When Levi's eyes opened up, it wasn't to the sound of birds chirping, singing loudly to wake everything up. It was to the touch of the morning breeze. The cool, gentle touch and sweet whispers were all missing. Instead, it was filled with unease, and worse yet, it was sticky.
The air clung to his skin like syrup. Each breath felt too heavy, too wet, dragging the weight of the night back into his lungs. It was almost as if the whole town was making sure he wasn't rested from the previous night's endeavor.
He stayed still for a moment, eyes unfocused, watching the fog crawl over the streets below. It moved like something alive, slithering between buildings, coiling around the houses and the diner sign that still flickered weakly.
He pushed himself up, elbows scraping against the rough rooftop gravel, another irritation, body aching from last night's action. Worse yet, now with adrenaline gone, the fall from his bicycle was more noticeable. His left side hurt and ached. His legs were also hurting with every little twitch. But thankfully, nothing was broken or sprained.
With a groan, he struggled to stand up, watching the sun coming out beyond the horizon. Another thing to note was that all the smiling creatures were gone. None of them was out in the street or even in the forest.
As if they were waiting, the town was waking up as well. Not the way it should, no chatter, no clatter of life, just slow, uncertain motion. A car door creaked open. A hand, trembling and pale, pulled itself out from inside a rusted sedan, pushing the car chair back the way it was. Then another. A man crawled out, coughing quietly into his sleeve, eyes darting like a cornered animal.
Further down the street, a patch of grass shifted, and a metal hatch lifted open with a groan. A woman climbed out, hair sticking to her face, her clothes wrinkled and damp. Behind her, two children followed, blinking at the gray sky as if sunlight might burn them.
Levi blinked once. Then twice. Counting. At least twenty of them. Maybe more.
"Max!" Someone shouted, walking up to the barn that Levi had used as a trap.
Levi's attention turned back to the people. Hidden under cars, inside crawlspaces, under sheds. All coming out at once, like the town itself was exhaling after holding its breath all night.
"MAX!" The woman yelled, running inside, and then a screech came up from inside, filled with sobs and cries of denial. At first, no one moved, but the air of despair thickened.
The cry shattered the quiet like a gunshot.
For a long moment, nobody moved. Then, slowly, the survivors started drifting toward the barn, cautious, hesitant, their movements mechanical. Levi stayed where he was, crouched at the rooftop's edge, heart tightening as the woman's sobs carried through the fog.
Levi froze.
He had slammed the barn doors shut. Locked them in. But apparently, not everyone inside had been monsters. For a long second, he didn't move. His fingers trembled where they rested on the rooftop edge, and a sick heaviness spread through his chest. But he forcibly exhaled, his shaky breath leaving him weak and vulnerable. But his posture turned more solid.
Down below, more people had gathered near the barn. A priest and a well-rounded woman were the first to the barn door. The man moved inside, while the woman's figure just seemed resigned until she turned. Giving orders to the crowd. "Search around for others and bring them back next to the church. We need to bury them."
Then one of the children, maybe ten or eleven, looked up at the diner. Their small voice broke the silence. "Mom… someone's up there."
Dozens of faces turned toward the roof.
Levi didn't move. The fog finally cleared up just a little for the sun's ray to hit the streets and the buildings. For a heartbeat, it felt like he was back in the woods again, cornered, waiting for something to happen. But this time, no one screamed. They just stared. Faces pale, clothes stained, eyes sunken with exhaustion and fear and despairs and dozens more of emotions that Levi couldn't name.
At the end, Levi simply waved.
"You were on the roof all night?" the priest asked. His voice was calm, even kind, but tired, the kind that had seen too much already. Next to him was the woman, who he had learned her name was Donna something.
"Yeah…" Levi sighed, trying to wipe the exhaustion from his face, but it didn't work. His cup of coffee had turned cold as he looked outside the diner, while his bag and weapon of choice was next to him.
"How long have you guys been here?" He asked, turning back to them. He didn't see them in his nightmares but that wasn't so weird. The ones from his nightmares were people from the 1900s. Old cars, old fashions, but the very same situation. Tree on the road, a loop around the town, and then monsters in the night that would tear them apart.
