfectly ordinary person walking down the street, completely unaware that something was clinging to their back, wrapped around their shoulders, or perched atop their head.
Some creatures were small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. Others were large enough to cover a person's entire torso.
Their appearances varied just as much as their sizes.
Some had too many eyes. Others had mouths that stretched far beyond the natural limits of a face. A few had no faces at all.
And yet, the people carrying them went about their lives as though nothing were wrong.
They couldn't see them.
They couldn't feel them.
They had no idea that these things existed.
But I could see them.
Every single one.
At first, I was terrified.
I stopped sleeping properly. I dreaded opening my eyes in the morning because I never knew what might be waiting for me. I became reluctant to leave the house, and even the familiar rooms of my grandparents' home no longer felt safe.
Eventually, the fear became unbearable.
I was fourteen. I had already lost my mother, abandoned my home, and left my friends behind. I had barely begun to understand the grief that followed me everywhere, and now I was expected to live with creatures that seemed to exist outside the understanding of everyone around me.
I couldn't take it anymore.
My grandparents noticed the change in me.
I had become withdrawn and restless. I would stare at empty corners, flinch at things nobody else could see, and occasionally shout at what appeared to be nothing.
They tried asking me what was wrong, but I didn't know how to explain it.
How could I tell them that the world was filled with monsters?
They would think I was crazy.
Eventually, my grandmother reached her own conclusion.
"Evil spirits," she whispered one evening.
I was sitting at the dining table when I heard her speaking to my grandfather in the next room.
"The poor boy has been through so much. Perhaps something followed him here."
My grandfather remained quiet for a while before answering.
"We should call someone."
I knew what they were talking about.
The following morning, they contacted a group of priests who were known in the village for performing exorcisms.
I didn't know whether to feel relieved or terrified.
Part of me hoped they would find something. Anything. If these things were spirits, surely people who dealt with the supernatural would know what to do.
Another part of me feared what would happen if they couldn't.
What if there was something wrong with me instead?
What if the monsters weren't real at all?
What if I was the only thing that needed to be exorcised?
I kept those thoughts to myself.
When the priests arrived, my grandparents welcomed them into the house and explained everything I had been experiencing. I sat nearby, listening as they described my behavior, my sleepless nights, and my growing fear of going outside.
The priests listened patiently.
They examined the house, recited prayers, and performed rituals in the rooms where I had reported seeing the creatures. They carried various religious objects and chanted words I couldn't understand.
I watched them closely, hoping to catch some sign that they knew what they were doing.
But nothing happened.
The rooms remained as they were.
The furniture didn't move. The shadows didn't change. No strange noises came from the corners.
Eventually, the priests gathered in the living room and spoke with my grandparents.
"We couldn't find anything unusual," one of them explained. "There is no sign of any spirit possessing the boy or troubling this house."
My grandfather let out a long breath.
My grandmother's tense expression softened.
I watched the worry drain from their faces, replaced by the kind of relief that comes when a problem finally seems to have an answer.
For the first time in days, they looked hopeful.
Then I spoke.
"But I can still see them."
The room fell silent.
The priests turned toward me.
My grandmother's smile disappeared.
"What do you mean, Mark?" one of the priests asked.
I looked toward the window.
"There's one outside. It's slithering around the house."
The priests exchanged glances.
One of them approached the window and peered outside. Another followed him.
They stood there for a moment.
Then the first priest stiffened.
"My God!"
Beyond the window, moving slowly along the ground near the outer wall, was a creature unlike anything they had seen before.
Its body was long and narrow, almost like a snake, but its skin was covered in overlapping patches of what looked like wet, rotting flesh. It had no visible limbs, yet it moved with an unsettling fluidity, its body twisting and contracting as it slithered across the ground.
A circular mouth sat at the front of its head.
There were no eyes.
Only a dark opening lined with rows of tiny teeth.
It left a trail of black residue wherever it passed.
The priests stared at it.
