My legs trembled as I took cautious steps, ensuring I stayed within the light. As those red eyes drew nearer, I increasingly noticed how unnatural they were—enormous, towering twice the height of a tall man, with a vast distance between them. The creature’s breath rasped heavily in my ears, impatient like a predator ready to pounce on its prey. Its nails scraped like blades, though my inability to see through the forest’s darkness heightened my anxiety and fueled my imagination. The light offered a sense of safety, yet my heart pounded as if it were preparing to give out.

  “Why do you call me a shadow?” I asked hesitantly. “What’s happening to my body?”

  It took two deep breaths before responding in its eerie voice: “Look at the shadows around you and wonder how much time you have left before you end up like them. Most of you never manage to escape the hotel before it has completely drained you of your very existence.”

  I glanced toward the town, where black figures wandered like mournful spirits—weak, seemingly unable to lift their fleshless bodies. They neither communicated nor interacted with one another, passing through each other as if they didn’t exist. Outside the hotel’s door, they had gathered, forming an amorphous black mass that appeared to try to absorb even the slightest filth or unbearable stench. But at that moment, I realized my own desire was pulling me back. My mind began to spin and blur, sweat drenched my forehead, and my shirt clung to my back as if I had just finished a midday summer track workout. I collapsed, merely gazing in the hotel’s direction, and instinctively started crawling on all fours toward its door.

  The creature with the red eyes let out a cry that startled me, freezing me in fear and momentarily restoring my senses. It then spoke sternly: “Little human, look at your body again. You have no more than two or three sleeps left. You must have been here for at least four months, and all this time, it has been sapping your essence until nothing remains. The fate awaiting you is worse than death. If you’re so eager to end your life, come to me, and I will kill you quickly.”

  It struck the trees around it, shaking them like a fierce storm, so forcefully that I thought they might break. I felt as though chains were holding it locked in place, though I couldn’t determine their strength. What unsettled me most, however, was its revelation—four months? Could that be possible? I couldn’t recall a single night passing, nor how I had arrived or what I was doing. Then I remembered its initial words and asked: “How can I still be saved? Please tell me—I don’t want to be lost.”

  “This town stands on forest land, and the forest is not for the King. What devours you, made a pact with him, breaking our oath, betraying us. I want the town to disappear. I cannot step into the light, but if you place me in one of the rooms, I will kill the entity that consumes you, and you will be saved from it.”

  “But who will save me from you?” I asked, panic rising within me. The light was my only means of survival, and the terror it inspired left me uneasy about my future if nothing prevented it from harming me.

  “Ha ha ha, a frightened yet clever little human. If you manage to get me into a room, I will let you escape. If you succeed in delivering the hotel to me, I will let you leave, trading the lives of all those reveling inside.”

  “Agreed,” I replied without hesitation, “but I want something more. There are about fifty people in the hotel and many more throughout the town. I want something additional.”

  I swallowed hard, still trembling, but now with a somewhat clearer mind. The creature in the forest laughed again, this time with an ironic tone: “Indeed, you’re right—such sacrifices deserve a reward. I will grant you one safe entry into the forest. Once, you can enter, and no one or nothing will harm you. Don’t tempt your luck further, however.”

  I rose from the ground, brushing my hands on my pants, and asked again: “Can you give me more information about what I’m facing?”

  “No. Though I despise the creature that devours you, I loathe the King’s descendants even more—both outcomes please me. Let’s see if you can achieve something the others couldn’t.”

  The red eyes vanished, and footsteps faded into the forest. I wasn’t the first to escape, so I needed to devise a plan no one else had tried. My mind began to cloud again; the hotel was calling me back. Then…

  “Leo, wake up already—you’re late again! We’re all ready, and you’re still in bed.” My little sister’s voice jolted me awake and startled me. We were set to leave for a family vacation, but I had stayed up late the previous night playing games on the computer with my friends again. I hadn’t even packed my suitcase. I couldn’t understand my father’s insistence on departing before sunrise—he claimed that when he arrives somewhere, he wants to spend his time away from bed since he has one at home. He wants to immerse himself in the place he visits. I got up, flustered, threw clothes from the wardrobes and drawers haphazardly into my suitcase, and rushed to the car. I was certain I had forgotten many things, as I always do, and I regretted not packing earlier when I’d need them. We left the house, and I began to play and tease my younger siblings. My mother yawned while my father, with a smile, told her about the place he had arranged for us to stay. At that moment, the sun began to rise over the mountain. At first, it blinded me, but then it started to tear apart slowly. The rift continued to spread across the sky. I turned, slightly alarmed, to look at my family’s faces, but I no longer recognized anything about them. Their bodies and features distorted like plasticine, dissolving just as the sky was. Suddenly, I stopped panicking, even minimally. In fact, I couldn’t remember why I had panicked in the first place. Where am I? What am I doing? Who am I? What am I?

