There was a town, forgotten by most, where the people moved like shadows in the dim light of dusk. The houses were small and crooked, standing too close to each other, whispering secrets. Streets were cracked, like a curse had seeped into the ground. In this town, the air was still, too still. Nothing ever grew right, not the plants, not the people. It felt like something was always waiting just out of reach.
The real problem wasn't the town itself. It was the thing that lived in it.
The first time Nick heard about it was from an old man at the corner shop. The man spoke in hushed tones, eyes darting like they were afraid someone might be listening. He leaned over the counter, cracked voice barely a whisper. "Be careful," he said, tapping his fingers on the counter as if trying to keep time with some invisible clock. "If you're out there between two and four, you won't come back the same."
Nick didn't think much of it, dismissing it as the ramblings of a man who'd seen too many winters. He didn't know why he stayed up that night, long after his roommates had gone to sleep. Maybe it was the quiet. Maybe it was the lack of anything better to do.
But there was something off that night. A sort of tension that no one spoke about.
Nick stepped outside into the crisp cold. His shoes were barely making noise on the dirt road, and the dim streetlights cast long, stretched shadows that felt wrong somehow, like they were waiting. For what? He didn't know. He didn't want to know. The silence was too much.
It wasn't long before he started hearing the sounds.
At first, it was faint, just the sound of something distant. But it got closer. Closer, until it felt like something was walking alongside him, just out of sight. A rustling in the grass. The scrape of shoes on the dirt. Nick's skin prickled, a cold sweat forming on his neck. But he couldn't stop walking. He didn't know why. Something tugged at him, a voice whispering in the back of his mind that he needed to keep going, to see what it was, whatever it was.
He knew better than to listen to that voice. But he did anyway.
The road seemed to stretch farther than it should. He felt like he had been walking for hours, though it couldn't have been more than ten minutes. The town looked different. The houses leaned in, as if pressing closer. The streetlights flickered, throwing strange shapes onto the pavement. Shadows that didn't belong.
Nick stopped. His chest tightened. There was a man standing on the side of the road. But not a man, not really. He was tall, taller than any person should be, and he wore a long, dark coat that seemed to blend into the night. His face was obscured by a hat, but Nick could see the shape of something—something wrong—underneath.
The man didn't move. Didn't speak. He didn't need to.
Nick took a step back, then another. His heart beat faster. Something inside him screamed at him to turn around, to run. But he didn't. Instead, he took another step forward, drawn by the figure.
That's when he saw it.
The ground was slick with something. Dark. Wet. But it wasn't rain. No, it wasn't rain at all. Nick looked down at his shoes, at the mud that clung to them, and then he saw something else. Something that made his stomach twist. Feet. Feet were scattered across the ground, half-buried in the mud, as if they had been tossed aside carelessly. Some were still wearing shoes, some were bare.
They didn't belong to anyone Nick knew.
The man finally spoke, voice low and calm. "It's not safe to walk alone at this hour."
Nick's legs went stiff. He didn't know if he should run, scream, or ask what was going on. His throat closed up, his mouth dry. He took a step back, and the man followed.
"It's too late for you now," the man said, his voice colder than the night air. "You've seen it. You know what happens."
Nick didn't understand. His mind raced, trying to catch up. He needed to get away. He tried to turn, but his legs wouldn't move. His feet were stuck to the ground, like something was holding them there.
The man reached into his coat, pulling out a long, curved knife. The blade shimmered in the pale light. It glinted like it had been waiting. The man took a step forward.
Nick's breath hitched. His heart hammered against his chest, each beat louder than the last. He tried to scream, but no sound came.
The man knelt down, his movements too smooth, too fluid. He grabbed Nick's right foot. Nick tried to jerk it away, but it was useless. The man yanked hard, the skin on Nick's foot tearing, like it was nothing more than paper. Nick screamed, though it felt distant. Faint.
He felt something pull from his foot. The sensation was like a burning, sharp pain spreading through his leg. The man tugged again, and Nick's foot came off. It wasn't clean, wasn't easy. It felt like something was ripping inside of him.
And then the man stood up, holding Nick's foot in his hand. The foot twitched, like it was still alive.
Nick stumbled back, clutching the stump where his foot had been. The man didn't say anything else. He just stood there, watching. The silence pressed in again, suffocating.
Nick couldn't stay standing. He collapsed to the ground, the world spinning around him. His thoughts were a mess. The pain was too much. The blood soaked into the dirt beneath him.
And then the man vanished. Just like that. Gone, like he'd never been there.
Nick's body shook, and he could barely breathe. There was no way to stand, no way to walk. He dragged himself across the dirt, hands scraping against the cold earth. His left foot, still whole, pushed against the ground, but it didn't feel right. The way he moved felt wrong, off.
His eyes, blurry with tears, fixed on the town ahead. It looked so far away now. He couldn't make it. He couldn't walk, not without a foot. His body was too broken, too empty. The houses loomed, distant and indifferent.
The clock in the shop's window ticked, its hands moving without care. 3:30 AM.
Nick's blood seeped into the earth, mixing with the dirt. There were no sounds, no footsteps, no voices. Just the slow, steady trickle of time.
No one would find him. Not in time. No one would know what happened to him. No one would ever understand.
But the thing would still be there. Waiting for the next person who wandered too far into the night.