NUEVO_CHAPTER_1_SAFE

 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  

 The air hung thick and stagnant around Blackwood Manor, a decaying husk of a house that sagged under the weight of its own grim history. Moss like weeping black fuzz clung to crumbling stone, and skeletal trees clawed at the perpetually grey sky. Locals whispered of the place, of the Mûryer family lineage steeped in shadowed deeds, and most importantly, of Kym.

Kym Mûryer. The name itself was a rusty hinge, creaking open a door onto a history best left undisturbed. He wasn't just a murderer; he was the murderer, a predator whose reign of terror centuries ago was punctuated by a rapacious hunger that went beyond mere bloodlust. He’d been caught, eventually, though the details were murky – whispers of an attempted exorcism, a desperate, forbidden rite performed by fearful, ignorant priests who thought they could chain the darkness.

They were wrong. Terribly, spectacularly wrong.

The exorcism, the true crime at the heart of Blackwood's curse, had summoned something far greater than the malevolence clinging to Kym Mûryer. It was said the Devil himself had appeared, not in fiery grandeur, but as a chill wind that extinguished every candle, a voice that slithered into the priests' minds, twisting their faith into gibbering madness before their bodies were found, grotesquely mutilated, scattered through the adjacent wild nature. Kym, instead of being purged, had been transformed. Bound to the lower depths, yet not truly dead, anchored to the manor, a vessel of pure repugnance and fear, forever activated by the lingering power of that failed rite. They called him vampire, though his needs were more complex than blood; he fed on terror, on pain, on the very essence of life he stole.

He lay dormant for decades, perhaps centuries, a coiled spring of malevolence within the manor's deepest, most protected chamber – the old sacristy where the exorcism had occurred. The room was sealed, warded with symbols meant to contain, but which, perhaps, only served to concentrate the horror.

Tonight, however, something shifted. A group of trespassers, urban explorers driven by morbid curiosity and a foolish dismissal of legend, had breached the sacristy for the first time in living memory. They were young vampires of modernity, feeding on thrills and posting their sacrilege online. Their foolish presence, their naive violation of the charged space, acted as the trigger.

Deep within the stone vault, where Kym Mûryer’s corrupted remains lay bound in chains of ancient, tarnished silver, a ripple went through the air. The scent of decay intensified, curdling the already stale atmosphere. Dust motes in the beams of the explorers' flashlights danced like frantic, tiny specters. Outside, in the wild nature that pressed in on the manor, the night sounds twisted. What should have been the rustling of leaves became a dry, scuttling whisper. The calls of nocturnal creatures fragmented into chitters and screeches that held an unnerving, almost human cadence, horribly reminiscent of marsupials wild, possessed by a collective, evil glee. They were listening. The sinister animals of the grounds were the Devil’s ears.

Inside the sacristy, the lead explorer, a pale young man named Finn, shone his light on the chained form. It was skeletal, draped in rags that might once have been formal wear, but were now little more than grave-shroud. Yet, it wasn't quite dead. A faint, unholy glow pulsed beneath the ribcage.

"Holy hell," whispered Maya, another of the group, her voice trembling. "Is that... real?"

As Finn reached out a tentative hand towards the form, a low, guttural sound rumbled from the chained figure. It was the sound of ancient stone grinding, of bone shifting against itself after too long.

And then, Kym Mûryer was activated.

His body reacted not with a slow, spectral rise, but with a sudden, violent burst. Like a spring compressed for centuries and suddenly released, his limbs snapped taut against the chains. The silver bindings groaned, links stretching taut, threatening to shatter. His head jerked back, exposing a throat like gnarled wood, a cavernous mouth splitting open in a soundless scream of unleashed force. Muscle, withered and dry, rediscovered a grotesque parody of life. His spine arced, ribs pressing against the thin, leathery skin. It was a convulsion of pure, concentrated malevolence, a physical manifestation of the darkness that had matured within him.

The explorers stumbled back, their flashlights shaking wildly. The air grew colder, the scent of decay replaced by something sharp and metallic – the scent of old blood, of rapacious hunger awakening. The chains didn't break, not entirely, but they stretched, allowing Kym’s torso to lurch forward, his head snapping down. Empty sockets, deep as boreholes into darkness, fixed on the living flesh before him.

A low hiss escaped his split lips, revealing jagged, stained teeth. It wasn't just the chains that held him; there were wards carved into the stone floor, shimmering faintly under the dust. He was contained, but only just. And his activation meant the containment was failing. The sacristy wasn't just a prison; it was a pressure cooker, and Kym was the entity reaching critical mass.

Panic seized the explorers. "Get out! Get out!" screeched Leo, fumbling with the heavy wooden door they had forced open.

Their escape routes were becoming clearer now: the way they came in. But the house itself seemed to resist. Shadows deepened in corners, making familiar paths seem alien. The chilling marsupial-like whispers from outside seemed closer, wrapping around the manor walls.

Kym strained against the silver. The metal began to smoke where it touched his skin, but his defiance was absolute. He was centuries of pent-up rage, of predatory instinct honed to a razor's edge by supernatural corruption. He wanted. He needed. And he was close to taking.

One of the explorers, Sarah, fumbled with her phone, trying to record the impossible sight. Her flashlight beam jittered across Kym's face. It was a face of nightmares, skin stretched tight over bone, a rictus of hatred etched deep. Patches of flesh were missing, revealing blackened bone or glistening tendon – relics of his death, or perhaps the failed exorcism's price. He was mutilated, a walking, breathing (though he didn't seem to breathe) testament to horror.

With a final, horrific PING, a link of the silver chain snapped. It flew across the room, embedding itself in the ancient plaster wall with the force of a bullet. Kym's left arm was free.

It shot out with impossible speed, skeletal fingers tipped with long, yellowed nails reaching for the nearest source of warmth and life – Finn. Finn screamed, stumbling back, but the hand was too fast. It clamped onto his ankle.

The cold was immediate, absolute. It wasn't just physical frigidity; it was a soul-deep frigidness that radiated from Kym, drawing the heat and life from Finn's body. A ghastly gurgling sound came from Kym's throat, the sound of unnatural feeding.

"Cut him free!" Maya yelled, fumbling for the utility knife she carried.

But Kym was pulling, dragging Finn towards the sarcophagus-like stone stand he was chained to. His other arm, still bound, strained. The wards on the floor beneath him began to flicker, the lines of power unstable under the immense pressure of his activated form.

The whispers from outside escalated, becoming a chittering chorus of anticipation, a wild, possessed symphony of evil cheering on its champion. It was the sound of the darkness maturing, the sound of punishment descending.

