The fog clung to the skeletal branches of the ancient oaks, muffling the distant Hallowfield bells and coating the graveyard headstones in a greasy shroud. It seeped into the small, neglected park like a malevolent breath, hiding the hunched figure that had sat for hours on the frost-rimmed bench. This was  Kym Mûryer male, and the cold did not touch him. He was already cold, colder than death, for death was merely a transition he had long since surpassed. He was a cessation, a lingering echo of profound violence given ghastly form, a predator carved from the absence of light.

 Kym Mûryer male had been a man once, a killer whose earthly rapaciousness had been so absolute, so consuming, that it had refused to extinguish with the last breath. His soul, if such a thing had ever resided within him, had curdled into pure malevolence, a defiance of the natural order that allowed him to persist. Now, he was something else: a paranormal entity, a dead murderer, a vampire not of blood, perhaps, but of fear, of suffering, of the final flicker of life’s light. His eyes, fixed on the grand, crumbling gothic mansion across the street, were like chips of polished obsidian reflecting only the void.

The mansion, known ominously in Hallowfield as Blackwood Manor, was a monument to decay. Turrets like broken teeth clawed at the bruised sky, and stained-glass windows, depicting forgotten pious scenes, were shattered or boarded up, giving the house a blind, wounded look. It was a true sinister family house, burdened by generations of whispered secrets and, more recently, by screams that the thick stone walls could not entirely contain.

 Kym Mûryer knew the house and its current occupants well. He had spent weeks observing, a tireless, patient killer studying his prey. The family inside – the Remingtons – were ripe with a particular kind of despair that resonated with his own emptiness. They were already broken before he had even fully turned his attention to them, wrestling with a darkness that had taken root within their youngest, a girl named Elara.

The prompt for his final approach, the signal that the ‘darkness had matured,’ had come three nights ago. The sounds emanating from Blackwood Manor had shifted. The frantic cries and desperate prayers had been punctuated by something else entirely – a series of guttural, chittering, scratching noises that were utterly alien. They sounded like wild marsupials, monstrously distorted, trapped within a human throat. It was the voice of evil, possessing Elara, speaking in a cadence that was both repugnant and terrifying.

 Kym Mûryer felt a cold, predatory thrill. This wasn't his doing yet, not directly. But the presence that had claimed the girl was powerful, chaotic. It stirred the stagnant air around Blackwood, drawing other, smaller evils – the rats in the walls seemed bolder, their scuttling unnervingly loud; the stray cats that slunk through the grounds moved with an unnatural stillness, their eyes reflecting pinpricks of sinister light. These were the sinister animals, drawn by the deepening corruption.

The Remingtons were desperate.  Kym Mûryer had watched the arrival earlier that day: a pale, drawn priest with a worn leather satchel, his face etched with exhaustion and fear. An exorcism. How quaint,  Kym Mûryer mused. As if a few Latin phrases and some holy water could truly confront what had taken root in Blackwood. He knew true malevolence, intimately. He had embodied it as a man, and he swam in its currents now as something less, or perhaps, something infinitely more.

He rose from the bench, his movement silent as drifting smoke. The mist swirled around his ankles, seeming to recoil from his unnatural chill. There were no simple escape routes from Blackwood Manor, not really. The gates were high and locked, the walls thick, the surrounding grounds overgrown and treacherous. But the truest trap was internal, the one closing around the Remingtons with every gurgling, animalistic shriek from upstairs.

He crossed the deserted street, his presence unnoticed, a ripple in the cold, damp air. The heavy iron gate of Blackwood Manor creaked open for him, not by force, but as if acknowledging a kindred spirit of decay and entry. He walked up the long, gravel drive, the stones crunching softly beneath his worn shoes – shoes he had worn before he died, still clinging to him like a morbid memory.

