Gabrielle Serenity, twenty-one, had always walked through life as if nothing could touch her. She moved through crowds with steady eyes and a calmness that unnerved people without her ever trying. On Halloween night, she arrived at Black Hollow Carnival with a group of friends who were already clutching each other in panic, squealing at every shadow, flinching at every flicker of light. Gabrielle’s boots hit the cracked pavement softly, her gaze sharp and unshaken, and she scanned the carnival with an almost clinical interest — the rusted rides, the warped signs, the flickering orange lights, and the distant, distorted music. While the others screamed at every sudden scare and muttered about turning back, she felt nothing but intrigue, the thrill of walking toward the unknown, toward something the rest of them were too afraid to face. Her friends’ whispers and trembling hands faded into the background as she approached the crooked, cracked sign of the House of Whispers, the air heavy with fog and the scent of burnt sugar, iron, and something far sharper she couldn’t name. The entrance hung on a single chain, creaking in the wind, as if warning anyone who dared step inside that what waited beyond the threshold had been watching for a long time. Gabrielle didn’t hesitate. She stepped forward, her calm and composed figure moving confidently into the darkness, while her friends froze, shaking, unable to follow.

Inside, the carnival’s noise vanished entirely. The wooden floorboards groaned beneath her boots, and the air was so thick with cold fog that it felt like it crawled into her skin. The walls were lined with grotesque murals of twisted faces, wide eyes, and screaming mouths, all painted in colors that seemed to shift when she wasn’t looking directly at them. Mirrors hung at odd angles, cracked and warped, reflecting her image in fragments that moved a fraction behind her, showing her a reality slightly off from her own. The corridor twisted unnaturally, each turn drawing her deeper into darkness that seemed to pulse and breathe. A low hum ran through the walls, not mechanical, not human, like the building itself was alive and aware of her presence. Her boots echoed softly, the sound swallowed immediately by the thick air, and as she moved forward, she noticed the reflections of herself moving independently in the mirrors, blinking, tilting their heads, observing. And then the hum stopped, leaving a silence so heavy it pressed on her chest like stone.

From the far end of the hall came a faint scraping of metal against wood, slow, deliberate, uneven, like claws dragging along a surface not meant to be touched. The dim red light flickered once, long enough to reveal him in a single, fleeting glimpse. Dante. He did not step out from the shadows — he was the shadow, standing there as if the corridor had molded itself around him. His black clothing absorbed every flicker of light, his broad, precise frame cutting into the darkness like a blade, every line of his body taut and deliberate. The skull-clown mask he wore seemed less paint and more part of his flesh, etched and cracked, hollow eyes staring from sockets that should not move. One gloved hand tapped rhythmically against the wall, slow, patient, like a heartbeat in the silence, while his presence alone seemed to bend the air, tighten the corridor, and pull the shadows toward him. He did not advance, did not speak to Gabrielle, and yet the weight of him was unbearable, the corridor trembling under his unseen force.

Then his voice came, low and dragging, words that seemed to echo beneath the skin rather than into the ears. “Step quiet,” he murmured, each syllable a blade sliding across reality. “The walls remember what’s loud.” The red light pulsed again, and in that single flicker, he was gone. A soft scrape, a whisper of movement, a low, wheezing laugh filled the empty corridor, creeping toward her from every direction, though no one moved. “They wait for the noise to start again,” the voice murmured, closer, though the hall was empty. The temperature dropped,