PROLOG
PROLOG
The night is heavy and oppressive, like a leaden blanket that suffocates the city beneath it. The wind whispers softly through the empty streets, carrying with it the echo of past cries. There are hardly any sounds - no voices, no life. Just the sleeping city, trapped in an embrace of darkness and fear.
He moves through the shadows, invisibly, silently. Each of his steps is precisely calculated. He is part of the darkness, merged with the silhouettes of the extinguished streetlights and abandoned houses. He is in no hurry. Time belongs to him. The game has only just begun.
Only the hunt drives him. He waits for the moment when his prey senses him, that tiny hint of fear. The uncertainty reflected in their eyes, the flicker when they finally realize that there is no escape. That moment of realization that death is imminent. And then... the silence.
He loves silence.
“Can you hear the whispering in the night?
The silence that guards your life.
I am the death you cannot see,
the shadow from which you flee.”
He knows they mean him. In the alleys, in the houses. They whisper his name, but no one really knows who he is. They call him Skull Head. A legend, a terrifying figure. But he is more real than they can imagine. He is more than a story told to scare children. He is the end. Their end.
“My name haunts every alley,
Fear runs through the streets like blood.
Skull Head, my name whispers in the wind,
and soon it will be you who disappears.”
He stops, raises his head slightly and looks up at a window. The light is off, but he knows that there is life behind it. He can feel it, the faint heartbeat of fear emanating from this one person. A gentle trembling in the darkness.
“You can’t run, you can’t escape,
For your cries cannot be heard here.
The night is long, death so close,
Soon I’ll be here and you won’t be.”
He waits until the first ray of morning light falls over the rooftops before retreating into the shadows, silently as before. The hunt will continue until they notice him. Until they sense him.
And then there will be no escape.
