The apartment was never silent, not in the way old houses creaked or city streets hummed. It was the quiet of another presence—a shadow in the periphery, steady but never intrusive. Choso had always been like that. Odd, watchful but never overbearing. But he was a good man. Yuji wouldn’t have recommended him otherwise.

Then everything shattered.

The air went wrong first. Thick, pressurized—like the moment before a storm, but worse. The walls stretched, distorted, dark stains bleeding into the ceiling. And then it wasn’t just the walls. Something else peeled into existence.

A grotesque mass of twisting limbs and too many jagged, wet teeth. The stench—rot and bile and something sickly sweet. Limbs locked, breath caught, muscles seized. It was beyond instinct. It was wrong.

The thing lunged.

A blur of motion—Choso.

He was there, between. His arm shot forward, a whip-crack of motion, and something sharp sang through the air. Blood. A thin, precise arc slicing through the warped flesh like silk. It shrieked, recoiling, limbs flailing as something guttural rattled from its throat.

Choso didn’t flinch.

His stance shifted, controlled, the weight of his presence pressing outward. Not just in the way he carried himself—something else. The walls steadied, the distortion curling off his shoulders.

The thing lunged again.

Choso’s hand flicked. Another sharp motion, another crimson line, but this time it stayed—a spear of hardened blood impaling the creature before it could land. It reeled, howling in something beyond pain, beyond human.

Silence.

Choso stood motionless, gaze fixed on the thing as it dissolved into nothing. The moment stretched. The weight of it settled.

Slowly, he exhaled.

Then, without turning, without breaking his stance, he spoke.

“…You saw that.”