My grandmother impulsively uttered.
"Please!"
"You have to get rid of it! Please, you must exorcise that thing!"
The priests wasted no time.
They stepped outside, carrying their religious objects and reciting prayers as they approached the creature. I followed them to the doorway, watching from a safe distance.
The creature continued slithering, seemingly indifferent to their presence.
One of the priests raised an object in his hand and began chanting more loudly.
The others joined him.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the creature stopped.
Its body convulsed.
The black residue around it began to evaporate, rising into the air like smoke. Cracks spread across its hide, and its body started breaking apart from the inside.
I watched, unable to look away.
The creature writhed violently, its circular mouth opening and closing without making a sound.
Then, in a matter of seconds, it disintegrated.
Its remains turned into fine grey ash, which drifted upward on an invisible current before dispersing into the sky.
I stood there, staring at the empty patch of ground.
It was gone.
Just like that.
I had spent months being terrified of these creatures, wondering what they were and why they followed me everywhere.
And now I had watched one disappear before my eyes.
I should have felt relieved.
Instead, I felt something I couldn't quite explain.
A strange mixture of wonder and unease.
Because if that thing had been real enough to be destroyed, then everything else I had seen must have been real, too.
And that meant there was a whole world around me that nobody else knew existed.
A world I couldn't escape.
The priests returned to the house looking considerably more troubled than before.
They spoke among themselves for a while, occasionally glancing in my direction.
Finally, one of them approached me.
"This is an unusual situation," he said carefully. "We have never encountered anything quite like this."
I didn't know what to say.
He reached into a small bag and brought out an object wrapped in cloth.
When he unfolded it, I saw what looked like a bracelet.
It was made from unfamiliar materials, with dark, uneven segments joined together around a small central piece. The surface bore faint markings that I couldn't recognize. It looked old, almost as though it had been made by hand a very long time ago.
"What is it?" I asked.
"A protective charm," he replied. "Keep it with you. Wear it whenever you leave the house."
"Will it make the spirits disappear?"
He hesitated.
"No. But it should keep them at a distance."
I stared at the bracelet.
It didn't look particularly impressive.
There was no glow, no strange energy, no indication that it could do anything at all.
Still, I took it.
I had nothing else.
And to my surprise, it worked.
The monsters didn't disappear. I could still see them wandering around, attached to people, or lurking in places where they had no business being.
But whenever I wore the bracelet, they seemed reluctant to approach me.
They would stop a certain distance away, stare at me with their strange eyes, and then wander off in another direction.
Some even appeared to recoil when I came too close.
For the first time since the whole ordeal had begun, I could walk outside without feeling as though every creature in the world was waiting to get its hands on me.
I could sleep without constantly checking the corners of my room.
I could go to school.
I could walk through the village.
I could breathe.
It wasn't a cure, but it was enough.
And so, little by little, I learned to live with it.
I learned to ignore the creatures that lurked behind trees and the ones that crawled beneath parked vehicles. I learned to keep my eyes forward when I passed people with monsters clinging to their bodies.
I learned that most of them seemed to do absolutely nothing.
They wandered. They stared. They existed.
That was all.
At least, that was what I believed.
Years passed.
I grew older, finished school, and eventually prepared to leave the village to attend college in the city.
Dad was still worried about me.
Even after all that time, he never quite stopped looking at me as though I might suddenly break apart. He had already lost his wife. The thought of something happening to his only son was more than he could bear.
And the strange things I claimed to see had only added to his worries.
So, before I left for college, I decided to tell him what he had been waiting to hear.
"They're gone," I told him one morning.
Dad looked up from what he was doing.
"What?"
"The spirits. I don't see them anymore."
He stared at me for a moment, as though he were trying to determine whether I was telling the truth.
Then his expression softened.
"Really?"
I nodded.
"I think whatever was happening has stopped. I don't need this anymore, either."
I held up my wrist.
The bracelet was still there.
Dad looked at it, then back at me.
