The world had long learned to measure horror.
There were scales for everything now. Radiation, infection, spirit corruption. Even terror had its tiers.
Level One: minor possession. A whisper in the ear, a flicker in the mirror. Most of these could be purged by trained patrols or by a Slayer with a steady hand and a charm or two.
Level Two: something far worse. The kind of entity that could gut a marketplace, level a street, or turn a hundred people into meat in an hour.
And then there was Level Three.
Those were the ones that didn't simply kill—they erased. A single host capable of destroying an entire building. A single roar that could shake the walls.
That was what the warning siren had meant. The voice over the speaker had called it a Level Three possession.
The entity known as The Clown.
No one knew its original name. The host had once been a traveling street performer—a man in greasepaint who juggled fire and made children laugh. Then something from the void had seen fit to climb inside his chest and fill the hollows where humanity used to live.
The result was not possession. It was mutation.
Where ordinary spirits wormed through nerves and hijacked the mind, this one fused. Flesh tore, bones cracked and reknit in new, unstable forms. The host's body warped under the pressure of its guest's power. The laughter—people said it was the sound of his lungs tearing open every time he breathed.
That was why it was a Level Three. Because it laughed while it died, and didn't stop killing even after its body began to rot.
Now, the city was silent again.
Lucien's apartment had become a pocket of stillness amid chaos. The siren had gone quiet minutes ago, replaced only by the rhythmic hum of his ceiling fan and the faint metallic scrape of his spoon against the plate.
Then came another sound.
Footsteps.
Faint at first, barely audible above the hum of the refrigerator. But they grew louder, deliberate. Each one landed with the heavy, uneven weight of something dragging flesh that didn't quite belong to it.
Creak.
Pause.
Creak.
Pause.
Between the steps came a different sound—a soft jingle, high-pitched and irregular, like a tiny bell swinging on a trembling hand. The remnants of the clown's costume, maybe.
Then, a wet, rasping giggle.
The sound climbed the stairwell and seeped through the walls. It lingered, sticky and slow, before dying into silence again.
Lucien didn't move.
He sat at the edge of his bed, spoon balanced in his hand. His eyes, pale and blank as glass, stared at the half-eaten food in front of him. The sound of his spoon brushing the plate became a metronome, steady and indifferent.
Creak.
"Geehehe…" a horrible giggle followed.
Creak.
It was getting closer.
The footsteps reached his floor. He could hear them now, echoing down the narrow corridor outside his door.
Another pause.
Then silence.
The air pressed tight in his apartment, thick with the waiting kind of quiet that lives before disaster. Lucien's spoon hung motionless.
The thing was standing right outside. He could feel it through the floorboards, the faint vibration of its shifting weight.
A moment stretched.
Then, something else.
A sound not made by the clown.
A whimper.
A man's voice, thin and trembling, leaking through the silence like water through cracked glass.
"Please… no…"
The clown's head, Lucien could picture it perfectly, tilted. A slow, jerky movement, curious rather than hungry. Then the footsteps began again, turning away from his door.
The sound of them receded, followed by the low groan of hinges and…
CRASH!
Wood splintered. The floor shook.
Lucien closed his eyes for a moment, exhaling through his nose.
Somewhere down the hall, the newlyweds in Apartment 706 began to scream.
Apartment 706.
The room was filled with the scent of candle wax and perfume—remnants of a celebration that was supposed to stretch into morning. The newlyweds hadn't even unpacked their gifts yet. A single ribboned box still sat on the dresser, unopened.
Now the only thing they held was each other.
The husband pressed himself against the wall, arm outstretched to shield his trembling wife. Both were bare, caught between love and terror. The woman's eyes were swollen from crying; the man's lips quivered as he muttered every prayer he could remember.
The doorframe shuddered once.
Then, with a long, groaning splinter, it caved in.
The clown stood framed in the doorway—too tall for the room, shoulders hunched and neck twisted at a strange angle. Its costume hung in rags, colors smeared into bruised purples and reds. One of its eyes bulged too far from the socket, the other sunk deep into a pit of darkness. The makeup on its face stretched with the skin, creating a grotesque parody of a grin that never ended.
It tilted its head at them, blinking too slowly once, twice, like a puppet trying to remember how to mimic curiosity.
For a moment, it seemed confused.
Then the grin widened, jaw clicking out of joint as a high-pitched giggle escaped its throat.
"Don't—please, don't—" the husband stammered, hands trembling.
"Please, we'll give you anything—" the wife sobbed, clinging to him.
The clown swayed gently, as if listening to a melody only it could hear. When it spoke, its voice came in two layers: the deep rasp of its ruined human throat, and the faint echo of something else speaking through it like a child imitating pity.
"Pweeease…" it crooned back, mocking their tone.
The grin twitched wider.
Then it moved.
The impact was sickening.
The bedframe cracked. The husband's shout cut short in a choking gurgle. Sheets tore like paper. Blood splashed the far wall in a single broad stroke, painting the floral wallpaper crimson. The woman's scream was higher, jagged until it, too, broke into silence.
When the sound stopped, the only noise left was the wet drag of the clown's breath.
It straightened slowly, standing amidst the ruin. Its arms dripped dark red from fingertips to elbows. A piece of flesh, probably a rib or spine, hung from one hand like a toy.
Its grin didn't fade. If anything, it seemed satisfied.
Then another sound.
Scrape.
A faint, metallic sound from somewhere outside.
Scrape.
Scrape.
The clown froze mid-breath, head jerking slightly as it turned toward the hallway.
That sound. The steady, deliberate ssk-ssk-ssk of a spoon against a plate.
Someone was still alive.
The head twitched once to the left, once to the right. Its grin stretched until the corners of its mouth split the skin.
And then it began to walk again.
In Apartment 709, Lucien placed the empty plate aside. The spoon rested quietly on the porcelain, glinting in the dim ceiling light.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His reflection in the darkened window looked almost spectral. He had white hair disheveled and pale eyes faintly glowing from within.
Beyond the door, something scraped the floor with bare feet dragging through dust and blood.
The shadow beneath the threshold shifted, large and unsteady.
Lucien's expression didn't change.
He exhaled softly and muttered, "Although she's late… here she comes."
The words made no sense—until the air in the hallway began to hum.
A low, building vibration, like static gathering in invisible threads.
Boom.
A sudden flash. A muffled thump that shook the floor.
The blast tore through the corridor, sending the clown hurtling backward. Smoke and dust filled the air; shards of wood and glass scattered like shrapnel. The creature's laughter turned into a shriek that split halfway between rage and agony as it slammed into the far wall, leaving a long smear of blood and plaster cracks radiating out from its impact.
For a few seconds, nothing else moved.
Smoke curled under Lucien's door, faint and gray.
The refrigerator buzzed back to life.
Lucien looked at the cracked ceiling, then back to his meal.
The plate had rattled slightly but hadn't spilled.
He picked up his fork again.
And ate.