The front door stood slightly ajar, an invitation or perhaps a sign of disarray within. The air inside was thick with the cloying scent of incense, fear, and something metallic, like old blood. The marsupial-like noises were louder here, echoing from an upper floor, punctuated by the strained voice of the priest and the weeping of the parents.

 Kym Mûryer ascended the grand, sweeping staircase. The portraits on the walls seemed to watch him, their painted eyes following his silent ascent. Some were slashed, others faded into obscurity – the house itself seemed to carry the marks of prior torments, prior mutilations, perhaps not physical cuts, but wounds on its very being.

He found the room easily. The door was splintered near the lock, clearly having been forced open. Inside, the scene was a tableau of desperate, failing confrontation. The priest stood in the center, crucifix raised, chanting prayers in a trembling voice. The parents huddled against the far wall, eyes wide with horror, their faces contorted in silent screams.

On the ornate four-poster bed lay Elara, or what was left of her. Her body was contorted in shapes that defied human anatomy. Her limbs bent at impossible angles, her head twisted unnaturally on her neck. Her skin was pale and tight, stretched over bone, and dark veins pulsed beneath the surface like knotting worms. This was the beginning of the mutilation, the physical manifestation of the internal corruption.

But it was her voice that commanded the horror. It was no longer a human voice, not even the strained, distorted voice of traditional possession. It was the sound of a trapped wild thing, a marsupial – a possum, maybe, or a bandicoot – but amplified, twisted, imbued with ancient malice. It chittered, it scratched, it let out sudden, piercing shrieks that were part fear and part pure, unadulterated malevolence.

"He ssscratchesss... behind the eye... digsss, digsss..." the voice rasped, then dissolved into a series of rapid, clicking sounds, like claws on bone. "The pouch... ripsss open... spilllsss the young..."

The priest faltered, his eyes wide with a terror  Kym Mûryer recognized and savored. This wasn't just a demon; this was something different, something that mocked natural forms, that reveled in grotesque distortion.

"In the name of God, I command you!" the priest cried, his voice cracking.

The figure on the bed laughed, a sound like stones grinding together, before the marsupial sounds returned. "God? He is far away! The sseed grows here! Rootsss in the soft places! The punishment is just! For the lies! For the light!"

Then, the air in the room grew heavier, colder, denser. Shadows deepened independently of the light, coalescing in the corners, under the bed. A profound sense of ancient, cosmic wrongness permeated the space. The crucifix in the priest's hand grew ice-cold, and the holy water in the silver vial boiled and evaporated with a hiss.

The demon possessing Elara was a conduit, a keyhole. And through it, something vast, something truly primordial and sickeningly mature, began to exert its will. The temperature plummeted further. Frost bloomed on the windowpanes, forming intricate, unnatural patterns that resembled screaming faces. The walls seemed to breathe, the portraits twisting into leering caricatures.

Then, it appeared.

Not in a puff of smoke or a fiery display, but as a warping of reality itself. In the center of the room, the air shimmered, distorting the light, creating a vortex of pure negation. From this vortex, a form began to emerge. It wasn't a traditional horned figure; it was something more formless, more abstract, yet intensely present. It was a manifestation of pure evil, a vast, intelligent malevolence that dwarfed the possessing entity within Elara.

The possessed girl writhed on the bed, her marsupial cries now laced with a frantic, terrified edge, as if the host demon was suddenly aware of the true power it had invoked. "NO! Not him! Not the Master! He punishesss! Always punishessss!"

The vortex solidified slightly, and a head-like shape became discernible, but it was not human. It was a chaotic jumble of forms – eyes that did not belong to any known creature, mouths that split and reformed impossibly, tendrils of shadow that writhed with independent life. The repugnance emanating from it was physical, nauseating.

The priest collapsed, not struck, but simply overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the evil. His faith, his rituals, were useless before this. The parents screamed, a raw, animal sound that was swallowed by the growing presence.