Maya reached Finn, hacking desperately at the rags around his ankle where Kym's hand gripped. Finn's screams were weakening, turning into whimpers. His face was paling, his skin taking on a grey, waxy sheen. Kym's empty eye sockets seemed to glow with an internal fire.

Leo was frozen by the door, unable to move, trapped by the sheer repugnance and fear emanating from the creature. Sarah, phone still recording, backed into a corner, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

With a final, agonizing tug, Kym wrenched Finn's leg, pulling him fully onto the stone stand. Another chain link snapped, this time freeing the other arm. Kym was now only anchored by the thick chains around his neck and waist. It was enough.

He hunched over Finn, the sound of his feeding becoming louder, a wet, slurping sound that mixed with guttural, non-human growls. It wasn't just life he was taking; it felt like memories, hope, the very color of existence was being drained from Finn's being. His body twisted in a final, silent agony before going limp.

Kym raised his head, his jaw smeared with something dark and viscous. His empty sockets now held a terrifying vitality, a predatory gleam. He looked at Maya and Sarah, a chilling intelligence in those vacant eyes. The rapacious hunger was far from sated. It had only just begun.

Maya finally managed to cut through the rags, but it was too late. Finn was gone. She scrambled backwards, knife in hand, facing the activated monster.

"Leave us alone!" she screamed, a pathetic, desperate sound.

Kym titled his head, a gesture of malevolent curiosity. He didn't need to speak. The air vibrated with his presence, with the echoes of the failed exorcism, with the chilling whisper of the Devil's fleeting appearance centuries ago, a whisper that had never entirely left these walls.

He unclenched his hand from Finn's now-useless ankle. The limb was shriveled, cold, the skin tight and translucent. He lowered himself from the stone stand, the chains dragging and scraping across the floor. The wards beneath him flared violently, fighting against his movement, but his sheer defiance seemed to override them.

They had found an escape route into the sacristy; now they desperately needed one out of the manor. But the house knew. The sinister family house was waking with its master. Corridors shifted slightly, doors they thought were exits led to locked rooms. The wild nature outside pressed closer, the possessed chittering growing into a frenzy. There was no escape from the punishment they had unleashed.

Kym Mûryer moved surprisingly fast, a loping, unnatural gait, like a broken marionette animated by pure hate. He was the embodiment of true crime twisted into paranormal horror, a dead man walking (or loping) with vampiric needs and a killer's instinct amplified by centuries of dark power.

Maya and Sarah scrambled towards the door, but Kym was closer. He didn't rush; he stalked, a predator relishing the hunt. His head swivelled, tracking their movements, the empty sockets missing nothing. The darkness in the room wasn't just absence of light; it was a palpable entity, clinging to Kym, emanating from him. The mature darkness had found its master again.

Sarah tripped, falling back against the wall, her phone clattering away, its light going out. She cried out as Kym loomed over her, the awful smell of him – graveyard dirt, decay, something metallic and sickeningly sweet – overwhelming her senses.

Maya lunged, swinging her small knife wildly. It wasn't a weapon against this. It was defiance, futile but necessary. Kym batted her away with a casual backhand, sending her flying across the room to crash against a stack of ancient, dust-laden books.

He turned back to Sarah. Her screams were sharp, piercing, but quickly muffled. The wet, tearing sounds that followed were lost to the rising chorus of possessed marsupial-calls from outside, a cacophony of evil celebrating the feast.

Maya lay where she'd landed, bruised and bleeding, the taste of dust and fear thick in her mouth. She couldn't see anything clearly in the gloom, but the sounds told her everything she needed to know. The true horror of Kym Mûryer, of the failed exorcism, of the Devil's lingering touch on this place, wasn't just visual; it was auditory, olfactory, a complete assault on the senses, leaving only repugnance and fear in its wake.

She knew there were theoretically escape routes, ways out of the manor. But she also knew, with a chilling certainty that settled deep in her bones, that Kym Mûryer, activated and unleashed, was the ultimate obstacle. He was the punishment, the consequence of disturbing centuries of settled, malevolent darkness.

Through the sounds of butchery, Maya heard a final, horrific snap. Then silence, save for Kym’s continued, wet feeding and the relentless, wild chittering from the surrounding nature. The darkness was complete now, mature and heavy. Kym Mûryer was fully awake, fully activated, the coiled spring of pure evil unfurled. And Blackwood Manor, his sinister family house, was once again his hunting ground. Maya knew, with a certainty that chilled her to the core, that her own escape was no longer a matter of finding exits, but of surviving the attention of a predator that fed on life itself, a vampire born of a failed holy rite and the Devil's touch, a true crime resurrected as paranormal terror. The night had turned cold, and Kym Mûryer was very, very hungry.

"Guys, guys, check this out," called out Leo, his flashlight beam bouncing erratically as he pushed through the overgrown foliage. The crumbling stone path leading to Blackwood Manor was barely visible, but the thrill of the forbidden was a beacon that guided them forward.

Maya and Sarah exchanged nervous glances before following, the excitement in Leo's voice a stark contrast to the oppressive silence that had settled over the group as they approached the decaying edifice. It was a silence filled with the whispers of untold horrors, the kind that sent shivers down their spines. They had heard the stories, of course – the whispers of a murderer named Kym Mûryer, the failed exorcism, the curse that had clung to the Mûryer family line like a shroud – but they had dismissed them as mere legend, the kind of tall tales that grew more terrifying with each retelling.

Yet, as they stepped into the manor, the air grew thick, as if it were charged with the very essence of malevolence. The house groaned around them, as if alive, a sinister creature that resented their intrusion. The walls, draped in cobwebs that shimmered with the dust of centuries, seemed to lean in, whispering secrets of shadowed deeds long past.

"Remember, this is just for the 'Gram," said Maya, trying to keep her voice steady. "We're just urban explorers, not ghost hunters."

"Right," agreed Sarah, her voice a squeak. "We're not actually going to, like, wake anything up."

The group of urban explorers, led by Leo, ventures into Blackwood Manor, ignoring the ominous atmosphere and stories of Kym Mûryer. Despite Maya's attempt to reassure them, the air is heavy with malevolence, and the house feels alive with ancient secrets whispering around them.

Leo chuckled, the sound echoing eerily through the cavernous entryway. "As if this place isn't already dead."

But something stirred within the house's bowels, something ancient and hungry. It had lain dormant for so long, the chains of a forgotten exorcism wrapped tightly around its being, holding it in check. But the trespassers' presence had tickled its senses, whispered sweet nothings of fear and defiance into its soul.

