Annoying like a Curse

The rain lashed against the windows as Lukas crept through the abandoned house in the dark. The sounds of the water drumming in rhythmic drops against the roof blended with the stealthy notes of his footsteps. It was a silent night, but the atmosphere was anything but calm. Every noise he made seemed to echo loudly and ominously in the darkness.

He had entered the house before, but today was different. The windows were blacked out, the lights flickered, and he could almost smell the thick air. It was the perfect setting for what was to come.

His movements were calm, almost dance-like, as he stalked the doors and windows, quiet and unobtrusive. In the distance, he could hear the sounds of children playing, happy and oblivious. But that would soon end.

Lukas pulled out another of his small, black artifacts, a strange amulet he had used so many times. The chains of withered, rusted metal were like an invitation to his creatures.

"It's time," he murmured quietly to himself. "Time for a little game."

He concentrated, his gaze becoming piercing, and the amulet in his hand began to pulse with a cold, threatening energy. It wasn't the first time he had summoned his monsters, but today would be different. The creatures he summoned would fill the atmosphere of the house with a new dimension of terror.

Suddenly, soft, almost inaudible footsteps sounded from behind. Lukas turned around, but he felt as if he were penetrating the darkness with each passing moment, as if it were enveloping him. He could see the shadowy figures of his monsters in the corners of the house, blurred, as if growing directly from the walls themselves.

The first creature stepped forward, a shadow shaped like a man, but with the face of a nightmare. It wasn't made of flesh and blood, but of the pure fears Lukas had awakened in the deepest corners of his mind. It stared at him with a blank expression, waiting for his command.

"Go," Lukas whispered. "Do your work."

At the same moment, the monster began to move, quickly, almost lightning fast, and disappeared into the shadows of the house. Lukas heard the soft creaking of the floorboards under the heavy footsteps of the creatures encroaching on the children's rooms.

The atmosphere of fear was palpable. A faint, almost imperceptible smile played across Lukas's lips as he slowly made his way upstairs.

The rain outside made the air feel even more oppressive, and the cool, dark silence that now spread through every room of the house was only a harbinger of what was to come. The creatures made no sound; their presence was like a whisper in the wind.

And then, quite suddenly, the shrieks of the children. A high, terrified scream broke the silence of the night.

Lukas's smile deepened.

The rain continued to lash against the windows of the house as Lukas stepped out into the hallway with an almost eerie calm. It was the stillness before the storm that hung in the air, as if darkness itself waited for the inevitable.

He opened the door to one of the children's rooms. The gentle breathing of the sleeping child in bed was the only sound. But Lukas had no mercy. He crept up to the bed, the moonlight streaming through the window making his figure appear like a shadow in the corner of the room.

"Go back to sleep," he murmured softly, almost gently, as he slowly raised his hand. The blade flashed in the darkness.

The little boy didn't wake up. Only a soft, almost muffled scream as Lukas ripped the blade through the soft fabric of his pajamas. Blood spurted in the silence, and the body twitched briefly before retreating back into the stillness of the darkness.

Lukas stood there, his gaze fixed on the lifeless body, as the rain outside suddenly grew louder. It was as if the storm itself erupted in a wave of relief. But Lukas wasn't satisfied. Something was missing. Something wasn't over yet.

He left the room and entered the hallway. Suddenly, he heard noises, footsteps coming from the basement. A figure appeared in the darkness—Inspector Schäfer. Lukas stared at him for a moment as reality opened up between the two of them.

"You..." Schäfer began, his voice trembling despite his confident demeanor. "So it's you."

Lukas raised an eyebrow, as if he'd never noticed the inspector. A mocking smile curled his lips.

"You're really persistent," Lukas said, his voice like a cold, swift knife cutting through the air. "But you'll never understand. I'll always be one step ahead."

Suddenly, Inspector Schäfer drew his weapon. Time seemed to drag on.

Lukas could see the cold metal barrel, the inspector's gaze fixed on his body.

The shot rang out. The projectile pierced the air with a deafening crack. Lukas, however, moved faster than the inspector could react. The shot missed him by a hair's breadth.

"Not bad," Lukas muttered. "But too slow."

In a single, fluid motion, he turned and took a step back, simultaneously knocking the inspector down with a lightning-fast blow to the back of his knee. The inspector staggered, but Lukas was already gone by the time he reached the ground.

In the darkness, Schäfer heard the serial killer's footsteps echoing faintly through the house. The inspector pressed the wound on his thigh as he tried to stand upright. But he was too late.

Lukas was gone.

And the rain didn't stop. It was as if the sky doubled the horror in the air.

Inspector Schäfer searched the house with the diligence expected of a seasoned investigator. It was dark, and the only light came from a lamp flickering on the table. His footsteps echoed in the silence, which was made even more intense by the oppressive atmosphere of the house.

He was alone; all his colleagues had left, and now it was up to him to find the last clues. But something about this case was different. Eerie. The serial killer, Lukas, had long since escaped, and the inspector knew it was only a matter of time before he struck again. But he needed answers.

Schäfer continued across the room, wiping the dust on a shelf, slowly drawing his fingers along the surface. There were no fingerprints, nothing that the usual search for clues would have left behind. An irritation spread through him. It was as if this man—Lukas—left no trace, as if he had simply moved across the room and nothing had stuck.

"Damn..." he muttered, looking down at the floor. The knife. The accursed knife that Lukas had dropped lay between the murderers and the inspector. He bent forward to pick it up.

The knife's handle was cold as he wrapped his hand around it, but what worried him more was the fact that there were no traces of blood on the blade. No traces of blood. And no other clue to the perpetrator.

He carefully slid the knife onto the table and pulled out his flashlight. The beams fell on the floor and the table, on the knife, but there was nothing that stood out clearly. No fingerprints, no trace of DNA, not even a drop of blood, even though the room was tinged with the gloom of the recent murders.