 Kym Mûryer watched from the doorway, a privileged spectator in the unfolding true crime of the soul. He felt no fear, only a chilling appreciation. This was power. This was the ultimate predation. His own malevolence felt like a mere flicker compared to this ancient, rapacious darkness.

The figure on the bed began to change again, more rapidly this time. The mutilation became more horrific. Elara's skin split in places, revealing not bone and muscle, but shifting, unnatural substances. Her eyes rolled back, and from her mouth, the marsupial chittering escalated into a deafening shriek as the external presence began to consume the host demon and, through it, the girl.

"The pouch... the young... eaten!" the distorted voice shrieked one last time, then died into a gurgling wet sound.

The vortex pulsed, drawing in light, sound, everything. The air grew frigid, biting. The smell of ozone and something foul, like rotting meat left in the sun, filled the room. The true Devil, or at least, a horrifying manifestation of it, had appeared, and the exorcism had not only failed but had opened a direct channel for something far worse.

The parents could not look away, frozen by terror. The priest lay insensate on the floor. The house itself groaned, the foundations seeming to shift under the impossible weight of the entity.

 Kym Mûryer stepped further into the room, drawn by the spectacle, by the profound ripeness of the suffering and the evil. This was beyond his own mundane, earthly killing drives. This was cosmic horror intersecting with the brutal reality of a ruined family. He felt the entity's gaze fall upon him, not with surprise, but with a silent, unsettling acknowledgment of his own nature. He was a fellow traveler in darkness, albeit on a much lower rung.

The mutilation of Elara's form was complete now, leaving behind something that was no longer recognizably human, a grotesque sculpture of suffering that pulsed faintly with residual demonic energy. It was a warning, a punishment, a monument to the failed confrontation.

The true Devil's manifestation began to recede, the vortex shrinking, the light returning slightly, but the cold remained, and the foul smell intensified. The presence didn't leave entirely; it receded, leaving its mark, saturating Blackwood Manor with a darkness that had now matured into something ancient and potent.

 Kym Mûryer stood among the wreckage of the exorcism, the silence broken only by the whimpering of the parents and the soft, wet sounds emanating from the bed. His rapaciousness wasn't for the scraps of life left here; it was for the atmosphere, the thick, cloying fear, the absolute despair that coated everything like a second skin. He fed on the repugnance, on the tangible presence of evil.

Blackwood Manor was now truly claimed. The escape routes were irrelevant. The punishment had been delivered, not by a court of law, but by something far older and more terrible. The true crime wasn't just the possession or the resulting death; it was the violation of reality, the tearing of the veil, the allowing of ultimate malevolence into the world through the cracks in a family's despair.

 Kym Mûryer remained there for a time, a chilling postscript to the horror. He was part of the house now, part of its lingering curse. The darkness had matured, and he was its quiet, predatory inhabitant, waiting in the deep shadows of Blackwood Manor for the next unsuspecting soul, drawn by the house's reputation, by the whispers of a terrifying true crime, only to find that the killer was still here, and he was no longer alone. The wild marsupial sounds were gone, replaced by a silence far more profound, far more menacing – the silence of a predator sated, but always waiting.

The fog clung to the ancient oaks like a shroud, muffling the distant toll of the Hallowfield bells. In the heart of the small, neglected park, a figure sat unmoving on a bench, the cold air seemingly indifferent to his presence. His eyes were like black ice, reflecting the void of his soul. This was  Kym Mûryer, a creature who had once been a man but was now a predator of the paranormal. He was not bound by the confines of death, but driven by the very essence of fear and suffering that he had once dispensed so freely. His eyes remained fixed on Blackwood Manor, the grand, gothic mansion that loomed over the neighborhood like a decaying crown.

 Kym Mûryer knew the manor's secrets, knew the whispers of despair that echoed through its halls. The Remingtons, the family that called the place home, were shadows of their former selves. They had been torn apart by the darkness that had found a host in their youngest daughter, Elara. For weeks, he had watched, studied, and waited for the precise moment when the darkness within her would mature. And now, the night had come. The sounds from the house had changed – no longer just the cries of despair but the alien chittering of a creature that had never been meant to speak with a human tongue.