Kym Mûryer, the predator, the killer, the vampire that was so much more than just a creature of the night, felt the shift in the air. The darkness that had matured within him began to pulse, eager to be free, to claim new prey. The chains around his neck tightened, the silver links biting into his desiccated flesh as his skeletal form strained against its confines.

The manor's wild nature – the rats, the bats, the creeping vines – grew still, listening for the voice of the master they had not heard in so long. The sinister animals of the grounds, twisted by the same dark power that had shaped Kym, grew restless. They knew the sound of their own kind, the rapacious hunger that called to them, the promise of punishment for those who dared disturb the sanctity of the sinister family house.

Kym Mûryer, a being bound by a failed exorcism, reacts to the explorers' intrusion. His malevolent energy pulses as the house's wild nature, also affected by the dark power, grows still and anticipatory.

And so, in the deepest, most secret chamber, the true horror began to unfold. The room where the exorcism had gone wrong, where the Devil's jaw had been felt by the trembling priests, was now the stage for a new confrontation. Kym Mûryer, the monster born of holy failure, was about to be activated once more. The chains that bound him groaned, the wards on the floor flickered, and outside, the possessed animals grew wild with anticipation.

The night was about to get a whole lot darker.

Leo's light played over the dust-covered stones of the sealed chamber, revealing the mutilated form of Kym Mûryer. Chains of tarnished silver, etched with ancient symbols of containment, held the creature in a semblance of a man. But the true nature of what lay before them was anything but human. It was a living embodiment of the evil they had unwittingly activated by their intrusion.

The moment they had stepped into the room, the air had turned colder, as if the very essence of the house was drawing in a deep, shuddering breath. The shadows grew denser, the cobwebs thickening into a tapestry of malevolence that seemed to pulse with an unearthly life. The whispers of the wild nature outside grew louder, the sinister animals of the grounds responding to the call of their ancient master. They had become the Devil's ears, eager to listen for the voice that would set them free to serve once more.

Maya and Sarah stared, horror-struck, as Kym's body spasmed with a newfound energy, the chains that had kept him in check for centuries straining and popping as the power of the failed exorcism was unleashed. His head snapped forward, the jaw unhinging in a silent, soundless scream that sent a shiver down their spines. The rags that clung to his skeletal frame fluttered with the intensity of his rage, revealing the full extent of his monstrous form.

He was a creature of nightmare, a predator that had fed on fear and pain for so long that his very essence was a miasma of terror. The house itself seemed to pulse with excitement, the walls closing in, the floor tilting beneath their feet, as if eager to offer its new guests to the monster it had nurtured for so long.

The group of trespassers turned to flee, but the manor had other plans. The corridors twisted, the doors they had so confidently pushed open now blocked by unseen forces, the escape routes they had memorized now leading them in a dizzying maze of despair. The house had come alive with malicious intent, eager to mete out the punishment they so richly deserved.

Kym's eyes, once hollow sockets of emptiness, now gleamed with a predatory light. His jaws snapped shut, and the silence was broken by a low, guttural growl that resonated through the chamber. The chains around his neck tightened, cutting deeper into the desiccated flesh as he pulled himself to his feet. The wards beneath his booted feet flickered and died, no longer able to contain the horror that had been born from their own misguidance.

The wild nature outside had gone utterly silent, the chittering of the possessed animals swallowed by the void that was Kym Mûryer. They knew what was coming, the punishment that would be meted out for disturbing the sanctity of the sinister family house. The darkness had matured, and it was hungry.

Finn lay still and cold on the floor, his life essence drained, leaving only a desiccated husk. The smell of death filled the chamber, a cloying perfume that mingled with the odor of decay and the metallic tang of fear. The vampire, now fully activated, turned to face the remaining interlopers, the chains around his waist clanking with each deliberate step.

Maya and Sarah's hearts raced in their chests, the thunder of panic drowning out all other sound. They were no longer the curious explorers seeking thrills; they were prey, and Kym was the hunter. His gaze fell upon them, a promise of agony and eternal torment.

In that moment, the true story of Blackwood Manor, of the real exorcism that went wrong when the Devil himself appeared, became their living nightmare. The house was a prison for an evil that had been allowed to fester and grow, and now it had been unleashed.

They had to get out. They had to somehow find their way through the labyrinth of corridors that now felt like the very bowels of hell itself. But the house was alive with the malice of its former inhabitant, the walls whispering of their inevitable fate. The chains that bound Kym Mûryer were a part of him, an extension of his twisted soul, and now that he was activated, they were a part of the manor's very fabric. They clanked in a rhythmic, taunting symphony, echoing through the halls as he stalked closer.

Maya and Sarah clutched each other, their flashlights bobbing wildly, casting erratic shadows that danced like malevolent puppets on the walls. They stumbled through the darkness, desperation fueling their panic. The floor beneath them felt alive, shifting and buckling as if the very house itself sought to trip them up, to offer them to Kym. His eyes, now gleaming with a cold, otherworldly light, tracked them without blinking, a promise of the punishment that awaited.

The chittering from outside grew louder, more insistent, a cacophony of sinister animals, the wild nature of the grounds now an extension of Kym's power. They were his eyes, his hands, his teeth in the dark. They could feel the malevolent gaze of the creatures, their tiny, sharp eyes gleaming with the same hunger that burned within the vampire.

Their escape plans had been naive, a mere game played with fate. Now, they faced the horror that had been born of a real exorcism gone wrong, the true face of the evil they had so flippantly dismissed. The devil's jaw had left its mark on this place, and now it had claimed them as its own.

The darkness grew denser, the air thick with the stench of decay and the metallic tang of blood. The house was closing in, the walls seemingly shrinking, the very air turning to a thick, viscous substance that clung to their skin. The once-still night outside was a maelstrom of sound, a wild symphony of snarls and hisses, the natural world gone mad with the matured darkness that had been unleashed.

Maya's hand found a cold, metal door handle, and she pulled, her heart racing. It didn't budge. They were trapped, the manor's prison now their tomb. The chains around Kym's waist rattled as he approached, the sound a death knell that seemed to resonate through their very bones.

Suddenly, a piercing scream tore through the night, a human sound that seemed to cut through the madness of the wild nature outside. It was a sound of pure terror, a sound that sent the creatures into a frenzy. It was the sound of one of them – it had to be Leo – and it was coming from somewhere above them.

The two girls looked at each other, their eyes wide with hope and horror. Could they split up? Could they somehow distract the monster and escape? The scream grew louder, closer, and with a sickening thud, something heavy and lifeless hit the floorboards above. The house groaned in response, the very wood seeming to absorb the sound and amplify it, sending shudders through the room.

