The figure loomed on the edge of a rooftop, still cloaked in shadows, but its size was unmistakable. Broad, hulking, and utterly out of place among the slender silhouettes of chimney stacks and broken antennas. 

It crouched low, its shape angular yet fluid, like a coiled spring ready to release. The faintest glint of light caught its eyes, twin embers of amber, glowing faintly as they locked onto him.

Charlie’s breath hitched, and his legs felt rooted to the spot. The figure didn’t move. It simply watched, its presence suffocating, heavy with an intent Charlie couldn’t yet fathom.

The oppressive silence returned, broken only by the faint whistle of wind funneled through the alley and the soft, irregular drip of water from a distant pipe. Charlie’s instincts screamed at him to run, but his body betrayed him, frozen in place as the thing above began to shift, its outline rippling with a predatory grace.

The figure dropped from above, turning into an obsidian blur, which was more than enough to make Charlie snap him into action.

Yet, it was far too late for him, as the moment he took a step forward, the monster crashed right in front of him, cracking the uneven floor of the alley and causing a small tremor in the area, with the building surrounding it shaking like a chihuahua in a snowstorm.

“What…what…what…” Charlie stumbled over his words, confused about the situation, incapable of understanding what he was witnessing.

The horrible abomination before him was revealed as the dust from its landing cleared out. Around 3 meters tall, built like a wide-by-side fridge with legs.

Its almost polygonal frame was shrouded in overlaying layers of tattered black fabric, giving more the impression of the wildly matted fur of some prehistoric beast than actual cloth.

 Its face, if you could call it that, was a featureless bone white mask with two menacing holes letting the light of its two sunken, burning eyes out.

In one hand, it carried a large machete, too big and heavy to be carried by human hands, while his other hand was missing, replaced by a gruesome hook-hand, with serrated edges and sharp spikes.

Around its neck, it carried a silver collar that seemed mismatched with the rest of its outfit, reflecting even the very faint light sources of the alleyway.

“I’m going to die, aren’t I…” Those were the thoughts going through Charlie’s mind as the creature approached him, each of his steps echoing in the shadowy alleyway, its boots seemingly made out of crude, rusted iron.

The looming figure approached, the scrapping of metal against cobblestone marked each of its lumbering steps towards Charlie. The air in the alleyway grew unnaturally thick, as if the shadows themselves became denser, like some kind of oozing, festering pool of darkness creeping ever closer towards the recently transferred student.

Charlie finally managed to move, crawling away, as his legs didn’t respond to his imperious need to run, his fingers lodging themselves in between the cracks of the cobblestone beneath him, pulling his body away from the menacing figure.

An ominous voice surged from inside the chilling white mask of his pursuer, but Charlie couldn’t understand a single word of it, his own bouncing heartbeat deafening him.

The stranger approached, the tip of the machete dragging behind him, sparks flying with each contact against the cobblestone.

“Get…Get away…” Charlie managed to whisper as he backed away, as the dark entity encroached his surroundings, the heavy atmosphere so thick it seemed as if a curtain of black fog was swallowing the walls of the alley, trapping the young man in an inescapable prison of dread.

The monster lifted its jagged machete and swung down, the rusted metal rending through the flesh of Charlie, a spray of blood blasting off his chest, splattering the entity and the surroundings in a thick coat of crimson.

Charlie felt more pain than he had ever felt in his whole life, the wound on his chest oozing blood like a broken faucet. His eyelids, heavy and tired, started to get low, his vision blurry.

For a moment, he thought that the last thing he would see was the alabaster mask of his attacker, which, strangely, looked, even featureless as it was, like it was smiling.

But as his eyes closed and his ears began to hear only his slowing heartbeat, a voice cut through the haze, much like a violent orange glow did through the darkness surrounding him.