"Police! Open up or we'll break the door down!"
The wooden frame creaks under the blows. Dust falls from the ceiling.
My heart doesn't beat; it hammers against my ribs like a trapped animal. I look at the lump under the mattress. It's ridiculous. A little kid's hiding spot. If they come in, they'll lift the mattress and find the blood-stained sword and the illegal pistol.
"One moment!" I shout, my voice cracking into a pathetic squeak. "I'm coming, I'm getting dressed!"
"I'm giving you three seconds, Vance!" the voice on the other side roars.
I throw myself onto the bed. I lift the mattress in desperation.
There they are. The curved black sword and the pistol. They glint with obscene reality in the sunlight.
There's no time to hide them anywhere else. No time to clean.
Panic clouds my vision, but amid the terror my analytical mind scrabbles for a way out. If they came from the dream… they must be able to go back.
I grab the sword by the cloth-wrapped blade and the pistol in my other hand. I squeeze my eyes shut.
"Get out!" I scream in my mind, projecting my rejection, my fear, my wish that they had never existed. "Go back to the damn door!"
A sudden nausea hits me, a yank in my stomach like a roller coaster plunging downward.
My hands heat up.
I open my eyes.
The sword and the pistol are gone.
In their place, thick black curls of smoke dissolve into the air, smelling of ozone and nightmares. They are gone.
"One!" the officer shouts.
I collapse onto the bed, breathing as if I'd just run a kilometer. My hands are empty. Trembling, but empty.
"I'm opening!"
I run to the door, move the chair, fumble with the locks, and open it.
---
Two uniformed officers shove their way in. The first is young, nervous, his hand on his holster. The second is older, bald, with eyes like X-ray scanners. His badge reads: Lieutenant Vargas.
"Can you tell me why you took so long, Vance?" Vargas asks, invading my personal space. He smells of stale tobacco and cheap coffee.
"I was… I was asleep, officer. You scared me."
Vargas doesn't answer. He scans the room. He sees the unmade bed, the clothes tossed about (the clean ones I put on, not the dirty ones in the trash), the notebook open on the nightstand.
"We received a report of a disturbance near the industrial forest," Vargas says, walking slowly through my apartment. "And a witness saw someone of your build come out of the storm drain a few hours ago."
I swallow. My throat is dry as sandpaper.
"I didn't go out, officer. I've been studying all night. Psychology finals."
"Oh, really?" Vargas crouches and picks up my boots by the door.
Shit. I washed them in the river, but not well enough.
The lieutenant runs a finger along the sole.
"Fresh mud. And red clay. Specific to the forest area."
Silence stretches, tense as a steel cable. My mind hunts for a believable lie, something a cowardly student would say.
"I went for a run…" I stammer, lowering my gaze. "I'm under a lot of stress. I ran at 4 a.m. in the industrial zone. I fell into a ditch. I was embarrassed, so I came back."
Vargas stares into my eyes. I know he's searching for guilt. And I have it. It's written in my DNA right now.
"Search everything," he orders his partner.
The young officer starts opening drawers. He goes into the bathroom. I hear the shower curtain move.
The blood… did I clean the blood well enough?
"Lieutenant," the young one calls from the bathroom.
I feel faint. My knees buckle. It's over. They found a drop. A stain.
Vargas walks toward the bathroom. I stay frozen in the living room.
"It smells strongly of bleach," the young officer says. "Like it was cleaned recently."
"It's because… I'm very hygienic," I say from the living room, sounding ridiculous.
Vargas comes out of the bathroom, looking at me with renewed suspicion. He approaches my bed.
My heart stops.
He sits on the edge. Right where the weapons were two minutes ago.
The mattress sinks.
If I hadn't managed to send them back to the dream… right now he'd be feeling the barrel of the pistol under his ass.
"Look, son," Vargas says, switching to a falsely paternal tone. "We found four bodies this morning. Poachers. Low-lifes, sure, but someone tore them apart. One was beheaded. That isn't the work of an animal. That's the work of a psychopath."