Kym paused, his head cocked to one side. The chains around his neck tightened, cutting deeper into his decayed flesh as he listened. His head snapped up, the sound of his neck crackling like a dry twig. His gaze locked onto the girls, his intent clear.

They had to move, now, or become part of the Blackwood Manor's grisly history. They had to find a way to survive this nightmare, to somehow outsmart the predator that had made this sinister family house its lair. They had to become the prey that escaped, the survivors of a tale that would be whispered with a mix of terror and awe for generations to come.

But as they turned to run, the floor beneath them gave way, and they plummeted into the abyss, the darkness swallowing them whole. The last thing they heard was the echo of Kym Mûryer's laugh, a sound that chilled their very souls. The house had claimed another set of lives to sate its hunger for fear.

The wild nature outside, once so eager for the hunt, grew eerily still. The sinister animals paused, their calls dying in their throats. They had heard the laugh of their master, the sound of the hunted becoming the hunted. And in that moment, they knew that the night was young, and the feast had only just begun. The darkness grew denser, the air thick with the scent of matured evil. It was as if the very fabric of the night had been torn open to reveal the abyss beneath, and Kym Mûryer reveled in it.

Maya and Sarah fell through the floorboards, their screams muffled by the dust and decay that filled the space below. They landed in a basement, a labyrinth of cobwebs and shadow. The walls were lined with ancient, moldering tomes and artifacts, relics of the Mûryer family's twisted history. The air was thick with the stench of death and despair, a scent that seemed to excite Kym as he descended the stairs, his chains clanking with each step. The basement was a chamber of horrors, a museum of true crime that whispered its secrets to those who dared listen.

The girls stumbled through the dark, their flashlights flickering with each terrified breath. They knew they had to find a way out, but the house was a living maze, its walls seemingly shifting to thwart their every move. They could hear Kym's unearthly growls, feel the coldness of his presence as it grew closer. The floor was sticky with some unknown substance, and the walls seemed to press in, suffocating them with the weight of their own fear.

As they rounded a corner, a glimmer of hope pierced the gloom. A door, slightly ajar, beckoned them with the promise of escape. They stumbled towards it, their legs trembling with the effort of their flight. But as they approached, the door slammed shut with a bone-jarring finality, the sound echoing through the chamber like a gunshot. The house had other plans for them. It had fed them into the maw of its most terrifying secret, and now it would watch them squirm.

The floor beneath them gave way again, plunging them into a pit of bone and earth. The chains around Kym's waist snapped, the last vestige of the failed exorcism's power shattering with the finality of a tomb being sealed. He was free, fully activated, and ready to claim his new prey. The girls screamed, their voices joining the symphony of horror that had haunted Blackwood Manor for centuries.

The pit was filled with the desiccated remains of those who had come before them, their bones picked clean by the manor's wild inhabitants. The walls were slick with some unspeakable residue, and the earth was cold and unforgiving. They had fallen into the belly of the beast, and now they had to find a way out. But as they clambered over the brittle bones, the earth began to tremble. The sinister animals outside were no longer just watching; they were eager to join in the hunt, their chittering now a cacophony of hunger and excitement.

The girls huddled together, their flashlights casting weak pools of light in the impenetrable dark. They knew they were out of their depth, that the house was alive with a malice they couldn't begin to fathom. They had disturbed the grave of a monster, and now they would pay the price. The air grew colder, the chains around Kym's neck tightening, drawing him closer. The darkness was no longer just a void; it had become a living, breathing entity, eager to consume them.

Their hearts pounding, their breaths coming in ragged gasps, Maya and Sarah stared into the abyss of the pit, the earth around them trembling with Kym's approach. The walls of the pit were lined with the desperate scratches of those who had come before, those who had hoped for escape but found only the cold embrace of the earth. The floor was a jumble of brittle bones, some human, some not, all telling the same grisly tale of the house's rapacious hunger for fear and pain.

Above them, the sinister animals grew louder, their whispers now a frenzied chant. They could feel the vibrations of their master's approach, his malevolence a palpable force that seemed to thicken the very air. The wild nature outside had gone mad, driven to a frenzy by the matured darkness that now suffused the manor. They were more than animals; they were the eyes and ears of the Devil, eager to serve the monster that had been unleashed within.

The two girls scrambled to their feet, their flashlights casting erratic shadows on the walls. They had to find a way out, had to somehow evade the predator that stalked them. The pit was a trap, a grim reminder of the true nature of the house they had invaded. The escape routes they had so confidently discussed now seemed like the cruelest of jokes played by the very stones themselves.

Maya spotted a narrow tunnel leading away from the pit, a sliver of hope in the suffocating darkness. "This way," she whispered to Sarah, her voice trembling. They stumbled forward, the ground beneath them feeling more like the gullet of some vast, malevolent creature than solid earth. The tunnel was low, forcing them to crawl, the damp earth pressing down on them, the smell of decay thick in their nostrils. It was as if the house itself was trying to swallow them, to keep them within its stomach of despair.

As they crawled, the whispers grew louder, the voice of the Devil echoing through the walls. They could feel the chains that had once bound Kym now snaking through the earth around them, seeking them out, eager to ensnare and bring them to their doom. The darkness grew more intense, the air thick with the stench of the grave, the very essence of the evil that had been born here centuries ago.

The tunnel grew narrower, the walls closing in until they scraped against their sides. Panic set in, a cold, claustrophobic terror that threatened to consume them. They could hear the chains clanking, feel the ground trembling as Kym approached. The house was alive with the horror of its past, every stone and beam pulsing with the malice that had been contained within the sealed chamber.

The girls pushed on, the walls of the tunnel seeming to close in on them. They had to keep moving, had to find a way out before the monster that had been born of a real exorcism gone wrong found them. The story of Kym Mûryer was no longer a thrilling piece of true crime lore; it was their living, breathing nightmare.

Suddenly, the ground gave way beneath them, and they fell into a chamber, a room of ancient stone and flickering torchlight. The walls were adorned with the twisted, tortured forms of the damned, their faces contorted in silent screams of eternal torment. This was the heart of the manor, the chamber where the exorcism had taken place, where the Devil's jaw had left its mark, and now the room pulsed with the power of the creature they had awakened.

Kym Mûryer stood before them, his body fully activated, his chains now a part of him, twisting and moving as if they were serpents of living silver. His mutilated form was a testament to the power of the evil that had taken root here, an entity that fed on the very essence of terror. He had become the living embodiment of the house's sinister legacy.

The chains that had once bound him were now his weapons, his servants. They lashed out like whips, cracking through the air, searching for their next victim. Maya and Sarah had no choice but to face the monster they had unleashed. The escape they had sought was no longer an option; now, it was a matter of survival.