"That's unbelievable..." Schäfer murmured as he bent down to look for more clues. But no matter how thoroughly he searched, it was as if Lukas had simply vanished into the shadows that night, as if he had never been there.

At the end of the long, agonizing moment, the inspector stood there, left in the silence of the night with only one question in his mind: How could a man like Lukas be so... invisible? No one, no trace.

As he turned and grabbed the door handle, he felt cold goosebumps creep down his neck. No one could tell him what he had to do with this case. No one knew how Lukas's traces had been erased. But Inspector Schäfer knew one thing: It was far from over.

He swept the knife across the room once more, his gaze flickering across the floor, but there was only one thought that remained with him.

"He's not human..."

Inspector Schäfer stood in the laboratory-like environment, the wait for the analysis fraying at his nerves. He had gathered the evidence: the knife Lukas had dropped, a weapon he had touched during the confrontation, and a collection of other possible clues compiled by the crime scene investigators. But as he handed the evidence over to the lab, the chill of disappointment that surrounded him was almost tangible.

"Find something," he muttered to himself as he waited for the results. The minutes passed, time stretched. Eventually, the call came. The lab director was on the other end of the line, his voice subdued.

"Schäfer, there's... nothing."

The inspector glanced at the table in front of him, where the knife lay, which he still considered one of the crucial clues. But what the lab now told him made everything even more puzzling. No trace. No DNA. No hair, no flakes of skin. Not a single small detail that pointed to the perpetrator.

"No leads?" asked Schäfer, his voice a whisper. The lab director repeated it, which only made the words seem more surreal.

"None. Nothing. The only lead we have is

Her fingerprints on the gun. But no other one."

The inspector picked up the phone and pressed it to his ear with a trembling hand. There was nothing he understood, nothing that made sense. A man had been in a house, murdered people, and there wasn't even a hint of him. It was as if he had emerged from the air, as if he had mingled with the shadow and vanished again.

"That... that doesn't make sense," Schäfer muttered, closing the phone. He slumped into his chair and stared at the knife. It was the only connection he had, but the answer was further away than ever. Something wasn't right. Something was so fundamentally wrong that even he couldn't comprehend it.

Schäfer thought back to the scene. Lukas had disappeared, as if he had never existed. No DNA, no flakes of skin, nothing. But the worst part was the realization that the only person left behind in that room—the only one who had left his mark—was himself.

He frowned and stared at the table. It was almost as if Lukas had blackmailed him, as if the murderer had pulled an invisible thread through the entire night. And Schäfer was the only one who had been caught by that thread.

"No human," he whispered slowly. "He is not human."

The words echoed in his head as he stood up and walked to the window. It was raining outside. And he felt something dark, something sinister, getting closer and closer. But what he didn't know was that Lukas had already had his sights set on him.

Inspector Schäfer drove his car through the dark streets of the city. The night seemed to have an almost unbearable density, as if it were swallowing all the secrets he had uncovered. The rain lashed against the windshield, and the headlights sent short, glaring shadows across the asphalt. It was as if the world around him was caught in a constant frenzy of darkness and rain, just like him.

He had reached Lukas's old family home. It stood there, gloomy and deserted, the forlorn testimony of something that was never truly complete. The memories of the crime that had taken place here were frozen in the walls. The place where Lukas had hanged his father and murdered his mother in a fit of madness was still as empty as it had been then.

Schäfer walked slowly through the weathered gate and approached the door. The house was quiet, too quiet. It seemed as if everything here breathed in a certain way, as if the house itself had merged with the terrible deeds within.

Inside, the room was just as deserted as the rest of the house, but the atmosphere was oppressive, as if it were still tinged with the last screams and the torments of the past. Schäfer climbed the creaking steps and entered the living room. The room was simple, except for the fireplace, which stood at the center of the room, like an ominous guardian presiding over everything.

He found the old book lying on a table, as if waiting to fall back into the hands of an ignorant person. It was a strange, old piece of paper in which Lukas's family had captured their secrets. Schäfer felt a strange, almost eerie presence from this book. He didn't know exactly why, but he couldn't simply ignore it.

He picked it up, but it was locked. The cover was crusty and rough, and the mechanism that locked the book wasn't easy to open. He tried again, his fingers trembling slightly as he examined the book, but he could never open it. The pages seemed to close against him.

Frustrated, he placed the book in the fireplace, the crackling fire reflecting in his eyes. "If you won't open it," he murmured, "at least you'll face the flames."

He lit the book. The flames immediately began to consume the yellowed paper, but as he leaned back to look at the book's ashes, something happened that stopped him in his tracks. The book trembled and slowly opened, as if the pages were beginning to unfold of their own accord. It was as if the words in that book came alive, and they wanted to be read by him.

"This... this isn't possible," he whispered, watching as the flames stopped fanning the book and instead lit it up with an eerie glow. It wasn't burning. Instead, the pages seemed to pulse with an energy of their own. The book was like a glowing portal opening before him, letting something unspeakable out.

Schäfer stepped back, his hands now shaking as he looked at the walls of the room. The room seemed to condense, and a cold wind blew through the deserted house. And there, in the corner of the room, he could suddenly see something.

something—a presence he couldn't name, but which he felt. It was as if Lukas's soul was trapped in this book, as if he had bound his existence to this place and these pages.

The inspector stared at the book. He felt a mixture of fascination and horror. Lukas wasn't human. He was something else. Something beyond the bounds of the imaginable. A being trapped in this book, and perhaps in all the deeds he had committed, Lukas himself had been merely a shell controlled by another, darker being.

"Oh God," Schäfer whispered as he pulled away. "He's... he's not human."