Julian Sterling jolted awake in the dead of the night. The sound of the pouring rain battered relentlessly against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Unlike all the previous times, there was no eardrum-tearing agony, there was no forced resonance, and there was no sound of cold chains dragging across the floor, scraping against his nerves.
The thing that had awakened him was an incredibly minuscule sound transmitting from downstairs.
He threw off the blanket, slowly sat up, casually draped a thin outer layer over himself, and pushed the door open to step outside. The entirety of the massive villa was submerged in pitch-black darkness, terrifyingly silent. Only the living room on the ground floor had a faint light spilling out, casting a long, chilling streak across the tiled floor.
Julian Sterling held his breath, his footsteps emitting absolutely no sound as he traced his way down the staircase.