By Carlos del Puente relatos

The house stood on a skeletal ridge, a testament to expired ambition and enduring malice. Blackened timbers, like charred bones, clawed at the perpetually bruised sky. This was Blackwood Manor, infamous not just for its isolation, but for the man who had stained its history like an indelible bloodstain: Kym Mûryer. They said his screams, on the night they finally cornered him in the cellar, were unlike anything human. They were, so the whispers claimed, a silence filled with horrors.

Dr. Alistair Finch, a man whose face seemed etched with the weight of countless sleepless nights and whose eyes held the weary wisdom of a seasoned demonologist, felt the cold bite of the air long before the car crunched on the gravel drive. With him were Father Michael, a young priest whose faith was as yet untested by true, primordial evil; Elara Vance, a parapsychologist whose equipment hummed with nervous energy; and Ben Carter, a stoic, pragmatic investigator obsessed with linking the gruesome ‘true crime’ past of Mûryer to the undeniable paranormal reports swirling around the house.

Their collective mission was audacious, perhaps suicidal: an exorcism. Not just of a simple possessing entity, but of the profound, ancient malevolence that clung to Blackwood like a second skin, the same darkness believed to have birthed Kym Mûryer's monstrous rapaciousness. Mûryer himself was long dead, caught in the act of his final, unspeakable mutilation in the very house they now approached. But the whispers hadn't died. They festered, grew, and sometimes, people claimed, solidified into palpable terror.

The house groaned welcome as they stepped onto the veranda, a sound like the death rattle of something enormous and forgotten. Inside, the air was thick, cold despite the late summer heat outside. Dust motes danced in the few shafts of light piercing the grimed windows, like restless spirits. The silence wasn't just the absence of noise; it was a heavy, oppressive entity, a presence that pressed against their eardrums, waiting.

This was the silence Kym Mûryer was said to have screamed.

They set up their equipment in the central hall, a cavernous space dominated by a staircase that spiraled into shadow. Elara's meters immediately spiked. EMFs off the charts, temperature fluctuations violent and localized. Ben, ever the pragmatist, examined the scratches on the walls, the splintered floorboards – physical evidence of despair and struggle. "Looks like something tried to get out," he muttered, tracing a deep gouge near a sealed window. Escape routes. The house felt like a trap.

As dusk bled into night, the silence began to change. It deepened, growing heavier, and within it, faint, almost imperceptible sounds began to stir. Not voices, not at first. More like rustling, skittering, the sounds of things low to the ground, moving in the dark. The house groaned again, a resonant vibration that seemed to come from its very foundations. A bat, impossibly large and black, flitted past a landing window, its silhouette grotesque against the dying light. Sinister animals. Elara’s audio recorders picked up faint, rhythmic scraping from the floorboards above.

They had located the epicentre of the activity in the largest upstairs bedroom, a room that reeked of decay and something else, something metallic and foul. Here, the air crackled with hostile energy. They found a doll on a rocking chair, its porcelain face smashed, rags draped over its eyes. It wasn't just creepy; it felt deliberately, actively malevolent. This room, they had deduced from fragmented case notes and local legends, was where Mûryer had kept some of his victims. The thought sent a shiver of profound repugnance down Alistair's spine.

Their 'subject' for the exorcism wasn't physically present in the traditional sense. There was no possessed individual writhing on a bed. The house was the subject. The entity, or entities, was woven into the very fabric of the structure, a culmination of Mûryer's evil deeds and the ancient, rapacious power that had perhaps guided his hand. The plan was to confront the force directly, to attempt to sever its hold on this place and, by extension, on the lingering echoes of Mûryer’s malevolence.

As the hour approached midnight, they gathered in the cursed bedroom. Alistair prepared his holy water, oils, and sacramentary. Father Michael clutched his crucifix, his knuckles white. Elara armed her cameras and audio gear. Ben stood guard by the door, a shotgun loaded not with buckshot, but with rock salt – a symbolic, psychological weapon against the unseen.

Alistair began the ritual, his voice steady, Latin rolling through the putrid air. The silence initially deepened, pressing in like a physical weight. Then, the rustling sounds intensified. They weren't just in the walls now; they seemed to be under the floor, in the corners, everywhere at once. It was the sound of unseen things, scurrying, hissing, a low, guttural chittering.

And then, the voices began.

They didn't speak words. They were a cacophony of distorted, unnatural sounds, emerging from the air itself, from the shadows, from within the walls. Hisses, snarls, high-pitched squeals that ended in choked gasps. It was profoundly disorienting, terrifyingly alien. Alistair faltered for a second, sweat beading on his brow. "They listen to the voice of evil possessed," Elara whispered, her voice strained, referencing an old, obscure text they had consulted. "As marsupials wild."

The description clicked with horrifying clarity. The sounds were like nothing human, nothing domesticated. They were the sounds of creatures driven mad by fear and rage, feral, wild, tearing at one another in the perpetual darkness of the bush – the snarling of Tasmanian devils, the shrieks of opossums, the panicked scrabbling of bandicoots. But twisted, amplified, dripping with malevolence. It was the voice of pure, wild repugnance.

Father Michael held his crucifix higher, his face pale but resolute. "In the name of God!" he intoned, his voice trembling slightly.

The response was immediate and violent. The air turned frigid, dropping dozens of degrees in an instant. The rocking chair with the mutilated doll began to rock violently, though no one touched it. The scurrying sounds escalated to a frantic banging and scratching from within the walls, as if something enormous and enraged was trying to get out.

Then, the silence broke completely.

It was not a scream of pain, or fear, or even human rage. It was a sound that simultaneously existed and did not exist – Kym Mûryer’s scream. It was silent to the ears, yet it roared directly into their minds, a torrent of whispers. Whispers of flayed skin, of broken bones, of fear so absolute it ceased to be sound and became pure, agonizing sensation. Whispers of pleasures derived from torment, of absolute control over another's final moments. Whispers of an ancient hunger, rapaciousness, that had found fertile ground in Mûryer's soul.

It was the sound of the unspeakable horrors he had committed, distilled, amplified, and broadcast directly into their consciousness by the entity that resided here.

This was the exorcism going wrong. Terribly wrong.

Alistair’s eyes widened in dawning horror. This wasn't a demon possessing a person. This was a primal force of the darkness mature, ancient and immense, a predator that had merely used Kym Mûryer as a tool. They weren't trying to cast out a demon; they were provoking something far, far older and more powerful.

The air thickened further, becoming heavy, viscous. A profound sense of dread washed over them, suffocating, absolute. The temperature plummeted again, and a swirling patch of absolute blackness began to coalesce in the corner of the room, deeper than any shadow.

