The silence did not last.
The moment the Pallid Mermaid vanished, I knew.
The hunt was not over.
Something stirred in the air. Not a ripple—something deeper, something vast. The feeling of something coiling, stretching beyond this place, preparing to breach through the fabric of existence once more.
And then—
They came.
Seven in total.
"I guess this is how I met their relatives."
They did not blink into existence all at once. They seeped in—one after another, slithering through unseen cracks in reality, as their grotesque, veined forms unraveled like twisted ribbons of flesh and translucent membranes.
Their faces—those unnatural, eerily human masks—turned toward me in unison.
Seven frozen expressions. Seven empty, watching stares.
The air shuddered.
The first wail came—not one, but a layered chorus of soul-rending screams.
A violent wave of sound, not carried by air, but by concept itself.