The mansion stood tall, a testament to a bygone era of opulence and tragedy. Its windows were shattered or boarded up, leaving it blind to the world outside. The ivy that clung to the crumbling stones seemed almost alive, as if it were feeding on the pain within.  Kym Mûryer felt a strange kinship with the house, a bond formed through the shared language of decay and suffering. The very air around Blackwood seemed to pulse with a sickly energy, drawing in the sinister animals of the night – rats that grew bolder, their eyes gleaming with unnatural intelligence, and cats that slunk through the underbrush with preternatural grace, their eyes reflecting the twisted light of the moon.

The gate to the mansion's grounds groaned open, the metal seeming to recoil from  Kym Mûryer's touch. He walked up the drive, his shoes crunching softly on the gravel. The house felt alive, its very stones resonating with the horror that was unfolding within. The door was ajar, the scent of incense and fear thick in the air. It was the smell of an exorcism gone awry, the scent of a family's desperation.

He climbed the staircase, the portraits on the walls watching him pass with their lifeless eyes. Each step brought him closer to the room where the true battle was taking place, where the priest's prayers and the family's sobs melded into a chorus of futility. The air grew colder, the shadows deeper, and the scent of evil more potent. It was a scent that stirred something within  Kym Mûryer, something primal and hungry. The door to Elara's room stood before him, a silent sentinel to the horrors that awaited within.

 Kym Mûryer pushed the door open, and the scene unfolded like a macabre painting. The priest lay crumpled on the floor, his cross discarded, the silver chain wrapped around his fist like a serpent that had lost its grip. The parents were in the corner, their eyes vacant, their hearts pounding in their chests as they bore silent witness to the defilement of their child. The bed was a canvas of chaos, with Elara's contorted body at its center. Her skin had become a prison for the monster inside her, stretching and tearing, revealing the alien landscape beneath.

The priest's voice, though weak, was a testament to his faith. He spoke in Latin, words that echoed through the chamber, trying to exorcise the demon that had claimed her. But it was a futile effort. The creature that responded was not one to be banished by holy incantations. Its laughter was the sound of a predator playing with its prey, a chilling reminder that this was not a battle of good versus evil, but of one malevolent force overpowering another. The very essence of the house, the darkness that  Kym Mûryer felt in his very bones, seemed to resonate with the creature's mirth.

The room grew colder still, and the shadows thickened. The air grew heavy with the scent of ancient evil, a stench that seemed to seep into  Kym Mûryer's very soul. The walls themselves trembled as the demon within Elara grew more powerful, its voice now a cacophony of wild, animalistic sounds that seemed to come from deep within the earth itself. The true horror, however, was not the demon that writhed on the bed but the realization that it was just a pawn, a vessel for something much larger and more terrifying.

The air shimmered, and a vortex of darkness began to form in the center of the room. It grew wider, deeper, the very fabric of reality seeming to warp and buckle under the pressure. The demon within Elara grew more frantic, its laughter turning to screams of terror. It knew what was coming, and it knew it could not stand against it. The true Devil, the ultimate predator, was here, and the exorcism had become its invocation. The room was a prison, the house a tomb, and the Remingtons were but witnesses to their own damnation.

The vortex grew, and the form that began to emerge was unlike anything  Kym Mûryer had ever seen. It had no true shape, no discernible features beyond the endless array of eyes and mouths that twisted and writhed in an ever-changing pattern. The priest's cries of denial were lost in the symphony of fear that filled the room, and the parents' silent screams were muted by the sheer scale of the horror that stood before them.

The entity spoke, and its voice was the sound of the universe's first scream. It spoke of punishment and the consumption of lies, of the darkness that grew in the soft, hidden places of the soul. The room was now a stage for the ultimate true crime, the kind that left no physical evidence but instead etched its story into the very fabric of reality.

