Upon losing contact two more officers were dispatched to the scene. Inspector Hayson's vehicle was still at the house. One of the officers reported finding a trail of blood leaking from beneath what is suspected to be the aforementioned door, leading outside the building. Both officers deny having seen any such trail upon first arriving at the house. The officers followed the blood until it eventually led them to Inspector Hayson's apartment, where he was found deceased in his bathtub, naked and holding a gun to his right ear. No shot had been fired. The body was completely drained of all blood, though no wounds were visible. DNA tests confirmed the blood in the trail to be Hayson's. The line of blood ended in his left ear, but exact cause of death has not yet been determined.

“Not yet. The old man was losing it, probably wandered off in the middle of the night and fell in a river. Doubt the boss has anything to worry about."

“I ain't bothering with that door, then. Didn't bring any equipment for chains."

“Good. Thing creeps me right out." The Eselar brothers, Brian and Ed, had been sent by their employer, a demon of no small influence, who had always feared the stores of knowledge Barath kept. He'd seen the scientist's disappearance as the perfect chance to destroy any records on his own species along with anything else that could be used against him.

Brian turned away from his brother, who was busily skimming through notebooks, but his gaze still drifted back to the door. It didn't belong. The rest of the house was typical, peeling and dusty and filled with paper, as one would expect from a studious old man, but the door was different. It was new, a gleaming slab of some thick metal. Heavy chains zigzagged across its surface, haphazardly bolted into the wall and the door itself, keeping it securely shut. There didn't appear to be any locks, as if it was never meant to be opened.

As he stared at its surface, Brian thought he heard a faint sound from behind the door, like the distant wail of a child, and then jumped as something thumped lightly against it from the other side, shaking the chains imperceptibly. He glanced quickly at Ed, who seemed to have heard nothing. There was a second thump, and then another, growing louder and more rhythmic. Soon it was a crashing blow from the other side, the chains rattling violently with each strike. A caustic buzz rang in Brian's ears, the sound of thousands of voices whispering fitfully, becoming more earnest alongside the bashing of the door. It was hideous, but he couldn't turn away, and as the door shook more rapidly he realized it was pounding in sync with his heartbeat.

“Brian!"

“Eh?" He staggered for a moment, shaking his head and glancing at Ed, who had grabbed his arm. The door was silent.

“Are you alright? You started staring into space and wouldn't answer."

“Yeah…yeah, sorry, I'm fine." Brian shook off his brother's grip, who gave him a second worried look before turning back to the notebooks. “Hey, Ed?"

“Yeah?"

*Day 5. I heard today that my closest neighbors hanged themselves during the night. I feel rather guilty, as I doubt it is coincidence. I'm sure I saw one of the shapes running toward their house as I closed my eyes. The gamayun said he is coming, but gave no specifics. No when or where. I am being avoided. My old allies are beginning to ignore my calls.

*Day 7. Had another one of those nightmares. Locked it in the closet like the first. Need more chains. He should be here soon. I feel things running over the surface of my body when I close my eyes. Stomach hurts. It's still growing.

*Day 6-after-8. Cut it out of my stomach, but it's still growing. Locked it in the closet. Should be room, goes on for miles. Don't have to close my eyes to see them, anymore. Shouldn't have been worried, they're quite helpful. Saw them crawling into the hole in my stomach to stop the bleeding. So helpful. Need more chains.

*I'm being watched. From the door. No more days until I can find out how to stop them. They didn't like my research, thought I should never have started it. Can't stop now. Learned so much. He's coming. They're watching me but I'm too quick for them. Catch them and lock them in the closet. Still watching me. From the door. Waiting for him to get here. Somebody help me.

*Help me.

She found the brothers quickly enough, their bodies folded and stuffed into the refrigerator and their lungs filled with ash, but the house was oddly clear. There were no signs of struggle or latent whispers of the dead, as if someone had beaten her there in exorcising the building. Still, it wouldn't do not to check all the rooms. She found a large plastic garbage bag and moved the corpses into it to take back to Sachra, leaving it on the kitchen floor while she searched the rest of the house. It was a mess, but surprisingly sterile, as though Leinen had simply walked out and left one day and nothing of interest had happened since. For all intents and purposes, the house seemed clean.

Until she saw the door, and knew something was wrong. Hetan had been trafficking in demons and spirits for years, and was not afraid, but this was something different. There was…something, behind that door. Something she'd never felt before, something she tried to sense and instinctively wanted to wretch in response to. This place wasn't haunted or possessed. She didn't know what it was, but she knew it was dangerous, the bodies downstairs made that clear enough.

Sitting cross-legged facing the door, she prepared to enter a séance to banish whatever lay beyond, focusing her concentration to be ready for anything unexpected. The reaction was immediate. A gurgling wail rose from behind the door as something pounded on it from the other side, chains rattling with each impact, but its protests were futile. Hetan had done this countless times before, keeping her attention locked. Such entities were rarely capable of direct assault, relying on fear and distraction.

But for an instant her gaze shifted as a second moan, deeper and closer, shuddered from outside the door. The black plastic bag was slithering up the stairs, wheezing and crawling toward her. In the moment her attention wavered the door flew open with a deafening crash and something grabbed her ankles, yanking the witch into the closet with tremendous speed and into an impossible tunnel within, sloping downward for what seemed an endless distance. Screams came from all sides, the light from the doorway a rapidly vanishing speck.

