Juson did not enter the house immediately.
He remained standing at the doorway, staring into the dark interior while the cold night air moved silently behind him. The house looked different now. During the afternoon it had felt old and unpleasant, but now it felt abandoned by something larger than people themselves.
Only a few things were visible through the darkness.
The table.
The chair Hakiten had sat on earlier.
Everything else disappeared into shadow.
For a brief moment, Juson considered leaving. He could still return to his car, drive home, and pretend none of this concerned him anymore.
But the image of the maid turning into blue grains refused to leave his mind.
Slowly, he stepped inside.
The moment his foot touched the floor, the atmosphere changed.
The air inside felt heavier, denser, as if the house itself resisted movement. Even breathing felt slightly difficult.
Juson looked carefully around him.
The wall on his right looked clean.
The wall on his left did not.
A massive stain spread across the white surface. Something had slammed into it hard enough to leave behind a smeared impact mark.
Juson walked closer without realizing it.
His hand slowly lifted toward the wall.
His fingers opened slightly.
Then the bulb above him flickered.
The sudden movement of light snapped him out of his trance. The bulb flickered weakly several times before glowing brighter than before. The light intensified unnaturally for a moment before settling into a dim yellow glow.
Now he could see the stain clearly.
Blood.
There was blood on the wall.
Juson immediately stepped back.
Broken ceramic plates lay scattered beneath the stain.
For a second, he wanted to leave.
He did not want to see blood inside Hakiten's house.
He turned his head toward the road outside. Darkness covered everything beyond the doorway. The neighboring houses had already switched off their lights. Nobody wanted to look outside anymore.
Nobody wanted to know what had happened here.
Juson swallowed slowly and forced himself deeper inside.
Only then did he realize he had barely moved from the entrance.
The house suddenly felt much larger than before.
His footsteps echoed faintly against the floor as he moved beside the long sofa near the wall. Dust covered the table nearby in a thick layer.
That immediately felt wrong.
Where had the dust come from?
The house had not been abandoned long enough for this much dust to gather.
Juson slowly looked upward.
The ceiling looked completely clean.
The lights should have worked normally.
He already knew where the switches were. Beside the sofa, exactly where they had always been.
Juson pressed them quickly one after another.
This time the bulb did not flicker.
It glowed steadily.
And then a sudden sound echoed somewhere deeper inside the house.
Juson froze instantly.
The sound had come from the kitchen.
He immediately turned toward the darkness ahead of him and leaned slightly against the wall instinctively, as if expecting something to emerge from it.
The kitchen was completely dark.
No light reached inside.
Juson slowly stepped away from the wall.
He could not walk directly into that darkness.
His eyes searched around until they stopped on something lying beside him.
A torch.
It rested on the dusty table.
Unlike everything else in the house, the torch was completely clean.
No dust.
No dirt.
Juson grabbed it immediately.
"Cops," he muttered quietly.
Without wasting time, he switched it on and slowly moved forward.
The narrow beam cut through the darkness ahead.
After a few steps, he aimed the torch toward the kitchen entrance.
And stopped.
The kitchen door was gone.
Not open.
Gone completely.
Juson remained standing two steps away from the entrance while listening carefully.
The sound still came from inside.
It sounded strangely familiar.
Soft.
Continuous.
But something about it felt wrong.
Before he could understand it, the bulb behind him suddenly died.
No flickering.
No warning.
Darkness swallowed the house again.
At the same moment, the sound stopped too.
Juson quickly struck the torch against his palm.
Once.
Twice.
The beam returned weakly.
Only then did he realize the sound had completely vanished.
A cold feeling crept into his chest.
Slowly, he stepped toward the kitchen.
The torch beam moved across the wall before lowering toward the floor.
Juson froze.
The missing kitchen door was lying there.
Broken in half.
Splintered wood covered the floor around it as if something massive had smashed through it with overwhelming force.
Juson stared silently.
No normal person could have done that.
Maybe the police had forced their way inside.
Or maybe not.
The beam slowly moved across the kitchen.
Then something black darted past the light.
Juson stepped back immediately.
His heartbeat jumped violently.
The torch searched the kitchen rapidly before stopping at the window.
A black cat sat calmly on the slab near the broken frame.
The light reflected sharply in its eyes, but the animal did not move.
It simply stared toward Juson from the darkness.
Still.
Silent.
Watching.
Then suddenly the cat jumped through the broken window and disappeared into the night.
The kitchen became silent again.
Juson exhaled slowly.
But the relief lasted only a moment.
Something still felt wrong inside the house.
Very wrong.