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The inside was pitch-black. No surprise there. With the windows shuttered outside, no streetlight was let in and there were no light sources inside.

“Let’s stay here for a moment, let our eyes get used to the dark,” he whispered, and I sensed him remove his sunglasses. “D’you think you’re able to calm down if you drop the technique?”

He set the bag he’d been carrying down silently.

I didn’t respond for a moment, examining my resolve from the outside and in, like a spectator. There was still some panic there, but the immediate threat of feeling completely overwhelmed was gone.

“I think so,” I whispered back.

“Great. Do it.”

Letting the technique fade, my tumultuous emotions returned but not as strongly as they’d been outside. Taking deep breaths, I did my best to push it down and focus on the task at hand.

Colson’s voice came from right beside me. “How’s your vision coming along?”

“I can see faint outlines, but nothing specific,” I whispered back.

“Alright, we’ll proceed slowly. Do you know how to move silently?”

I did. I’d been taught to step forward hovering one foot slightly above the floor, setting my toes down first, keeping the weight on my back leg and I told him so.

“Textbook, kid,” he praised and clapped my shoulder. “Grab hold of the back of my jacket, and I’ll lead, you follow. My eyes are pretty well-adjusted already. If I ask you something, tug once on my jacket for yes and twice for no.”

We moved slowly and stealthily through the dark ground floor, carefully avoiding objects on the ground. My foot would hit something every so often, but because of our caution, they’d gently be pushed aside instead of tumbling around making an awful racket.

Heart pounding loudly in my ears I almost missed it when Colson whispered after a couple of minutes. “See that outline over on the right? There’s a bit of light shining through, and I see some stairs. There’s nothing down here, it’s just a giant open space. We’ll try to head up. Try to step in my tracks. We’ll go floor by floor. Silence from now on.”

I tugged once on his jacket in affirmation. This was nerve-wracking.

When we made it to the staircase, Colson gently nudged the door open, careful to avoid any creaking. It slid up with only a minuscule squeak before we could shimmy through. There was a bit of light shining through an unshuttered skylight window on the top floor and we could see the steps as we gradually climbed them.

Arriving on the second floor, the rooftop light was bright enough to show us that access to the floor was open through an empty doorframe. Colson proceeded and we repeated our reconnaissance, my eyes adjusting again slowly.

Going further into the facility, Colson peeked into several rooms along the way. When we made it to the end, there was an open space with a bunch of empty sleeping bags strewn on the floor around an old oil lamp of some kind. Squatters, probably.

“Listen,” came the barest whisper from in front of me.

Standing stock still, we could hear something moving around on the floor above us. A small thump every so often, resembling the sound you make when you walk with a cane.

I nearly bolted then and there as a jolt of adrenaline shot through my system, my imagination showering me with images of ghosts, spectres, and monsters in the dark. This was so far out of my comfort zone. The only thing keeping me tethered to the slightest bit of prudence was the vice grip I had on Colson’s jacket.

I felt him turn around and he grabbed me around the shoulders, his hot breath tingling near my ear as he whispered right next to it. It smelled of cigarette smoke, spices and… something else I couldn’t identify.

“If we encounter anything up there, you stay behind me at all times,” he addressed me in a serious voice. “Let me do the talking, if necessary, but most importantly you stay near me. We’ll rinse and repeat, got it?”

Hesitating for a brief instance, I tugged once more on his jacket.

Doubling back, we headed towards the third floor. Repeating our performance, it took us twice as long to climb the stairs this time, Colson testing each step with his weight before committing fully.

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The nearer we got to the third-floor landing the more certain smells saturated the air. I could smell something rotten, and decaying, and the aroma of metal was overpowering. It was so bad that I felt as if I’d accidentally bitten the inside of my cheek.

I can taste it.

Colson didn’t stop, apparently content to ignore the stench.

Arriving on the landing, we could see that the door was closed. He tentatively tried the handle, and it didn’t budge. Locked. He stood for a moment before coming to a decision and pulled a lockpicking set from his inner jacket pocket. Rolling it out he selected a couple of tools, focusing his attention on the door. He fiddled around for a bit and an almost inaudible click sounded his success.

Pocketing his tools, he tried the handle again and it turned, opening the door. The stench became overpowering, and I gagged mutely, almost throwing up on the spot. Pinching my nose and covering my mouth with my free hand, I tried breathing through it, and it improved marginally.

What is that?

Colson pushed forward slowly.

Entering a long hallway, I couldn’t see much except for his giant frame, but I thought I saw some flickering ahead, like from a candlelight. Someone was here.

Moving forward carefully, Colson made sure to check any of the side rooms for signs of activity. Not finding any, he proceeded straight ahead with me right on his heels.