*Day 2. Woke up screaming his name, barely caught myself before finishing it. I cannot risk this happening, the universe cannot know what I am doing here. Even knowing his name risks madness. To keep this from happening again, I cut out my tongue and locked it in the closet as well. This is too important to risk losing my mind. Saw the nightmare running out of the room as I awoke…will lock it in there too once I catch it.

Today I am no longer Cinder, sidekick and assistant to the Human Flare. Today I am no longer a hero. Today my thoughts are on only revenge.

The Human Flare left two days ago without taking me, saying it was too dangerous. He said that there were a lot of strange disappearances surrounding that house, that he “wouldn't risk me becoming one of them.�? Damn him for never thinking of himself. I found him some hours ago sitting in the monitoring chair of the hideout…there's no need to hide the place anymore. The police and doctors say they have no idea how he managed to eat his own heart, let alone why.

“The more doors you put something behind, the more people will wonder what's behind them. They probably didn't want anyone to know anything was here in the first place.�? The team was sent in response to a strangely brief distress call, reporting that a theft had taken place. Though the location was precise, as it would have been nearly impossible to find otherwise, nothing was stated about the object stolen other than that it was a piece of something.

It was a nameless cliff in a nameless desert on a nameless world, hollowed out to allow for a small series of rooms to be built in the rock. One of them was bare except for an altar, now empty, and five robed bodies scattered bloodlessly across the floor. There were no signs of struggle, dust from the structure's sandy interior still clinging to everything.

“Well, damn. Not a lot of clues here, sir. Looks like they poisoned themselves, and I don't see any identifying marks to even show what was stolen.�?

“Then let a forensics team deal with it. There's no active threat here for us to deal with. Let's…�? Their commanding officer trailed off as his eyes caught something crudely scrawled across the archway over the entrance, unnoticed behind them when they entered underneath it. “…we have to demolish this place.�?

The other soldiers filtered into the room and went pale, one of them wordlessly kneeling down and removing explosives from his backpack. Others joined in and soon a bomb was set, but as they rose to leave, they were met with the click of a gun and their leader blocking the doorway. “Sir…?�?

She could see what he meant immediately as the first members entered. Something terrible had undoubtedly happened there. The wallpaper was torn and peeling off in large strips, claw marks and bloodstains scattered across the wood underneath. Furniture was smashed and overturned, entire bookshelves pulled down and their contents torn apart like confetti over the floor. Everywhere the signs of violence scarred the building, burns and gouges and the shredded remains of what she could only guess were bodies, the floor sticky with multiple coats of dried blood. It only got worse as they moved toward the stairs, with no telling how many people had died there.

But most unsettling was the chains. Lengths of enormous chain snaked all throughout the house, punching through walls and disappearing in and out of countless holes. It spread everywhere like a network of veins with no apparent beginning or end, zigzagging the structure almost as if it where holding it together. Whenever someone's gaze moved away from them, Lady Eye could almost see something small skittering along the chain, always scrambling just outside of view. Thin trickles of blood slid down some of them, seeming to originate from somewhere above.

Yet oddly, none of the team seemed to care about any of this. They stepped casually over chains and wreckage, looking about with only passive interest, as if it were just another ordinary house. Did they not see any of this? Lady Eye called into the transmitter, but there was no response, or even any sign they'd heard. One of them stepped on a severed finger without looking down. She checked the frequencies and shouted into her headset, again with no reaction.

Then, amazingly, they began to split up, deviating from their agreed upon plans and exploring the house. A scream pulled her attention to the kitchen, where one of them was being dragged into the refrigerator by something outside her field of vision. She yelled orders in a panic, hearing her own voice echoing from nearby headsets, with no avail. Another began climbing the stairs, and at the top she saw a lumpy black plastic bag, its open end leaning over the edge of the top step, a thick black liquid oozing out and pouring down the stairs. She tried to warn her teammate as he blindly stepped into it. Another one dead. One downstairs walked through a hall, passing a body that had been crushed into the wall, much of its flesh torn away. The corpse peeled itself free as they passed, lurching forward and plunging its teeth into their throat. Another one dead. Lady Eye was screaming into the transmitter in a panic, shaking her concentration and barely seeing what was going on anymore as Cinder flew up to the second floor, skipping the staircase, not noticing the chain draped across the doorway at chest height as he approached the bedroom. The instant he touched it the chain recoiled and snapped around his neck like a whip, yanking him inside with an audible crack.

Shaking, Lady Eye severed her mental links and opened her eyes, only to reel backwards in shock. She was inside the house, facing a chained metal door that seemed to swell with rage despite being an object. At once her ears were flooded with the sound of screams behind the door, periodically drowned out by the rhythmic pounding of something slamming against the other side, shaking the chains erratically and causing the walls to groan with the strain. She started to back away and felt the squelch of her fingers sinking into the wet carpet, noticing then that blood appeared to be falling in a light rain. She looked up and felt her limbs go numb, horrified but unable to look away. At least two dozen bodies were crucified to the ceiling, all of them naked and skinned, mouths hanging slack and tongues ripped out. Before she could add her scream to the ones behind the door, it burst open with a shriek of snapping metal, and the room went black.