"You can take it off?"
"Yeah."
He let out a long, shaky breath.
For the first time in years, I saw the tension leave his face completely.
He smiled.
Not a forced smile or the small, tired smile he had worn since Mom's death.
A genuine one.
"I'm glad," he said quietly. "I'm really glad, Mark."
I smiled back.
And for that moment, seeing him happy was enough to make me feel happy, too.
I didn't tell him the truth.
I still saw them.
Every day.
Everywhere.
The bracelet hadn't cured me. It hadn't taken away my ability to see the monsters. It had merely kept them from coming too close.
But I couldn't bring myself to take away Dad's relief.
He had already suffered enough.
I didn't want him to spend the rest of his life worrying about something neither of us understood.
So I kept wearing the bracelet.
I kept my secret.
And when I left the village for college, I carried it with me.
I had no idea how much I would come to regret believing that it was all I needed.
By the time I reached my apartment building, the sky had darkened considerably.
The streets were still busy, but the evening crowd had begun to thin. Streetlights illuminated the pavement, casting long, distorted shadows across the road.
I passed a group of people gathered outside a restaurant.
Three of them had creatures attached to their bodies.
One was a small, wrinkled thing sitting on a man's shoulder, its face twisted into a permanent grin. Another clung to a woman's back, its long fingers wrapped around her neck while its chin rested against her head.
The third was floating above the group.
It had a disproportionately large head and a tiny body that seemed to dangle beneath it. Its eyes were closed, and its mouth hung open as though it were asleep.
I looked away.
At this point, I was used to it.
I had spent five years seeing these things. Five years learning to pretend that they weren't there.
Some people might have gone mad under those circumstances.
I had simply gotten tired of being afraid.
Besides, the creatures rarely did anything.
They didn't attack people. They didn't chase me down the street. They didn't even seem particularly interested in the world around them.
They were just... there.
A constant, unpleasant presence that I had learned to tolerate.
I slipped my hands into my pockets and continued walking.
My apartment wasn't far from a convenience store, and I decided to stop there before heading upstairs.
Tomorrow marked the beginning of my second semester at college.
The thought alone was enough to make me sigh.
Classes, assignments, examinations, and all the other joys of student life awaited me.
So, naturally, I needed to prepare for the occasion.
What better way to spend the night before a new semester than watching a movie and drinking a few beers?
I wasn't particularly fond of drinking, but every now and then, I liked to sit back, turn off my brain, and let a movie occupy my attention for a few hours.
Tonight seemed like a good time for it.
I pushed open the convenience store's glass door.
A small bell jingled overhead.
The store was brightly lit, with rows of shelves arranged in narrow aisles. Packaged snacks, instant noodles, canned drinks, and household necessities filled the shelves. A refrigerator hummed near the back, and a faint smell of coffee lingered around the counter.
A few customers wandered between the aisles.
And, of course, the monsters were there, too.
One crawled along the ceiling above the entrance, its many legs moving in a slow, rhythmic pattern. Another sat on a shelf of instant noodles, its long neck twisting as it watched the customers pass.
Two more stood near the refrigerator, facing one another.
Neither moved.
Neither blinked.
They simply stood there, their blank faces turned toward each other as though they had been having the same silent conversation for years.
I walked past them.
There was no point in paying attention.
I had come here for snacks and beer, not to spend another evening contemplating the existence of things that shouldn't exist.
I grabbed a packet of chips from one shelf and a few other snacks from another before heading toward the drinks section.
On my way, I passed the cashier.
She was a young woman, probably around my age or a little older, standing behind the counter while scrolling through her phone.
Wrapped around her body was a creature that made me wrinkle my nose.
Its torso was pressed against her back, while its long, spindly arms encircled her waist. Its legs hung loosely at her sides, and its head rested beside hers.
The creature had a broad, fleshy face covered in tiny pores.
