I opened my eyes, coming back to the disgusting present!
The bats were still there, folding and unfolding like soone was breathing through the sky itself, and that stupid tune kept echoing in the background like it had rented space inside my head and refused to pay.
Dudududu... Dudududu... It was honestly impressive how sothing so simple could beco this annoying.
I rubbed my temple and let out a quiet breath. Alright. Enough observing. If I kept standing here like a background character, this thing would happily keep playing its little psychological ga until I started questioning my own na.
"I know you are here," I said, my voice calm, almost casual, like I was calling out to soone hiding during a ga. "And before you get any ideas, no, I am not going to panic for your entertainnt. You are going to have to work a bit harder than that."
Silence answered .
I clicked my tongue and shoved my hands into my pockets, taking a slow step forward. The ground looked normal, which imdiately made it suspicious. In scenarios like this, normal things were usually the biggest liars.
"You know what your problem is? You lack personality. I have seen cosmic horrors with better presentation skills. At least scream a little. Do sothing dramatic."
The bats shifted again, and this ti the darkness pressed down a little harder, as if it did not appreciate the criticism.
Good.
That ant it was listening.
My eyes narrowed slightly as I kept walking, forcing myself to stay relaxed even though my instincts were quietly screaming that sothing was about to go wrong. The trick with Hiding was simple in theory and annoying in practice.
It did not attack your body first. It went for your perception. It made you doubt what you saw, what you heard, what you thought.
And once you started doubting those things, everything else followed.
I stopped. There was sothing ahead of . At least, I thought there was.
A figure stood near an abandoned car, tall and still, just barely visible through the changing shadows. For a second, my brain tried to fill in the details, tried to decide what it was supposed to be seeing.
Then it vanished.
I stared at the empty space and let out a small sigh. "Right. We are doing this."
Another flicker appeared to my left. Then behind . Then sowhere in the far left-
I resisted the urge to turn too quickly and instead rolled my shoulders like I had all the ti in the world. Reacting too fast only fed into it. That was how people lost control. They chased every movent, every shadow, until they could not tell which ones mattered.
"I am going to be honest," I said, scratching my cheek. "This whole ’sothing moved, but you did not see it properly’ thing is very overused. You need new material."
Footsteps echoed behind . They were slow and careful. Definitely not of Juli.
Alright, that one was a bit better.
I turned this ti, but not sharply. Just enough to acknowledge it. There it was.
A figure, clearer now, standing a few ters away. It looked human in the sa way a badly drawn sketch looked human. The proportions were slightly off, the posture too stiff, and the face...
The face was wrong.
Not empty, not missing. Just unfinished, like soone had stopped halfway through creating it and decided that was good enough.
I stared at it for a mont, then tilted my head. "You look like you were made on a tight budget."
It twitched for a few seconds like a breathing vibrator used by so high-paid pornstar before moving.
Fast enough to be threatening if I did not already know what it was.
Its arm shot forward toward my throat in a stiff, unnatural motion. I stepped back just enough to avoid it and caught its wrist out of instinct more than effort. The mont I touched it, my expression shifted slightly.
There was no real weight. No proper resistance.
It felt like holding sothing that was pretending to exist.
"Oh," I muttered, almost disappointed. "You are fake fake."
The thing did not react to my words. It just kept pushing forward, its blank face inches from mine like it thought proximity would sohow make it more convincing.
I sighed and twisted my wrist.
The arm ca apart without a sound, dissolving into shadow that slipped through my fingers as it had never been solid to begin with.
The rest of the body followed, collapsing into nothing.
I shook my hand once and glanced up at the bats. "That is it? Really? I was expecting at least a little effort."
The swarm above reacted more violently this ti, rippling in a way that almost looked irritated.
I smiled slightly. "Oh, so you do have feelings. That is good to know."
The pressure in the air increased. It was heavier now and way more threatening. The shadows around stretched and thickened, and this ti they did not just flicker.
They stayed.
One figure beca three. Three beca ten. Ten beca... a lot more than I felt like counting.
They surrounded from all sides, each one slightly different, each one equally wrong...
So had arms that were too long, dragging against the ground. Others stood too straight, like their joints were locked in place. A few had faces that almost looked complete, which sohow made them worse.
I looked around slowly, taking them in, then let out a small breath. "Okay, this is better. Now it feels like you are actually trying to impress ."
None of them moved, which was intentional. Hiding wanted to wait and look at them.
To think and to imagine.
I could already feel it, that subtle pressure in the back of my mind trying to push into overanalyzing every detail. What if one of them was real? What if the real attack ca from behind? What if—
"Yeah, no," I said out loud, cutting that train of thought before it could go anywhere useful. "We are not doing that today."
Every head turned toward at once. It was creepy as fuck! I had to give him points for effort.
"Let simplify this for both of us," I continued, gesturing lazily around . "You are all fake. Which ans you are just noise. And I do not like noise."
The mont I took a step forward, they all moved.
Not one by one but all at once.
They rushed like a wave, bodies jerking forward in unnatural sync, arms reaching, faces tilting in ways that should not be possible.
It would have been terrifying. If they were real.
I walked straight into them.
The first one hit , and my arm passed through its chest like it was made of thick smoke. The second grabbed at my shoulder, but there was no strength behind it. The third tried to block my path, and I stepped through it without slowing down.
"I have to admit," I said as I kept moving, weaving through them without any real urgency, "this is a very creative waste of ti."
More of them piled in, trying to overwhelm , but it did not matter. They could not stop because they were not ant to stop . They were ant to delay . To make hesitate. To make doubt.
Unfortunately for Hiding, I was not in a cooperative mood. I broke into a run. Not away but forward.
The shadows thickened the closer I got, the air growing heavier, the tune louder and more distorted, like it was struggling to keep up with .
Dudududu... Dudududu...
"Yeah, yeah, I hear you," I muttered. "Very catchy. You should release it after the apocalypse. Might do numbers."
The swarm above tightened. And then I saw it. Not clearly, not completely, but enough.
Sothing inside the mass of bats was... wrong.
It did not move like the others. It did not follow the sa rhythm. It was slightly out of sync, like a bad edit in an otherwise smooth scene.
There you are.
My lips curled into a grin. "Found you."
The figures behind surged again, faster this ti, almost desperate, like they realised I was no longer playing along.
It was too late. I bent my knees and pushed off the ground, jumping with everything I had.
For a brief second, the world went quiet. Then I crashed straight into the swarm.
Wings scattered around , the sound sharp and chaotic as I forced my way through the first layer of darkness. The air grew colder, heavier, pressing in from all sides.
And then sothing brushed against my mind.
Cold and curious. It felt real.
Ah.
So that was it.
I smiled, even as the pressure increased, even as sothing deep inside that darkness finally turned its attention toward .
"You should have stayed hidden," I said softly.
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