It didn't need to move far. It couldn't move far. On the same street as Bráulio, the monster found another house. It slipped in through the window without a sound.
It was late, and everyone inside was asleep. The creature had no way to study the people who lived there—its hunger was already tearing it apart from within, though it had recovered a little.
Room by room, the creature found only two people: a couple, no children.
At the edge of their bed, the monster swelled and split apart, rows of teeth sprouting from inside out, spinning wildly. It lunged at a foot dangling off the bed and bit down.
The man screamed, waking his wife. Still disoriented, she reached for the switch beside the bed.
"What's happening?" she asked.
"My foot, my foot—it hurts," the husband cried.
In that instant, the man was dragged down, pulled from the bed. The woman let out a short scream, and as she heard her husband's cries of pain, she leaned over her side of the bed to look beneath.
The sight was horrifying. Something dark clung to his leg up to the knee, thrashing violently, spraying blood across the floor and mattress.
The woman screamed in panic. The creature released the leg, and for a fraction of a second—before her face was consumed by a chaos of teeth of every shape and size—she saw that her husband's right leg ended only at the knee.
She was yanked from the bed, dragged by her face. As her cheeks were torn apart, she tried to push the monster off, but it was useless. The creature knew she would soon stop moving, lose the last of her breath, and collapse unconscious. When that happened, it would finish what it had started with her husband.
And already, it no longer felt so hungry.
When the woman fell limp to the floor, the monster had devoured her entire neck. Now, it couldn't let its other meal escape.
The man crawled just a few feet from the bedroom door, sobbing and moaning.
"Please, please, don't…" he begged.
But for the creature, it made no difference. It was driven by something more primitive than pity—something at the core of every animal instinct: survival. If it didn't eat, it would wither and die.
With the man still before it, pleading for his life, the monster rose as tall as it could, reanimated by flesh and blood. Its shapeless mass churned and bubbled, dark matter and fresh remains exposed across its carcass. Bones and fingers jutted from its slimy, stinking skin. The creature took shape until it resembled a child patched together with rotting flesh. Two eyes spun into place on its face. The husband recognized them—Jessica's eyes. The creature tilted its head and smiled at its victim, who begged once more for his life.
The monster leapt upon him, claws sprouting from its decayed fingers—layer upon layer of nails from countless dead—sinking into the man's chest and splitting him open. Once there was enough space, the creature shoved its head inside and consumed him from within.
When it returned to the bedroom, leaving only a pool of blood in the hallway, the creature was much larger. It finished what it had begun with the woman.
Now, sated, the monster would rest until hunger struck again.