Its lips were swollen and dark, stretched into an unpleasant smile that revealed rows of uneven teeth. Two small eyes sat on either side of its face, while a third, much larger eye occupied the center of its forehead.
All three were fixed on the cashier.
Its expression was difficult to describe.
Disgusting, perhaps.
Or lecherous.
Whatever it was, I didn't want to look at it any longer than necessary.
I lowered my gaze and continued toward the beer.
Two more creatures occupied the aisle ahead.
One was a squat, lumpy thing sitting on the floor beside a stack of bottled water. The other floated near the ceiling, its thin body twisting lazily as though suspended in water.
I stepped between them without a second thought.
Nothing happened.
As usual.
I reached the drinks section and found the beer I wanted on the bottom shelf.
A cardboard box containing six bottles sat near the edge.
And sitting directly on top of the box was a small creature.
It was about the size of a cat, though its body looked more like a flattened lump of grey flesh. Its skin was smooth and shiny, almost like wet rubber. It had two tiny arms, no visible legs, and a round face with a pair of dark, expressionless eyes.
Its mouth was a straight line.
It stared blankly at the shelf opposite it.
I sighed.
Of all the places to sit.
I crouched down and reached for the box.
My hand passed straight through the creature.
As expected.
I felt nothing. No resistance, no strange sensation, not even the faintest hint that I had touched anything at all.
The box slid toward me.
And then-
The creature moved.
I froze.
It turned its head toward my hand.
For a moment, its expression remained unchanged.
Then its tiny mouth twisted downward.
I blinked.
What?
The creature shifted to the side of the box, its body sliding across the cardboard with a wet, almost sticky motion.
Its eyes remained fixed on me.
Its mouth was still a straight line, but somehow, I could tell that it was angry.
I stared at it.
It stared back.
Neither of us moved.
Then the creature began slithering down the side of the box.
Its little arms clung to the cardboard as it descended, its body stretching and contracting like a snail crawling across a surface.
It reached the floor.
Then it turned toward the next aisle and began moving away.
I remained crouched beside the shelf.
My fingers were still wrapped around the box of beer.
My heart was hammering against my chest.
For five years, I had seen these creatures.
For five years, I had watched them wander through the world, crawling over people and furniture, passing through objects, and occasionally floating through the air.
I had touched them countless times.
My hand had passed through their bodies as easily as it passed through smoke.
And not once had any of them reacted.
Not once.
Until now.
I slowly lowered the box to the floor.
The creature continued slithering away, apparently unaware that I was watching it.
I didn't understand what had happened.
I didn't know why it had reacted to me.
I didn't even know what I was supposed to do.
I only knew that something had changed.
And that terrified me more than I wanted to admit.
The creature was almost at the end of the aisle when I finally stood up.
I took a step toward it.
Then another.
It didn't look back.
I don't know what I was thinking.
Perhaps I wanted to see whether it would react again. Perhaps I wanted to prove to myself that I hadn't imagined the whole thing.
Or perhaps I was simply tired of being afraid.
Whatever the reason, I followed it.
The creature reached the corner and began turning into the next aisle.
I raised my foot.
And brought it down on the creature.
My shoe struck its body.
For the first time in five years, I felt something.
A faint, unpleasant squelch beneath the sole of my shoe.
The creature stopped moving.
I stared down at it.
Its little body convulsed once.
Then twice.
Cracks spread across its grey skin, and a fine layer of ash began peeling away from its surface.
Within seconds, the entire creature crumbled.
The ash lifted from the floor and drifted upward, vanishing into the air.
I stumbled backward.
My breath caught in my throat.
"What the..."
I couldn't finish the sentence.
I looked down at my shoe.
Then at the empty patch of floor.
Then back at my shoe.
It was gone.
The creature was gone.
I stood there, motionless, trying to comprehend what I had just done.
I had touched it.
Not passed through it.
Not waved my hand through an illusion.
Touched it.
And somehow, I had destroyed it.
A cold sensation crept up my spine.
Something was wrong.