"It's... it's not a demon," Alistair gasped, lowering his sacramentary, his face a mask of terror. "It's... it is the Devil." Or at least, a manifestation of its pure, unadulterated malevolence, drawn by the amplification of Kym Mûryer's ultimate evil.

The silence became complete again, but now it was filled with a single, overwhelming presence radiating pure repugnance and terror. The whispers ceased, replaced by the crushing weight of an intelligence that was vast, ancient, and utterly, cosmically evil. It didn't need to scream like Kym Mûryer; its presence was the scream of the void, the silence where God was absent.

The air rippled above the emerging blackness, and for a horrifying second, they saw something shift within it – a shape that defied geometry, a suggestion of eyes that saw everything and cared for nothing, a mouth that was an infinite tear in reality. The sounds of the wild marsupials returned, amplified tenfold, tearing through their sanity. It was the sound of the entity laughing, or perhaps the sound of its hunger.

Ben raised his shotgun, sweat pouring down his face. It felt utterly useless. This wasn't something you could shoot.

"Leave," the presence seemed to say, not with words, but with a brutal, psychic force that slammed into their minds. "He was mine. This is mine. My punishment. My playground."

The mutilated doll on the rocking chair snapped its head towards them, its broken face now seeming to grin with impossible malevolence.

Panic erupted. The house shuddered as if struck by an earthquake. Plaster rained down. The floorboards beneath them began to buckle, revealing not darkness, but writhing shadows that seemed to claw upwards. The sounds of wild marsupials were now deafening, inside their heads and all around them, a choir of pure, feral evil.

"We have to go!" Elara screamed, grabbing her equipment. Her cameras flickered, showing nothing but static and distorted, fleeting images of dismembered limbs.

They scrambled towards the door, but the handle was impossibly hot, searing their flesh. Ben kicked it, but it was as if kicking solid rock. The house was sealing itself. The escape routes were closing.

The blackness in the corner expanded rapidly, pouring across the floor like sentient ink. Within its depths, shapes began to form – fleeting, horrifying glimpses of Kym Mûryer's victims, their forms twisted, mutilated, screaming the soundless screams alongside the entity. The air grew colder, a bone-chilling, spiritual cold that bit deeper than frost.

Alistair stumbled back, eyes fixed on the encroaching darkness. He tried to raise his crucifix, but his hand trembled uncontrollably. Father Michael, however, stood his ground for a moment, his faith a fragile shield against the overwhelming evil. He raised his crucifix higher. "Get behind me!" he yelled to the others.

The entity turned its attention to him. The sound of the marsupials reached a crescendo, focusing on the young priest. His face contorted in agony as the psychic force, the silent scream of the darkness, slammed into him. He fell to his knees, clutching his head, his own screams choked off, replaced by the chittering, snarling sounds echoing the evil.

Ben finally managed to smash a hole in the wall with the butt of his shotgun, splintering ancient wood. "Now!" he roared.

They scrambled through the jagged opening, leaving Father Michael to writhe on the floor amidst the expanding blackness and the horrifying sounds. They tumbled out onto a narrow ledge, the air outside feeling miraculously clean despite the chill. Behind them, the house continued to convulse, the sounds of the possessed marsupials now muffled but still audible, a frantic, terrifying symphony of evil.

They ran, scrambling down the skeletal ridge, not daring to look back. The silence of the night was no longer peaceful; it was heavy with the memory of the whispers, the echoes of Kym Mûryer's silent screams, now undeniably linked to the ancient, rapacious evil they had briefly confronted.

They had sought the truth behind a terrible 'true crime', hoping to find a source of demonic possession. Instead, they had found a doorway to a primal darkness, a place where a human monster's evil had become a vessel for something infinitely worse. They had heard the entity whisper through the corrupted sounds of wild things, witnessed the terrifying failure of faith against an ancient, malevolent force, and escaped Blackwood Manor carrying the profound knowledge that the darkness was mature, and it was still hungry.

The silence they carried within them now was the deepest horror of all, filled not just with Kym Mûryer's whispers, but with the silent, soundless roar of the Devil itself. And they knew, with a certainty that chilled them to their marrow, that the escape routes were only temporary. The evil in Blackwood Manor had seen them, and it had remembered. The punishment had only just begun.

The sun had long ago retreated, leaving the world to the mercy of the moon's ghostly glow. In the dense, untamed wilderness of Blackwood Forest, the air was filled with the sound of nocturnal creatures, their calls piercing the velvet silence. But amidst the natural pattern of the night, there was a discordant note, a presence that didn't belong. It was as if the very essence of the forest had turned predatory, watching and waiting.

Amidst the trees stood a relic of human ambition, a house that had seen more than its share of despair. Its timbers, blackened by time and tragedy, reached towards the sky like skeletal fingers. This was Blackwood Manor, a name that sent shivers down the spines of those who knew its history. The whispers that surrounded it spoke of a man whose atrocities had been as much a part of the house as its own foundation stones.

Kym Mûryer had been a man of unbridled malice, a creature of the night in every sense. His reign of terror had been brought to an abrupt end in the very cellar where he had committed his darkest deeds. The silence that had filled the house since his demise was said to hold whispers of his malevolent spirit, echoing through the hollow chambers like the cries of the damned. But tonight, that silence was about to be broken.

A group of investigators – Dr. Alistair Finch, Father Michael, Elara Vance, and Ben Carter – approached Blackwood Manor, a house steeped in the malevolent history of murderer Kym Mûryer. Inside, the air grew cold and thick, with the disturbing whispers of unspeakable horrors that had occurred within its walls. Elara’s equipment indicated intense paranormal activity, while Ben found signs of past struggles and escape attempts. The team gathered in a room reeking of decay and malice, where Mûryer had held his victims, preparing to confront the ancient, powerful force that had guided Mûryer’s hand and remained in the house after his death.

The four of them approached the manor with a mix of trepidation and determination. Dr. Finch, a man whose eyes had seen too much, led the way. The priest, Father Michael, clutched his crucifix with a fervor that seemed almost defiant. Elara Vance, a parapsychologist whose curiosity had drawn her into this abyss, had her gear at the ready. And Ben Carter, the stoic investigator, carried the weight of their hope for truth like a shield against the horrors they were about to face. They were here to perform an exorcism, to confront the darkness that had made its home within these walls. But the whispers grew louder with each step, hinting at something far more sinister than they could ever have imagined.

