Chapter 1 - Episode 3 - The Silence of the Void

Jeremi suddenly appeared behind Nuelle.
“Darling! What's happening?”

Then he saw.
Rosemary's body.
The monster that was still tearing her apart.

He ran to his wife and grabbed her by the arm.
Nuelle was petrified.
Her eyes were glazed over.

“What are they doing here…?” she whispered.
“What are they doing here, Jeremi?”
she repeated, shaking her husband by his shirt.

“Now's not the time.”
He pulled her toward the house.
“The children might come back.”

Those words were enough.
Nuelle regained her senses.
They crossed the garden.
But two monsters followed them, passing through the gate behind them.

They had the eyes of predators.
And those eyes were fixed on them.

“Barricade yourself inside!”
Jeremi shouted.
“I'll lead them away!”

He didn't have time to say anything else.
A cry came from the distance.
A familiar voice.

“Mom! Dad!”

“We made it!!”
Miky shouted.
“Finally!”

The three siblings entered the garden of their home and froze, petrified.
Two monsters stood before their parents.
Jeremi turned toward his children.

“Kids! Inside the house! Now!”
He grabbed a fireplace poker.
He lunged at the monsters.
He moved with precision.
With cold composure.

He separated them.
He drove them away from the porch.

Finde had never seen him move like that before.

The children ran into their mother's arms.

Then…
A scream.

Jeremi was staggering.
He had a deep wound in his thigh.

“Dad!!”
Finde shouted, taking a step toward him.

Jeremi raised a hand.
“No!!”
He looked his eldest son in the eyes.
“Protect your mother.
Protect your brother and sister.”

Nuelle pulled Finde away with her.
The world was moving in slow motion.
Finde reached out toward his father, but the front door slammed shut,
separating them for the last time.

From outside came the sounds of fighting.
Groans.
Growls.
Then a terrible scream.

And silence.

“Dad...”
Finde whispered, approaching the door.

BOOM!

The door shook.

BOOM!

“Come here! Help me!”
Nuelle shouted.

They tried to push the dining table, but it was too heavy.
It scraped across the floor far too slowly.

BOOM!

The hinges gave way.
The door burst inward, and the monsters entered their lives.
Finde placed himself in front of his family.
A tremendous blow struck him in the face and sent him flying into the cupboard.

His vision blurred for an instant.
When he opened his eyes again, something inside him died forever.

Miky being impaled as he tried to shield their mother.
Lisey lying motionless, her eyes lifeless.

Nuelle screaming as she was thrown onto the table.
A knife pinned her shoulder to the wood beneath her.

Finde tried to move.
His body wouldn't respond.

Lisey's throat being slit from one side to the other with the filthy black blade of one of the two monsters.
A gush of her blood splattered the wall.
Right where notches carved into the wood had marked their heights.
It already seemed like a lifetime ago.

Something inside him broke.
Finde screamed.
He grabbed a kitchen knife and lunged at the monster.
He drove it deep into its neck.

Black blood gushed out in thick streams.
The monster turned toward him with a murderous grin.
Finde grabbed the kitchen cleaver and swung it with all his strength at the deformed head,
burying the blade deep inside.

The creature staggered backward, but suddenly shot out an arm, grabbing Finde by the throat.
Despite its terrible wounds, its grip was like steel.
The bones in Finde's neck creaked.
Then the grip loosened.

The monster's body collapsed to the floor.
Finde fell with it.
He coughed, bringing his hands to his swollen throat.

Another scream brought him back to reality.

His mother.

The second monster had sliced open her abdomen and was rummaging inside that horrific wound.
Finde grabbed the kitchen mallet.
He approached the monster from behind and struck with every ounce of strength left in his body.
The creature's skull caved in.
It staggered forward.

Nuelle looked at her son.
Her lips moved.
I love you.
Then life left her body.

The monster grabbed Finde.
It lifted him up in front of itself.
It raised the knife toward his forehead and began carving a deep wound.

Finde screamed as blood ran down over his right eye.
The creature licked the wound, whispering incomprehensible words.

Finde knew it.
He was about to die.

Then…

The monster suddenly went rigid.
Its head slid off its shoulders in a gush of black blood.
They both fell.
Finde was panting.

A fleeting movement at the edge of the room caught his attention.
He turned in that direction and saw a hunched figure holding Lisey's lifeless body in its arms.

It wasn't a monster.
It was…
someone.