?The sun rose over Stonemouth like an insult.

  It was a perfect dawn, clear, a brazen orange setting the horizon on fire, reflecting off the yellow police tape cordoning off the Old Pier as if it were molten gold.

  Only three days had passed since the attack, but the town seemed to have aged thirty years. Schools were closed for "city mourning," shops had their shutters halfway down, heavy eyelids of those who don't want to see.

  But the worst thing wasn't the silence. It was the perfection of the lie.

  ?Tony sat on the low wall outside the Purple Shake, turning a now-deformed paper cup in his hands. He stared at the local newspaper abandoned on the table: TRAGEDY AT SIREN NIGHT: STRUCTURAL FAILURE AND INERT GAS SATURATION.

  The article spoke of old mining ducts, "collective hypnagogic hallucinations" induced by toxic fumes, and a coastal landslide. The missing were classified as panic drowning victims or buried under debris.

  No mention of shadows. No trace of creatures ripping people off the ground. The official version had been served with terminology so technical, so aseptic, that the town had swallowed it to avoid admitting the impossible.

  ?"It's ridiculous," muttered Alex, sitting opposite him. The bags under his eyes were dark bruises on pale skin. "'Psycho-acoustic phenomena.' They have a name for everything. As if we invented the blood."

  Tony squeezed the cup until he felt the cardboard give. "They fenced off the woods. Military trucks have been going in and out for two nights. They say 'geological remediation.' They're just erasing evidence."

  ?The diner door opened. Cristy walked out.

  She walked as if made of blown glass, with a fragility that hurt to look at. She wore a gray hoodie two sizes too big and kept her gaze fixed on her shoes. She hadn't cried anymore; since that night, she had locked herself in an arid, mechanical silence.

  She sat next to them. Didn't say a word.

  "Did you eat?" Alex asked.

  Cristy shook her head. "I still taste that cotton candy in my throat. It was pink. Chemical. Just thinking about it makes me nauseous."

  ?Tony stopped. He leaned slightly toward her, studying her profile.

  "Cristy... we didn't eat cotton candy. We were at the bar. We drank Buddy's blue punch."

  ?Cristy looked up. A flash of genuine confusion passed through her eyes, then conviction returned, solid as reinforced concrete.

  "Of course we ate it," she said, voice flat. "It stuck to my fingers, right here." She rubbed the web between her thumb and index finger hard, reddening the skin. "And then there was that kid with the red balloon. He was crying because it flew away. He had a coffee-colored birthmark on his left cheek. I felt the heat of his hand when I gave him mine."

  ?Silence at the table became icy.

  Tony felt the hair on his arms stand up. There had been no kid. No balloon. That detail—the coffee birthmark, the heat of the hand—was too precise to be a mistake. It was an implant.

  "Cri," Tony said, cautious. "There was no kid."

  ?Cristy stared at him. She wavered for a second, pupils contracting. Then she looked back at the table, rigid.

  "You're wrong. I remember the smell. Burnt sugar and salt spray. It's the only thing I really remember."

  Tony opened his mouth, but Alex kicked him sharply under the table. Shook his head. Don't.

  Whatever was happening to Cristy's mind, forcing her now risked breaking her for good.

  ?Cristy sighed, a trembling sound. She pulled out her phone with the cracked screen. The last photo in the gallery was a blurry selfie with Charlotte. Charlotte laughing, head thrown back, alive.

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  Cristy's face contracted in a grimace of pure, physical pain.

  "I have to find her, Tony," she whispered. "She's alive. I feel it in my bones. I have to go get her."

  ?Tony threw the paper ball into the trash can. Didn't even watch it go in.

  "We can't stay here," he said. His voice was low, but charged with a tension that allowed no arguments. "Time isn't passing, it's running out. Every minute we sit here is a minute we give to them."

  He stood up. The shadow of his old determination was still there, but darker. Tony knew he didn't have a perfect plan. He knew he was about to lead them into the wolf's mouth, maybe with no return. But the alternative was immobility, and immobility was death.

  "The authorities won't do anything. They're just waiting for people to forget. We have to do it. Tonight. The Void Hunters are back in business."

  ?Cristy didn't look away from the screen. Her thumb caressed her friend's digital face.

  "There are no 'old times,' Tony," she replied with a voice of ash. "I don't feel any thrill. I don't care about mysteries or frequencies. I'm doing it only for her. If it helps find her, I'm in. But don't ask me to believe in it."

  ?"I'm not asking you to," Tony said. "I'm just asking you to walk."