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  A metallic tray clanged beside me, violently anouncing that someone had entered the room. A pain on my left arm had already waken me up some minutes before.. I sat up almost immediately and saw a woman in front of me who smiled and said:

  “Get up and eat. Once you regain your strength, the others downstairs are waiting to continue what you did yesterday.”

  Her chest was full, and her dress was enticing. Her voice was enchanting, clouding my mind. Every word she spoke resonated like a spring song, like a bird’s chirping. I rose from the bed and quickly scanned the room. It was a small wooden space with a bed, a tiny wardrobe, a wooden chair, a wooden table, and a lamp that burned, illuminating the room. At the room’s edge, there was a window without a handle to open it. From it, I could see the forest, a portion of the town, and shadows wandering within it, but something else caught my attention. On one of the building walls, something was carved, though I couldn’t make it out clearly. I approached the window and pressed my face against the glass. The woman watched me, puzzled, and asked:

  “What’s happening?” I turned, frightened, and replied:

  “The wall—something is written on the wall.”

  She smiled and said:

  “Step aside so I can see too.”

  She approached the window, but nothing was written on the house wall.

  “I don’t see anything…” her words trailed off.

  The woman turned toward me, but she couldn’t stop me in time. My fingers extinguished the room’s lamp, and my body was already heading for the door. As soon as I opened it, I heard the glass shatter. A large black hand with four fingers and enormous curved claws trapped the woman, who desperately tried to stop them from crushing her. Her face still smiled. However, but her voice ceased to come from her mouth.

  “I will kill you, I will take my revenge,” she shouted again and again.

  Her body began to crack like a clay shell, and her voice distorted as time passed. I stood in the hallway, my hand on the open door’s knob, struggling to fully comprehend what was happening. Then, another voice, deep as if the darkness itself were speaking, sounded outside the window, saying:

  “You betrayed us, you imprisoned us, you hunted us, and now you will pay.”

  I looked at my hand again and rolled up my sleeve. Carved into my skin were the words: EXTINGUISH THE LIGHT WITH THE GIRL IN THE ROOM, OTHERWISE, SHE WILL KILL YOU.

  As I awoke, the pain in my hand, the uncertainty of my situation, and even my survival instinct all rang alarm bells of danger. Her smile, the sensual effect her voice had on me, and above all, the blood still trickling slightly on my hand, left me no room to think beyond: “If it’s a lie, I’ll have extinguished a light; if it’s true, I’ll learn what happens next.”

  The shell grew increasingly fragile until it finally shattered, and the creature within was crushed in the massive palm, its cry cut off abruptly. I exited immediately and closed the door.

  Downstairs, everyone was still reveling. However, memories began to return slowly, and my body started to regain its form. I recalled the promise I had made to the forest creature. I remembered Eftis. I remembered my murdered family. Taking advantage of the others’ daze, I began opening the rooms one by one and extinguishing the lamps. Then I headed to the chalet. I doused the wall lamps with beer taken from the hands of dazed and confused victims, extinguishing them all. At that point, the windows began to shatter one by one, walls dissolved, and the roars of unknown creatures, shrieks, and the scraping of nails on the walls echoed. I ran immediately toward the exit, and before I even reached it, the screams of a girl were cut off along with her head from her body.

  A massive wolf-like mouth descended from the ceiling and began devouring her, starting from the head down the rest of her body. Chills and terror paralyzed me. Then, in the absolute silence, the head, having finished with the girl, turned toward me, and I recognized its red eyes—eyes like pins embedded in its head, without eyelids, pupils, or anything else, just gleaming red pins like rubies.

  “As agreed, you don’t need to run. All these in exchange for you.”

  The shadows outside, which had been trying to enter the hotel, now with their bodies restored, held the door open. The lights in the town went out one by one, and all the people’s gazes fixed on me with bewilderment and terror. I didn’t know what to say to them. I only hoped that everything would end soon.

  “I will do anything for my family,” I thought, but I didn’t consider whether my family would want me to do everything.

  Everything grew quiet. The girl’s order still held sway. I had to continue what I had done the previous night. I walked through the crowd and sat at the bar. One last beer remained. I picked it up and took a sip. Until the final light went out. The next thing I remember is finding myself back on the road, bathed in moonlight, though the screams of the other people and their eyes from their final moments still echoed in my ears. I didn’t hesitate to kill them all to ensure my own safety, to gain from it. I thought I was a good person, but now I understand that I never had the opportunity to do evil. Because now that I had it, I did it…