I shudder. A psychopath living in my head.
"I don't know anything about that, sir. I'm a student. I want to help people, not kill them."
Vargas stands. He comes close, so close his nose nearly touches mine.
"We don't have the murder weapon. And your boots are circumstantial. But I'll tell you something, Vance. You've got that look. The look of someone who's seen things they shouldn't have. If I find a single piece of evidence, a single one of your prints at that scene… I'll come for you."
He signals to the other officer.
"Let's go."
They leave the apartment, leaving the door open. The hallway air drifts in but can't clear the atmosphere of fear they left behind.
I close the door and slide the deadbolt. I sink to the floor and burst into tears. Not from sadness, but from the raw release of tension.
---
Hours pass. I don't move from the floor until the sun starts to descend.
I'm hungry, but my stomach is closed. I'm sleepy, but terrified to sleep.
I stand and look at the bed.
I need to know if I can bring them back. If I have any control over this.
I reach out toward the empty mattress. I concentrate. I remember the weight of the pistol, the cold of the sword.
"Appear," I order, mimicking the tone I use in lucid dreams.
Nothing.
"Come to me!" I shout, forcing my mind.
I feel a sharp prick in my brain, but the air doesn't distort. There's no black smoke. No weapons.
I sink into the desk chair.
"I understand…" I murmur, analyzing the situation like a clinical case. "I'm the trashman. I can send things to the subconscious because it's my mind, my 'house.' But I can't pull them out. Only Anima, the guardian, has the key to open the door from the inside."
I'm a glorified courier. A reverse smuggler.
If Anima pulls out a weapon and I return it to hide, I remain disarmed until he takes control again. I'm defenseless.
I look at my hands. I want to heal children. I want to protect the innocent. But right now, I'm an accessory to murder and at the mercy of an internal demon and the police.
I need a victory. A moral win to prove I'm not a monster.
---
I turn on my laptop. It's old and the fan sounds like a turbine, but it works.
I browse local forums, the city's sensationalist news pages. I search "poachers dead."
The story is already up.
"Massacre in the North Forest. Four suspected poachers found dead. Extreme violence."
I read the comments. People either celebrate or recoil in horror.
But something catches my eye. A leaked photo from the crime scene, maybe taken by a curious onlooker before the police arrived. One of the dead men's tents is open in the picture.
I zoom in. The quality is poor, pixelated.
Inside the tent, among rifles and bear traps, there's something colorful.
It looks like… a backpack.
A small pink backpack with a unicorn drawing.
My breath catches.
I open another browser tab. I search the "Missing Persons" database for the last week.
There she is.
Sofía M., 7 years old. Missing since Tuesday after leaving school. She was wearing a uniform and a pink backpack.
I look at the tent photo. I look at the girl's photo.
It's the same backpack.
The tears dry instantly on my face. The guilt that crushed my chest hardens into something colder, harder.
Anima said: "There are no innocents, only prey and predators. My nose detected the evil."
They weren't just animal hunters.
Those men had the girl. Or they knew where she was.
And now they're dead. Anima killed them without interrogating them. If they knew where Sofía was… the secret died with them.
I stand from the chair. Vulnerability vanishes for a second, replaced by an icy fury.
Anima was right about the evil, but his brutal method cost us the information.
I have to find that girl.
If those men were part of a network, there must be more. And if the police think they were only poachers, they won't look for a link to a kidnapping.
I have to do it.
But I have no weapons. No superhuman strength. I only have my mind… and the beast.
I take the journal.
My hands no longer tremble.
I write beneath Anima's last bloody note:
"You were right. They were monsters. But you're an impulsive idiot. There was a clue about a missing girl and you erased it by killing them. Now you're going to fix it."
"Tonight we hunt. But we'll do it my way."
I slam the notebook shut.
I look out the window. The city begins to light up. Lights that hide predators.
If I want to save that girl, I have to summon him again. I have to let the monster out once more.
But this time, the plan is mine.