  He looked at Alex.

  The boy adjusted the bandage on his ear with a nervous gesture. Didn't smile.

  "I'm in. Someone has to keep you from getting killed."

  ?The Purple Shake door flew open again, slamming against the wall. Buddy Collins came out, apron stained and a funeral face.

  "Hey. You three," he barked. "Inside. Now. You need to see this bullshit."

  ?The diner was empty, save for two truckers staring at their coffee. On the old TV hanging above the counter, Susan Caldwell spoke from a podium, surrounded by police officers.

  "...citizen safety is our absolute priority," the mayor was saying. Her tone was maternal, firm, but her eyes never blinked. She read an invisible teleprompter with the precision of an automaton. "In light of recent geological analyses, we have found dangerous instability in the mining tunnel system."

  ?"Get to the point," Buddy growled.

  ?"To allow technical teams to operate," Caldwell continued, without a single hesitation, "I have signed an executive order. Starting today, a curfew is in effect over the entire Stonemouth area."

  She paused. Didn't look at the camera. Looked at a point just above the lens, as if someone were pointing something at her.

  "All citizens must be indoors by 8:00 PM. No one may leave until 6:00 AM. Anyone found on the streets will be considered an obstacle to safety operations and detained."

  ?Heavy silence filled the room.

  "Bastards," Tony hissed. "They aren't checking tunnels. They want darkness. They want to make sure no one sees what they're bringing out."

  "Or what they're bringing in," Alex added.

  ?Buddy slammed a fist on the counter. The sugar dispensers rattled.

  "Eight PM?!" he yelled at the screen. "You're telling me I have to close at eight? It's the end." He turned to the kids, eyes shiny with rage and something else. Fear. "It's not about the money. If they close the streets at eight, it means after eight this town isn't ours anymore."

  ?The kids turned toward the exit.

  "Wait," Buddy said. His voice had changed. Low. Raspy.

  He bent behind the counter, rummaging on a low shelf. When he stood up, he held a yellow envelope, thick and crumpled.

  "Here," he said, sliding it toward Tony. He cast a wary glance at the truckers. "Take it away."

  ?Tony took it. It was heavy. "What is it?"

  "The stuff you left at the cinema," Buddy muttered. "I went to get it. There was a patrol smoking in the alley. I had to wait twenty minutes between dumpsters. I smelled like rotten fish, but I couldn't leave it there. Not with those guys turning the town upside down."

  ?Tony peeked inside. The leather journal, the photos. The missing puzzle pieces. Buddy had risked arrest for some sheets of paper.

  "Thanks, Buddy," Tony said. "Really."

  "Get lost," the man grunted, without looking at them. "And if you find out who's doing this... make them pay."

  ?They stepped out into the Stonemouth afternoon. The air was still, suffocating. That orange sky looked fake, a badly painted backdrop to cover the void.

  Alex stretched his back. A bone cracked.

  "I'm starving. I hope my mom didn't make meatloaf, or I'm turning myself in to the military. At least in prison they give you bread."

  ?Tony checked his watch. His mind was already racing ahead, calculating routes, blind spots, risks he couldn't afford to get wrong.

  "It's four PM," he said. "We have little time before the cage snaps shut." He gripped the yellow envelope. "Meet at my place at 7:00 PM. Backpacks ready. Flashlights, dark clothes. And Alex, fresh batteries."

  ?"The remote ones worked," Alex mumbled.

  "For three minutes," Tony cut him short. "No cell phones. We have to be ghosts."

  ?Cristy nodded. There was no life in her eyes, only a cold, suicidal determination. "Seven."

  "And then?" Alex asked, getting serious again. "What's the plan to not get arrested before dinner? Or worse?"

  ?Tony looked toward the hill. The silhouette of the old asylum stood black against the sun, massive and silent. He felt the weight of leadership pressing on his shoulders. If he messed up this time, there wouldn't be injuries. There would be corpses.

  "We'll use the dark. If they want to play hide and seek underground, we'll play better. Back to the tower under the clinic. We start where it all began."

  ?They split up in the parking lot, three small figures under the long shadow of the imminent curfew.

  As Tony walked toward home, a dull rumble shook the asphalt beneath his feet.

  He stopped.

  Along the main road, a convoy of military trucks was heading up the hill.

  They didn't have lights on. They moved in the twilight with headlights off, guided only by night vision, patches of dark void sliding silently toward the target, carrying with them something that made the air itself vibrate.

  Night wasn't coming. Night was already here.

  Author’s Note ??