The funny thing was, it was the first night that Levi slept without his nightmares. And weirder still, he couldn't remember his dream. Not even one moment. Others would simply say it was a dreamless sleep, but not Levi. Even before the nightmares, he could remember every single dream of his the morning he woke up. He had learned to lucid dream and, to some extent, control his nightmares.
A dreamless sleep, it was a toss-up whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. Especially if it started in this creepy place.
"One year, two months, 10 days …" The woman, Donna, spoke up, and then the priest, Father Khatri. "I… Maybe a year? A little less."
"How did you get up the roof? How did you survive?" Donna asked and Levi attempted to relax, leaning back into the cushion of the seat.
He started from the tree, how he crashed, how he almost got surrounded. The features and attempts of the monsters. How they always walked and smiled. They didn't hurry, they didn't run, or even fast walk. They simply walked
Levi also told them of how they probably had no blood inside them, how they couldn't feel pain due to how he attacked them. How they still took a mace to their face and didn't even groan. He shared that they might be communicating with their calls, like wolves.
"…They might be communicating with their calls, like wolves," Levi finished, rubbing his temples. His voice had gone hoarse halfway through the explanation, but he forced it steady.
Donna leaned forward in her seat, her hands clasped loosely together. "They hunt in patterns. When they've marked their prey, they don't rush it. They circle. They exhaust it. They let it run and run and run, until the prey is too exhausted to run anymore."
Her eyes flicked toward the window, where the sunlight still refused to break through the clouds now. "That's what they do to us, too. Every night, same thing. They tire us out. Mentally. And then one night, you slip up, and then you're… well, you know."
The priest turned back to Levi. "And yet you adapted faster than anyone I've met here. Most people don't make it through their first night, not without screaming their lungs out or running straight into the woods." He paused, watching Levi carefully. "How did you know what to do?"
Levi hesitated, his fingers drumming once against his mug. The sound was hollow in the silence. "I didn't," he said after a moment. "Not really."
Khatri tilted his head, unconvinced but patient.
"I've… seen this place," Levi added, his voice dropping. "In my sleep. For years. Always the same roads. The same houses. But different faces." His hand flexed slightly around the mug, a humorless chuckle left him as unknown faces passed through his mind, knuckles pale. "Every night, I'd wake up sweating. Then I'd fall back asleep and be right back here. Running. Hiding. Dying. Waking up. It's a loop…"
Donna's expression softened, but she didn't interrupt.
"And last night," Levi continued, forcing a small breath through his nose, "was the first time I didn't dream at all. It's like I finally caught up to the nightmare."
For a moment, nobody spoke. The hum of the diner was the only sound, "I-" Levi tried to say something.
A crackle.
A click.
Then—
🎵 "Morning's here! The morning's here!" 🎵
The jukebox by the counter lit up in a whirl of neon blue, spinning to life all on its own. The cheerful tune burst through the silence, loud and out of place, so bright it almost hurt. Levi flinched, instinctively reaching for the mace, his breath catching halfway in his throat.
He stared at the machine like it had personally threatened him.
"...Does that happen often?" he muttered, voice low, still half-ready to dive for cover.
Donna didn't even look up from the coffee pot. "Yeah."
Father Khatri, seated beside her, gave a faint nod. "That's normal."
The jukebox sang louder, the static crackling between notes like laughter. Levi didn't like the way it seemed to echo his heartbeat.
Finally, Khatri leaned back in his chair. "If that's true," he said slowly, turning the topic back at hand, "then maybe you didn't just find this town." His gaze lifted to the fog beyond the window. "Maybe you were always meant to come here."
The words hung there, heavy and wrong, until Donna exhaled sharply. "Let's not start talking destiny before breakfast, Father." She turned to Levi. "Drink your coffee. We've got work to do.
Levi nodded as both the man and woman left him in the diner. They had graves to dig and funerals to attend. He didn't know what was worse, the horrors of the night, or the sound of the dead pretending to go on.