The house itself was a creature of the night, a predator that had fed on the innocent. Its very air was thick with the residue of evil, a miasma that seemed to cling to their clothes and skin. They moved through the ground floor, their eyes adjusting to the gloom, the shadows dancing with every step they took. The whispers grew clearer, more distinct, and as they approached the staircase that wound upwards into the heart of the house, they realized the sounds weren't just in their heads. The floorboards above them creaked and groaned as if in pain, the walls echoing with the distant cries of creatures that were both of this world and not.

The team of four, each with their unique expertise, approached Blackwood Manor with a mix of fear and resolve. As they moved through the house, the whispers grew clearer, revealing an entity beyond a simple demonic possession. The house itself seemed alive with malevolence, with the walls echoing with the cries of unearthly creatures. They ascended the staircase into the heart of the house, where the darkness felt most concentrated, setting the stage for the exorcism they were about to perform.

They found themselves in the master bedroom, the very room where Kym Mûryer had met his end. The space was suffused with a palpable malignance, and the smell of decay was overpowering. The bed, a massive four-poster that looked as if it had been carved from the trunk of a dead tree, was stained with what could only be described as an ancient evil. It was here that the true nature of their adversary began to reveal itself. The whispers grew louder, forming words that were not of this world, and the shadows grew more sinister. It was as if the very fabric of reality was being torn apart by the presence that lurked within these walls.

The exorcism began with Father Michael's trembling voice, reciting prayers in Latin. The air grew colder, the whispers grew louder, and the room felt as if it were shrinking around them. The bed began to shake, the curtains billowed out as if blown by a storm that was trapped within the very fabric of the room. And then, from the corner, a form began to take shape. It was a creature of darkness, a mutilated, twisted thing that bore the visage of a human but was far from it. Its eyes were pockets of absolute blackness, and its mouth was a gaping maw, filled with teeth that gleamed like the polished bones of its many victims.

The creature spoke, its voice a cacophony of hisses and snarls that seemed to come from all directions at once. It spoke of punishment and rapaciousness, of the endless hunger that had driven Kym Mûryer to his gruesome deeds. And as it grew stronger, the whispers grew clearer, revealing the truth of its nature. This was not a demon, not a simple spirit to be banished with holy rites. This was the very essence of evil itself, the darkness that lurked within every human heart, the predator that had chosen this house, this man, to be its vessel.

Their exorcism had become a confrontation with the Devil, and it was clear that they were woefully unprepared. The room around them shifted and twisted, the walls closing in as the creature grew in power. The floorboards buckled and splintered, the house seemingly alive with malice. Ben's shotgun was useless against this entity, the rock salt feeling like grains of sand in his trembling hand.

Elara's equipment spiked wildly, capturing images of the creature that seemed to bleed through reality itself. The whispers grew to a fever pitch, the sounds of wild, terrified animals drowning out their own screams. The bed, once a place of rest, now a stage for unspeakable horrors, rocked and convulsed as if alive. The creature grew bolder, the whispers becoming a roar, and suddenly, the room was plunged into a darkness so complete it was as if the moon had been swallowed by the night.

The priest's voice was lost in the tumult, his prayers drowned by the laughter of the damned. They could feel the malevolence pressing in on them, a force that sought to crush their very souls. And amidst the chaos, a single, terrifying truth emerged: this was no ordinary exorcism. They had stumbled into a nightmare that had been born of true crime and nurtured by the evil that dwelt within Kym Mûryer. They were in the presence of the Devil's jaw, the gaping maw of hell itself, and it was hungry.

The room grew colder, the air thick with the stench of death and decay. The creature's eyes burned with an unholy light, and its twisted limbs stretched out, reaching for them with a hunger that seemed to defy the very laws of nature. The whispers grew louder, morphing into a cacophony of snarling and hissing that seemed to come from every corner of the room. The floor trembled beneath their feet, as if the house itself was trying to expel them from its bowels.

Elara's cameras whirred frantically, capturing images of the creature that would haunt their nightmares for the rest of their lives. The mutilated doll on the rocking chair leapt to its feet, its eyes aglow with malice. It began to laugh, a sound that was as much felt as heard, a sound that seemed to resonate in their very bones. The creature in the corner grew larger, its form shifting and contorting in a dance of pure, sinister delight. The walls of the house, once a bastion of protection, now felt like the bars of a cage, trapping them with the predator they had sought to exorcize.

Ben's shotgun remained raised, but his hand was shaking, his resolve wavering in the face of the overwhelming power before them. The whispers grew into a frenzied scream, the sound of a thousand tortured souls crying out in agony. The floorboards bulged and split, the plaster on the walls cracked and fell in great chunks. The room was alive with a malevolence that seemed to pulse in time with their racing hearts.

Alistair knew that this was not a demon they faced, not a simple spirit to be sent back to the abyss. This was the very essence of evil, a force that had been born of the darkest recesses of human depravity and had grown into something monstrous, something that could never truly die. It was the embodiment of Kym Mûryer's rapaciousness, the living punishment for his crimes.

The priest staggered to his feet, his face a mask of defiance in the face of the incomprehensible horror. He raised the crucifix high, his voice a shout of pure, unbridled faith. "Begone, foul spirit!" he roared, his words echoing through the house like a battle cry.

The creature recoiled, its form rippling and distorting in the face of the holy symbol. For a moment, a flicker of doubt crossed its twisted features, and the room grew still, as if the very air itself had been sucked away.

But the silence was short-lived. With a scream that seemed to come from the depths of hell itself, the creature lunged forward, knocking Father Michael to the ground. The crucifix clattered across the floor, landing in a corner, the light within it extinguished.

The room plunged into darkness, and the whispers grew deafening. The scent of sulfur filled their nostrils, burning their eyes and throats. The creature's laughter grew louder, closer, until it was all they could hear. They stumbled back, desperately searching for escape, for the door that had once been a sanctuary, now a gateway to hell.

The house was alive with the whispers of the damned, the screams of the tortured souls that had once been Kym Mûryer's victims. It was a symphony of terror that seemed to crescendo with every step they took away from the creature. The floor gave way beneath Elara, and she tumbled down into the inky blackness of the stairwell, her own screams lost in the din.

Ben grabbed her hand, pulling her back up, his eyes never leaving the shadowy form that stalked them. "We have to get out of here," he yelled over the chaos, his voice strained with fear. "Now!"

Their escape was a blur of panic and adrenaline. They stumbled down the corridors, the walls closing in, the floor buckling beneath their feet. The house was fighting them, trying to keep them within its grip. The whispers grew louder, the laughter more intense, the darkness closing in like a living shroud.

They burst through the front door, the night air a blessed relief from the oppressive gloom of the manor. They stumbled down the rickety porch steps, their breaths coming in ragged gasps. The house loomed behind them, the whispers now a cacophony of malicious laughter, a symphony of the damned that seemed to shake the very foundations of the earth.