Something had changed.
But what?
I had spent years believing that these creatures were nothing more than strange, harmless beings that I happened to be able to see. I had learned to live with them. I had learned to ignore them.
I had even convinced myself that I understood them.
But I didn't.
I knew absolutely nothing about them.
And now, one of them had reacted to my presence.
I swallowed.
My gaze shifted toward the end of the aisle.
The other creatures were still there.
One sat on a shelf, staring blankly into space. Another hovered near the ceiling. Neither seemed to have noticed what had happened.
I looked back at the place where the small creature had disappeared.
For some reason, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had just crossed a line.
A line I hadn't even known existed.
I picked up the box of beer and stood there for another moment, trying to calm my breathing.
Then I grabbed my snacks and headed toward the counter.
I didn't look at the creatures again.
I didn't want to.
When I reached the checkout, the cashier was still scrolling through her phone.
The hideous creature wrapped around her body had not moved.
Its three eyes, however, were now fixed on me.
I could feel its gaze.
I kept my eyes on the counter.
I placed the snacks and beer down, paid for them, and picked up the bag.
The cashier barely glanced at me.
"Have a good night."
"Yeah. You too."
I turned toward the door.
The creature was still staring.
I ignored it.
I walked out of the store, stepped onto the pavement, and took a deep breath.
Then I started running.
I didn't know why I was running.
Perhaps I was afraid that another creature would react to me. Perhaps I was afraid of what would happen if I touched another one.
Or perhaps I was afraid of the possibility that the world I had spent five years learning to tolerate was about to become something entirely different.
I ran anyway.
I clutched the bag of snacks and beer against my side, dodging pedestrians and stepping around the creatures that wandered across the pavement.
Normally, I would have walked straight through them.
Tonight, I avoided every single one.
A small, round creature floated across my path, and I swerved around it.
A long-legged thing crawled down the side of a building, and I hurried past without looking up.
A grotesque creature perched on a streetlight turned its head as I passed.
I didn't stop.
I didn't look back.
I just kept running.
The city seemed different at night.
The streetlights cast long shadows across the pavement, and the narrow alleys between buildings looked darker than they had any right to be. The hum of traffic faded as I moved away from the busier streets, replaced by the occasional bark of a dog and the distant rumble of a passing vehicle.
The creatures seemed more numerous in the darkness.
Or perhaps I was simply noticing them more.
They lurked in doorways, clung to walls, and drifted through the air above the road. Some sat motionless beneath streetlights, while others crawled along the ground with their strange, jerky movements.
I tried not to look at them.
But every time I caught a glimpse of one, my mind returned to the small creature in the store.
The way it had moved.
The way it had looked at me.
The way it had crumbled beneath my foot.
I had destroyed it.
How?
Why?
And what did that mean for the rest of them?
I didn't have answers.
I only had questions.
And with every step, the questions seemed to multiply.
By the time I reached my apartment building, my lungs were burning.
I slowed to a walk and approached the entrance, breathing heavily.
The building stood between two rows of shops, its concrete walls illuminated by a flickering light above the entrance. The corridor leading to the stairs was dim, and the air smelled faintly of damp concrete.
I climbed the stairs and stopped in front of my apartment door.
My chest rose and fell as I tried to catch my breath.
I had almost made it.
I just needed to get inside, lock the door, and put some distance between myself and the outside world.
Then I could think.
Then I could figure out what had happened.
I reached for the doorknob.
And something emerged from the door.
I stumbled backward.
For a split second, I couldn't understand what I was seeing.
The creature had phased through the solid wood as though the door weren't there at all.
It was enormous.
Its body was hunched and twisted, with elongated limbs that dragged against the floor. Its skin looked as though it had been peeled away in places, exposing layers of dark, glistening flesh beneath. Its neck was unnaturally long, supporting a head that hung forward at an awkward angle.
Its face was the worst part.
There were no eyes.
No nose.
