"Your part begins now. They've started noticing the disappearances... We need to direct their attention."
He looked at Elsa first:
"You will speak. Say the Rift is drawing near. That the signs are growing, and the air is changing. Say these are fading cases... Rift echo effects, like what happened in the south."
Mir's eyes moved quickly toward him, as if something broke inside her.
"We... we're feeding their madness, Naiv. Planting terror in people who don't even have the option to run."
Elsa turned to her quickly, dropped to her knees, held her trembling hand, and said in a soft voice:
"I know... But they'll die if they knew. At least with fear, they can survive. We're not lying to them, we're... protecting them from a truth they can't bear."
Naiv turned his back to them, continuing as he arranged some papers:
"Make the people believe the Rift breathes beneath their feet. Give them a reason to cling to life, even if it's twisted... or false."
Elsa stood, then looked at Mir and said:
"We'll say that those who disappeared felt dizzy first. That some began to hallucinate... then vanished into thin air. That's what we'll spread."
Mir muttered, as if trying to convince herself:
"So they... weren't killed. Not torn apart. Not eaten."
Elsa whispered:
"Exactly. Nothing happened."
But their eyes met for a long, silent moment, in which their gaze said everything left unspoken.
In less than a week, fifteen people had disappeared.
The vanishings were no longer isolated cases to be ignored or explained away as mistakes. People began whispering, then arguing, then shouting. But amid it all, Elsa and Mir stood like the last dam holding back the flood.
In the town square, where dozens had gathered after a woman and her children vanished all at once, Elsa stepped up on a rickety wooden platform.
Her clothes were plain, her eyes heavy with sleeplessness, but she stood straight, with forced composure:
"We told you, time and again, that when the Rift draws near, it doesn't announce itself with a storm... it takes those who feel it first."
"These people didn't vanish because we failed them. But because we are closer than ever to a rupture in reality. These are the symptoms."
A man in the crowd shouted:
"This is nonsense! My sister was fine! She was walking, laughing! What does 'rupture in reality' even mean?!"
Mir stepped forward. She didn't shout, didn't try to assert herself, but looked at the man with eyes drowned in memories and said:
"I dreamed of her last night. She stood on the threshold... and had no shadow."
"The Rift doesn't kill. It empties."
"Please... protect whoever you have left."
The man went silent, as if Mir hadn't explained anything, but hinted at a fate worse than he imagined.
In the days that followed, caution grew. People stopped going out at night. Children clung to their mothers. Some began drawing strange symbols on walls seeking protection.
And whenever someone disappeared, Elsa would release a handwritten notice, saying:
"We must stay rational. This is not a contagion... it is a test. And the more we fear, the more we summon it."
At night, Mir cried quietly by her window, clutching her notebook, writing the names of the vanished, and underneath, notes:
"Vanished after a fight with his wife... was he fragile?"
"The girl disappeared after a night of recurring nightmares... does the Rift like weakness?"
But she tells no one.
As the fever of loss and panic escalated, as people died without a sound, the female duo remained the public face soothing the city from within.
The final voice whispering into the ear before collapse.
In the city's basement, the next evening—
Despite the weariness on their faces, the five gathered again around the battered wooden table. The old map was still there, but this time, the eyes weren't searching for escape routes—they examined fresh red marks and newly drawn circles.
Naiv:
"Since we have a few days before departure, I thought it made sense to analyze what he left behind... before he disappeared."
(pauses)
"The man didn't go alone. There was a team with him, and they faced recurring types of entities... we managed to retrieve their logs and some remains."
He gestured toward a messy stack of papers.
Naiv (continues):
"But I'm not the best person to explain this. Ashura... you fought like them, and saw those things with your own eyes."
Ashura
(sits up, looks at everyone, then pulls out a small dagger and carves a line into the table):
"Demons are not the same. Ignorance about them is why we keep losing."
"Based on the data, we can divide them into five main types..."
1. Crawlers
Difficulty: Low.
Description: Small creatures, moving fast across ground or walls, with twisted limbs and protruding jaws.
Strengths: Numerous, fast, use poisonous surprises.
Weaknesses: Direct light, loud noise, poorly coordinated.
2. Wailers
Difficulty: Medium.
Description: Human-like, disfigured faces, emit wails that disrupt focus.
Strengths: Mental influence, induce hallucinations, distort reality in localized zones.
Weaknesses: Total silence disables them; blindness provides advantage.
3. Pulsers
Difficulty: Medium to High.
Description: Massive-bodied, pulse as if their heart is external.
Strengths: One hit can shatter bones, immune to pulse magic.
Weaknesses: Slow movement, sensitive to unstable surfaces.
4. Splitters
Difficulty: High.
Description: Physically splits into smaller forms when harmed.
Strengths: Hard to kill, deadly when divided.
Weaknesses: High heat prevents splitting; electric shocks stop new growth.
Even I haven't faced one of these yet.
5. Deceivers
Difficulty: Very High.
Description: Mimic humans perfectly—speech, walking, crying.
Strengths: Psychological manipulation, perfect impersonation, can read others' intent via "Rift reflection."
Weaknesses: A distorted mirror reveals their truth; "anti-wail" symbols paralyze them temporarily.
This creature appeared only once. You could say it was a very unlucky day for them.
Silence followed Ashura's explanation, as if his words weighed more than the creature names themselves. There was no real surprise—most had faced demons or heard of them—but just thinking they might have to face what that man's team encountered sent a chill through them, especially as they considered the fate of that team.
Zoreem said quietly, like talking to himself:
— "What use are classifications? When you face a demon that feeds on your grief, you won't ask if it's a climber or a screamer..."
Naiv snapped, without looking at him:
— "The difference between us and the corpses devoured by the Rifts is that we prepare. We don't gamble on randomness."
Elsa raised her eyebrows silently, then leaned toward Mir and whispered:
— "He talks about order... but he'll be the first to break the rules if things go wrong."
Mir said nothing. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, as if waiting for something.
Ashura stood slowly and said:
— "We can discuss strategies later. We're not in a position to plan an attack anyway... we're barely staying awake."
Elsa sighed, wiped her weary face with her hand:
— "No point in stressing out now. You're tired... and so am I. Let's leave this till tomorrow. We'll need clearer minds when making decisions."
Ashura nodded, followed by the others in heavy silence.
Then, as if in silent agreement, they left the basement one by one... leaving behind an air heavier than before.
Back in the city days later, its atmosphere was no longer the same.
At first, some thought it was coincidence. Lost children, elders not returning from their spring visits, a scream in the night followed by eternal silence. But when "the disappearances" began hitting every household, Mir and Elsa could no longer hide the fracture.
— "Where is my son?!"
— "They said you were the last to see him!"
— "Who's to say we're not the Rifts?"
In the city square, voices rose, and signs of mass hysteria appeared for the first time. Some men held rusty axes, accusing anyone who showed no fear of being a shadow agent.
Mir trembled, arms wrapped around her chest, her eyes brimming with tears she tried in vain to hold back.
As for Elsa, she placed herself as a human barrier between the mob and those behind her, her voice dry as her throat:
— "Everyone will be accounted for... everyone will be tested... Just stay calm!"
But she didn't believe her own words.
And in the far corner of the square, a small boy held a pendant that had belonged to their neighbor who vanished two days ago.
He asked his mother:
— "Mom... why was this in our house?"