The demon within Elara struggled, but it was no match for the power that had come to claim it. The girl's body convulsed, the shadows dancing across her skin, her eyes rolling back to reveal only white. Her limbs stretched and snapped, her mouth opened in a silent scream that seemed to go on forever. The demon's energy was consumed, leaving only the shell of a child, a grim reminder of the cost of inviting evil into one's life.

 Kym Mûryer stepped closer, his eyes gleaming with a newfound hunger. This was not the fear and despair he was used to feeding on; this was something else entirely. It was the essence of true horror, the kind that did not need death to claim its prize. The room was alive with it, the very air crackling with the electricity of fear. The priest lay unconscious, the parents catatonic, but  Kym Mûryer felt more alive than he had in centuries.

The vortex began to shrink, the entity's form retreating back into the void from which it had come. The house groaned and creaked, as if in mourning for the innocence it had lost. The true Devil had left its mark, and Blackwood Manor would never be the same. The room grew quiet, save for the slow dribble of fluids from Elara's mutilated body and the faint, terrified whimpers of the Remingtons. The priest stirred, his eyes glazed over with horror, his mouth moving in silent prayer.

 Kym Mûryer stepped closer to the bed, his cold breath misting in the frigid air. He reached out a hand, not to comfort the girl or her parents, but to touch the residue of power left behind by the entity. It was like plunging into a frozen river, a cold so intense it burned. He reveled in it, feeling his own malevolence swell in response. This was his element, the very essence of what he was. He was not the hunted anymore; he was part of the hunt, a piece of the darkness that had claimed Blackwood Manor.

The priest found his voice, a hoarse whisper that scraped against the walls. "What have we done?"

 Kym Mûryer turned to him, a twisted smile playing on his lips. "You've brought the true darkness into the light. You've given it a place to grow."

The parents could not speak, their eyes wide and unseeing, their minds shattered by the events that had unfolded. They were as dead as their daughter, though their bodies still drew breath. The house had claimed them all.

The room grew colder, the shadows deeper. The stench of fear and despair was palpable, thick like a fog in the lungs. The priest managed to push himself to his feet, his legs wobbly. "We must leave," he croaked. "This is not a place for the living."

 Kym Mûryer chuckled, the sound echoing through the room like the caw of a raven. "But where would you go? The darkness follows you now. It's part of you, as it's part of me."

The priest staggered towards the door, dragging the Remingtons with him, their bodies moving as if pulled by invisible strings. They stumbled down the stairs, the house seemingly alive around them, whispering threats and promises of pain. The animals watched them go, their eyes gleaming with malicious intent. The escape routes they sought were illusions, the house itself the ultimate trap.

As they reached the front door, the priest turned back, his eyes finding  Kym Mûryer, who still hovered in the shadows. "What are you?"

 Kym Mûryer stepped into the moonlight, his features stark and terrifying. "I am the punishment for your curiosity, your arrogance. I am the embodiment of the fear you sought to banish. I am the predator that feeds on the despair you've invited in."

The priest's eyes widened, and he understood. They had not just failed to save Elara; they had unleashed a horror that would consume them all. The door slammed shut, trapping them inside, and the house let out a low, satisfied growl.

The exorcism had gone wrong in the most profound way imaginable. The true crime was not just the possession of a young girl; it was the opening of a gateway to a world of unspeakable evil. And now,  Kym Mûryer was the guardian of that gateway, a living, breathing embodiment of the fear they had tried so desperately to fight. The night grew darker, the air more oppressive, and the sounds of the wild, sinister nature outside grew louder. The Devil had come to Blackwood, and he had brought with him a new kind of horror that would haunt the town for generations to come. The mansion's walls were soaked in the repugnance of fear, and  Kym Mûryer reveled in it, his rapaciousness growing with every heartbeat of terror that echoed within its chilling embrace.

By Carlos del Puente relatos