Only a cavernous mouth that stretched from one side of its head to the other, filled with irregular teeth that seemed to grow in every direction.
A thick, black substance dripped from its jaw.
It hit the floor.
Then vanished.
I couldn't breathe.
I had seen hideous creatures before. Some had made me nauseous. Others had kept me awake at night.
But nothing I had ever encountered compared to this thing.
It was as though every disgusting, unnatural feature I had ever seen had been combined into a single, monstrous body.
And it was looking at me.
I took another step backward.
My heel struck the wall.
I had nowhere else to go.
The creature tilted its head.
Then it moved toward me.
Slowly.
Its limbs dragged across the floor, producing a faint scraping sound. Its mouth opened wider, revealing a darkness that seemed to extend far beyond the limits of its skull.
I wanted to run.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to do anything except stand there.
But my body refused to obey.
It was as though someone had poured a bucket of freezing, slimy liquid over my head. The sensation spread down my neck, seeped beneath my skin, and flooded every part of my body.
My fingers went numb.
My legs trembled.
My heart pounded so violently that I could feel it in my throat.
I had been afraid of these creatures for five years.
But this was different.
This wasn't the familiar unease of seeing something disgusting on the street. It wasn't the discomfort of walking past a creature attached to someone's back.
This was terror.
Pure, suffocating terror.
The creature crept closer.
I couldn't move.
It was almost within reach.
Its mouth opened, and I caught a glimpse of something shifting in the darkness inside it.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
No.
The word echoed through my mind.
No. No. No.
I didn't want to die.
I didn't want to die in front of my apartment door, alone, over something I didn't even understand.
I didn't want to die at all.
My entire body screamed at me to move.
But I remained frozen.
The creature reached forward.
And then-
It shot upward.
A sudden movement tore through the air as the monstrous thing bolted toward the ceiling and phased straight through it.
I opened my eyes.
The corridor was empty.
For several seconds, I couldn't do anything but stare at the spot where it had disappeared.
Then my knees gave way.
I collapsed onto the floor.
The bag slipped from my fingers, and the beer cans rattled against one another as they hit the ground.
I barely noticed.
I sat there, gasping for air, trying to convince myself that I was still alive.
My hands were shaking.
My entire body felt cold.
I looked to my left.
Nothing.
I looked to my right.
Nothing.
I was alone.
At least, as far as I could tell.
I scrambled to my feet, grabbed the bag, and fumbled with my keys.
The lock clicked.
I pushed the door open, stumbled inside, and slammed it shut behind me.
Then I leaned against it.
For a moment, I did nothing.
I simply stood there with my eyes closed, listening to the sound of my own breathing.
I was home.
I was safe.
I repeated those words in my head until my heart finally began to slow.
Then I turned on the lights.
My apartment was exactly as I had left it that morning.
The small living room opened into a compact kitchen, with a narrow counter separating the two spaces. My couch sat beside the television, facing a desk where my computer rested. A few books were stacked near the monitor, and a jacket hung over the back of a chair.
Everything was familiar.
Everything was ordinary.
And, most importantly, there were no monsters.
I looked around the living room.
Then the kitchen.
Then the hallway leading to my bedroom.
Nothing.
Not a single creature.
I frowned.
That was strange.
There were usually a few small ones wandering around the apartment. They would sit on the furniture, crawl along the walls, or hover near the ceiling.
I had grown so accustomed to them that their absence was almost as unsettling as their presence.
But I didn't have the energy to question it.
I had more pressing concerns.
I hurried into the kitchen and opened the cabinet above the sink.
Inside sat a small black box.
I pulled it down and placed it on the counter.
My hands were still trembling as I opened the lid.
The bracelet lay inside, wrapped neatly around a small watch cushion.
I hadn't worn it in a while.
I had convinced myself that I no longer needed it. After all, I had been living in the city for months, and although the creatures were more numerous here than they had been in the village, none had ever posed a real threat.
Until tonight.