I stepped in something soft and squishy at one point and almost slipped but managed to catch myself by holding onto his jacket and reaching for the hallway wall. Colson tensed at my pull, but I think he realised what was happening and braced himself. I found my footing and tugged at his jacket.

There was a faint yellow light ahead of us now, in a room to our right. Colson peered through the door carefully and whatever he saw made him turn around and face me with a stern expression. His eyes were hidden in the shadow of the door frame, but I could tell from the way his mouth was settled.

“Ethan, enter the tranquil mind. Now,” he commanded.

Doing as he asked, I slipped into meditation faster than I’d ever managed before.

He looked at me for a couple of seconds, then nodded and proceeded through the doorway, me in tow.

Entering a large square room, a large number of candles were casting an unsteady glow on the scene before us, and I realised what I’d been smelling.

Death.

There were bodies strewn everywhere, in various states of decay. Intestine, blood, and viscera filled the space before us, blood spatter painting the ceiling and walls, and bones from several limbs piled in one corner.

My conscious mind rebelled against the meditation, screaming, and yelling at me; run, escape, flee. I managed to hold on, just barely and catalogued the scene before me with a strange detachment. There would be a reckoning when I couldn’t hold the technique any longer.

Focusing on the body parts nearest to where I was standing, I noticed they all had bite marks. Walking further into the room I looked at the bones in the corner and could see that the bones were also scratched, some of them broken cleanly through.

Thump

With a start, I turned toward the noise. While I’d been analysing the scene, Colson had moved to one of the windows where part of a shutter was broken off, a gentle breeze wafting in. He removed some bone from a long piece of what I think was a vein, that was stuck in the window, and I moved to join him.

Similar to what happens in so many horror movies, the wind played a trick on us. Except this wasn’t a movie, this was very much real.

“It’s not here,” Colson concluded, voice cold. Enraged.

“Colson. What’s going on?” I asked, the pressure on my meditation increasing frantically.

“Kid, sorry you had to see this. I didn’t expect it to be this bad. When I saw what was in here I didn’t wanna send you back down by yourself and I need to examine the scene. I only originally expected to find André, maybe one other, not… this.”

“What’s happened here, some kind of cannibalistic serial killer?” my voice was frantic, fearful.

He looked around the room for a moment, before gesturing at something I’d missed. A green footprint, smudged by blood and wear.

“Nothing human did this,” his voice was stone. “It’s an empousa. A humanoid maneater. It’s why all the bodies have bite marks.”

The pounding increased.

“An empousa? A maneater? W-what? Are you kidding me? We have to get out of here!” I pleaded in a desperate voice. I felt my grip on the technique slip slightly before I managed to steady it again.

“Ethan. Try to calm yourself. I realise the situation isn’t ideal–”

“IDEAL?!” I screamed, my tenuous grip on the tranquil mind breaking entirely. “Colson what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fu–”

My stomach content landed on the floor as I threw up and it kept on coming.

He clapped me on the back.

“Let it all out, kid," he told me in a soothing voice. "Try to steady your breathing as well as you can. Again, sorry for the abrupt introduction. I’d hoped we would find the empousa first and incapacitate it, so I could tell you about it when we had it locked down. Evidence in hand, so to speak. Seems like it’ll be the other way around.”

I didn’t answer, I just tried to dry heave up more stomach acid, as he kept on talking.

“Yeah. Monsters are real. This one’s a nasty bugger. Not very strong, but devious. Shapeshifter. Lures people to its lair and eats them. Men, and women, it doesn’t discriminate. The footprints are residual oxidized copper that it leaves behind. Means it’s probably young, to make mistakes like that.”

“But h-how- why, w-what the hell are we doing here if monsters are real and EATING people,” I managed between breaths.

“It’s the job, kid. Find out what’s going on and neutralise the threat if one’s present. Do some good, bring in evidence, get paid.”

“You do this shit for a living?” my voice was incredulous, scandalised.

“Not this specifically, but it’s sometimes a part of it, yeah,” his voice had taken on a hint of sadness. “Been a while since I’ve seen carnage like this, I’ll admit.”

“And you felt it was important for me to know about this now? The hell… why?”

“Answer’s two-fold. You’re one bad day away from imploding. We need to shock your system so badly that whatever’s blocking your Sigil breaks. And I thought it would be polite to introduce you to everything before you have the first fight for your life.”

“Sigil? What do you mean by "implode"? Implode?! Fight? Wha–”

“Heads up.”

“WHAT THE FU–”

“I was not expecting company,” came a smooth female voice from the door we had entered. My head went up, nausea present, but forgotten.