The car raced down the road under a gray, flickering sky. The trees on either side blurred into shadows, their branches twitching like they wanted to reach into the vehicle. Sasha sat in the passenger seat, her hands buried in her lap, clenching a stuffed toy of Mila's she found beneath the front seat before leaving the house.
Lila drove. Her face was stiff, eyes forward, knuckles white on the wheel.
"We're almost there," she muttered. "Hold on."
Then—static. Crackling.
Sasha's phone, turned off, vibrated. She froze.
The screen blinked once. Then again.
And then, from the speakers of the car's radio—even though it was off—
A tiny voice crackled through:"...m-mom..."
Sasha's breath hitched.
Lila looked at her. "What?"
"Stop the car," Sasha whispered.
"What—why?"
"Stop the car!" she screamed.
Lila pulled over hard. Gravel crunched beneath the tires. Dust lifted into the cold air.
Sasha opened the door and stumbled out onto the road, staring down at the dead phone in her hand. The voice had stopped.
But from the trees…A whisper.
"Mama…"
Sasha spun around.
Nothing.
She stumbled back into the car. Lila shut the doors and locked them. Neither of them spoke for the rest of the ride to the police station.
The city was changing.
Cracks ran like black veins through the pavement. Streetlights flickered. Somewhere far away, a dog barked, then screamed.
Inside the station, the air was thick with tension. Survivors and officers crowded a single conference room. The room was filled with familiar faces, though time had twisted them, made them harder, more frightened.
Sison, worn from months of horror but still in command.
Kael, eyes sharp, arms crossed, always ready to pull a trigger.
Sam, standing near the door, face half-lit by the monitors around him. She looked at Sasha like he'd already heard Mila's voice too.
Nina, bruised, her voice whisper-soft but head held high.
And Toff Ballesteros, the shooter who had just returned—bloodied, limping, one eye half-shut with swelling. He looked like he'd been dragged through glass and fire.
He sat in the corner, clutching his arm. "I couldn't stop it." Everyone turned.
Toff's voice was low. Hollow. "I went in with Bruce. We thought we had a chance. But it—" he swallowed, staring into nothing. "There was something in the ceiling. It slid down like oil… with eyes. Too many eyes. It strangled him with nothing but itself."
Sam asked softly, "Did you see its name?"
Toff nodded, eyes trembling. "It was written in the storage room. Painted in something red. Almost… moving." He looked up at them all.
"Faru. That's its name. I don't know what it means. But it knew me."
Sasha and Lila sat down. Sison stood, drawing on the whiteboard. Sketches of the shop. Diagrams. Timelines.
"We can't just rush in again," Sison said. "We need a perfect plan."
"We go in with flares," Kael said. "Nothing tech. No batteries. That shop eats electricity."
"What about the basement?" Nina asked. "There's always something below."
Sam added, "There's more than one entity in there now. Shah Dalamadur is hunting. But if Faru escaped too, then this isn't just about killing. It's about collecting."
Sasha stared at the floor. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking. She could still hear Mila's voice—behind her ear now, like a whisper pressed against the nape of her neck.
Then— BOOM.
The ground shook violently beneath them. Everyone ducked. A scream broke out from the main hall. Sasha hit the floor, covering her head. Dust rained down. The lights shattered above. A computer monitor exploded in sparks.
"What the hell!?" McLaurel yelled from the hall.
The building groaned. Something deep in the foundation cracked with a sound like ribs snapping.
"GET AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS!" Sison barked.
Everyone scrambled. The windows lit up in a sudden flash—no lightning, but a glow. The room pulsed red. Then another quake.
One of the support pillars cracked. Concrete fell. Another quake. The floor shifted two inches to the left like the ground was slipping.
Through the shuddering windows, they saw the shop. "Dead Shop"
It was… cracking. Its walls were splitting open like something was growing inside. Black veins crawled through its wood. The second floor pulsed as if it had a heartbeat. And from somewhere… beneath everything… A scream.
Not human. Not an animal. But something caught in both.
The sound stopped.
Not because it had faded, but because something had cut it off—like someone slammed a door on a scream.Everyone held still. Even the building.
Sasha slowly stood up. Her ears rang. Her nose bled faintly, a thread of red dripping onto her shirt. Lila helped her up, her own eyes wide with horror.
Sison was on the radio already. "Evacuate the perimeter. Gallagher Street is about to collapse—pull back, I repeat, pull—"The radio squealed. Then died.
The lights blinked one more time… then went black.
"No," whispered Toff. "It's starting again."
A sudden thump hit the far wall. Not from outside. From inside. Inside the police station.
Everyone turned.
A second thump. Louder. Then another, like someone—no, something—was dragging its weight along the concrete corridors.
Kael pulled his gun.
"Flashlights," Sison whispered.
They turned them on—small yellow circles of light floating in the darkness. The hall outside the room was empty. Dust drifted like snow.
Another thump. Closer. Then something skittered fast across the ceiling.
Sasha screamed. They pointed their lights up— Nothing.
Until they saw it—only for a second. In the corner. Half-shape, half-shadow. Stretched along the ceiling like a scab ripped open, bones inside, and hundreds of little fingers poking through its sides. It dropped something. A mouth. A human mouth, still moving. The lights flickered, even the flashlights.
"RUN!" Kael barked.
They sprinted through the corridors. Behind them, something dropped to the floor with a wet slap and began crawling, the sound of its limbs like knives over tile. They heard it breathing—not air, but memory. Like every breath it took was stealing a thought from the person closest to it.
Lila turned back once and screamed. The creature was wearing Bruce's skin like a cape. His head was on backwards. His eyes were upside down.
"It's Faru!" Toff yelled. "It knows us!"
Doors slammed. Hallways twisted. Some of the group split off—Nina vanished down the west stairwell, and Sam was pulled aside by a wall that seemed to melt open just for him.
Sasha and Lila kept running, Sison just behind them. They kicked open a door and found the evidence room. Steel. Heavy.
They locked it. Barricaded it. Breathed. The creature didn't follow. But they could hear it… laughing. It wasn't Bruce's voice anymore. It was Mila's.
"…mama…"
Sasha backed away from the door, her legs giving out. She slumped to the floor, arms over her ears, her mouth open in a silent sob. The stuffed toy in her coat dropped and landed on the cold tiles.
Lila picked it up. Then she noticed blood on its face.
Not from Sasha.
From the inside.
"…It's in here," she whispered.
From the corner of the evidence room, the lights began to glow. But they weren't plugged in. They pulsed in time with the cracking heartbeat coming from under the city.
"Gallagher Street is alive," Sison said grimly. "And it's ready to give birth."
Lila turned to Sasha. "We can't stay here. We have to end this. You saw the shop. It's not waiting for us anymore. It's coming."
Sasha's lips trembled. She looked up. "Then let it come."
Outside the station, the Dead Shop was now fully alive. Its walls convulsed. Its windows blinked like eyes. And above it all, hanging like a moon in the sky, was a twisting, wet shape with hundreds of limbs. Shah Dalamadur had returned. Watching. Waiting.
And beneath it all…
The whisper again.
"…mama…"