I picked up the bracelet.
Its dark surface felt cool against my fingers.
I slipped it around my wrist and fastened it.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the air around me rippled.
It was subtle at first, like heat rising from the pavement on a summer afternoon. A faint distortion spread outward from my body, passing through the walls, the furniture, and everything else within reach.
I felt nothing.
No wind.
No pressure.
No strange sensation against my skin.
But I could see it.
A circular wave of invisible force expanded through the apartment, visible only because of the creatures it encountered.
One moment, the space around me was empty.
The next, several monsters were revealed as the wave swept past them.
A small, pale creature perched on the kitchen counter.
A long-limbed thing crouched behind the couch.
Two others hovered near the ceiling, their bodies twisting as they attempted to move closer.
The wave reached them.
All four creatures recoiled.
They were pushed backward as though an invisible wall had slammed into them. One tumbled through the ceiling. Another was forced through the kitchen wall. The remaining two retreated toward the farthest corners of the room.
Then the wave faded.
The apartment fell still.
I stared at my wrist.
The bracelet looked exactly as it had before.
But I knew it was working.
Whatever force it produced had pushed the creatures away, creating a space around me where they couldn't approach.
Roughly ten feet in every direction.
The same protection it had given me in the village.
I released a long breath.
"Thank God."
My voice sounded strange in the quiet apartment.
I leaned against the counter and rubbed my face.
I didn't know what was happening.
I didn't know why the creatures had suddenly become tangible, or why that enormous thing had fled as soon as I had put on the bracelet.
I didn't know whether the two events were connected.
And I certainly didn't know what I was supposed to do about any of it.
But I was exhausted.
My second semester began tomorrow.
And, frankly, I didn't have the patience to deal with a supernatural crisis tonight.
I picked up the bag of snacks and beer and carried it into the living room.
If there was one thing I had learned over the past five years, it was that I couldn't afford to spend every waking moment worrying about the creatures.
I had to live my life.
Whatever they were, whatever they wanted, and whatever had changed tonight, I would figure it out eventually.
For now, I needed a break.
I dropped onto the couch and reached toward the side of my computer casing.
The power button clicked beneath my finger.
A moment later, the computer began humming to life.
I grabbed the television remote from the coffee table and leaned back against the cushions.
The desktop appeared on the screen.
I opened a streaming service, browsed through a few movies, and eventually settled on one that looked entertaining enough.
Nothing too complicated.
Nothing that required much thought.
Just something to occupy my mind.
I reached into the bag and pulled out a can of beer.
The tab snapped open with a sharp hiss.
I took a sip.
Then another.
The familiar bitterness settled on my tongue as the movie began.
For the first time that evening, I felt as though I could relax.
The apartment was quiet, the lights were warm, and the bracelet rested securely around my wrist.
Whatever was happening outside, the creatures couldn't come near me.
That was enough.
I watched the movie, occasionally reaching for another snack or taking a drink from the can beside me.
Minutes slipped by.
Then an hour.
Then another.
The beer gradually disappeared, and the tension in my shoulders began to ease. My thoughts grew sluggish, and the images on the screen started to blur around the edges.
I couldn't even remember the last time I had felt this tired.
Eventually, the credits began rolling.
I stared at the screen for a few seconds before reaching for the remote.
The television went dark.
I let my head fall back against the couch.
"Tomorrow's going to suck."
I chuckled weakly at my own words.
Then I closed my eyes.
The room was quiet.
The computer hummed beside me, its light illuminating the edge of the couch.
My fingers loosened around the remote.
It slipped from my hand and struck the floor with a dull clatter.
I didn't wake up.
Within moments, I was fast asleep.
For the first time that night, I wasn't thinking about the monsters.
I wasn't thinking about the strange creature in the convenience store.
I wasn't thinking about the thing that had emerged from my apartment door.
I was simply asleep.
Unaware.
Oblivious.
And completely unprepared for what awaited me when I opened my eyes again.