The woods, once a bastion of peace and nature, now held a sinister quality. The animals that had once been their companions in the dark had grown silent, retreating from the malevolence that had seeped into the very fabric of the night. They could feel the eyes of the creature, the Devil's jaw, watching them, a predator that had tasted their fear and was not yet sated.

Their escape route had been a desperate gamble, a mad sprint through the moonlit forest. Ben's shotgun was still in his hand, but it felt like a child's toy against the ancient evil that pursued them. The whispers grew fainter with every step, but the echoes of the mutilated doll's laughter remained, a chilling reminder of the horrors they had left behind.

The car, a tiny beacon of civilization amidst the wilderness, grew larger with every panicked stride. The keys jangled in Ben's pocket, a promise of safety that seemed to mock them with its proximity. As they reached the gravel drive, the ground beneath them trembled, the forest floor coming alive with twisted, rotting limbs that clawed at their ankles. It was as if the very earth itself was trying to pull them back into the house.

They clambered into the car, slammed the doors shut, and Ben turned the key in the ignition. For a heart-stopping moment, the engine refused to catch, the silence within the car a stark contrast to the chaos outside. Then, with a roar that seemed to shake the trees, the engine sprang to life. They peeled away from Blackwood Manor, leaving a plume of dust in their wake.

The whispers grew fainter, the laughter of the creature a distant echo in their minds. Yet, the silence in the car was filled with the unspoken terror of what they had just witnessed. They had come for a ghost, for a simple exorcism, but instead, they had faced the rapacious hunger of the Devil himself. The true crime was not the past deeds of Kym Mûryer, but the darkness that had claimed this house, a punishment for the sins of a thousand souls.

Their hearts racing, they stared through the rearview mirror at the shrinking silhouette of the manor. The light in the upstairs window, where they had faced the entity, flickered and went out. The silence was complete, a void that seemed to swallow all sound, leaving only the hum of the tires on the asphalt.

As the house disappeared from view, the whispers grew faint, the echoes of the exorcism gone wrong dissipating into the night. But the horror remained, a stain on their souls that no amount of holy water could wash away. They had dared to confront the mature, primal darkness, and it had marked them forever. They were now part of the story, a tragic footnote in the annals of the damned.

The journey home was a blur of headlights and shadows, the whispers of the forest now melding with the hiss of the tires. The realization grew within them that they had not truly escaped. The malevolence of Blackwood Manor had seeped into their very beings, a parasitic presence that would haunt their dreams, whispering of the rapaciousness that had once found such fertile ground in Kym Mûryer's soul.

The exorcism had gone terribly wrong, revealing a horror far beyond their understanding. Yet, as they drove away, the whispers grew fainter, the malevolence receding into the night. But it was not defeated. It was merely biding its time, waiting for the next unsuspecting prey to stumble into its lair, to hear the silent screams of the damned and feel the bite of the Devil's jaw.

The house had not just been a stage for a murderer's crimes; it had become the very embodiment of evil. And as they left the whispers of Blackwood Forest behind, they knew that the true punishment was not in facing the darkness, but in bearing the knowledge of its existence, in knowing that the Devil was not just a biblical myth, but a very real, very tangible presence that could claim a place in the world of the living.

The drive home was a blur of asphalt and the eerie silence of the night, punctuated only by the occasional hoot of an owl or the rustle of leaves that sounded all too much like the whispers they had left behind. Each of them was lost in their own thoughts, the weight of what they had experienced pressing down on them like a leaden blanket.

Alistair couldn’t shake the image of the mutilated doll, the grinning visage that had seemed to mock them as they fled. It was a symbol of the rapaciousness that had consumed Kym Mûryer and now haunted this place, a silent scream that echoed through time. Elara's mind was a whirlwind of data, her analytical brain trying to piece together the puzzle of what they had witnessed, the evidence she had recorded. And Father Michael, his faith now tested by fire, prayed quietly, the words of the exorcism rattling in his mind like the bars of a cage that had barely contained the malevolence they had dared to confront.

The world outside the car windows looked different now, tainted by the malevolence they had encountered. The very air seemed thicker, the shadows deeper, as if the night itself had been corrupted by their brush with the Devil's jaw. Ben's eyes darted to the rearview mirror, expecting to see the twisted, unnatural creature that had pursued them, but there was only the inky blackness of the road stretching out behind them.

As the miles rolled away, the whispers grew quieter, but they remained, a constant reminder of the horror they had faced. They were like the mournful cries of wild animals, the sinister symphony of nature's own brand of predators. The line between the natural world and the supernatural had been blurred, and they had stumbled into the terrifying reality that true evil was not confined to the pages of a book or the whispers of campfire ghost stories.

The car's headlights played across the road ahead, illuminating the path before them in a way that seemed both a beacon of hope and a stark reminder of the darkness that lay in wait. They had left Blackwood Manor, but the house had left its mark on them. The exorcism had gone wrong in ways they could never have imagined, and the true horror was not in the escape routes that had been blocked or the manifestations of evil that had tried to hold them captive, but in the understanding that the Devil was not a metaphor, but a very real, very present force that could not be contained or defeated by mere rituals and prayers.

Their hearts pounded in their chests, the rhythm of fear that had become a second heartbeat. They were hunters of the paranormal, seekers of truth in a world of shadows, but now they felt like the hunted. The whispers of the wild, the sounds of nature's predators, were no longer soothing lullabies but a sinister reminder of the creature that had stalked them, the mature vampire of the soul that had claimed Kym Mûryer and his house.

The night was a canvas painted with the darkest hues of terror, and their escape was a stark, white line that led them away from the monstrous revelation that had unfolded. As they drove, the whispers grew fainter, the malevolence receding into the background of their minds. But they knew that it was not over. The house remained, a festering wound on the land, a place where evil had been born and had grown to monstrous proportions. And somewhere, in the deepest, most primal part of themselves, the whispers of Blackwood Manor continued to echo.

The story of their exorcism would be told in hushed tones, a cautionary tale of the dangers of meddling with forces beyond their understanding. But for them, the true punishment was the knowledge that the house was not just a repository of horror, but a living, breathing entity that feasted on fear and pain, a place where the whispers of the damned were the only constant. And as they reached the safety of their own homes, they knew that the silence was a lie, that the darkness of Blackwood Manor had followed them, whispering of the rapacious hunger that lay in wait for the next unsuspecting soul to cross its threshold.

The whispers grew fainter with each passing mile, but the memory of the house remained stark and vivid. The mutilated doll's grin, the malevolent force that had filled the room – it was a horror that clung to them like a second skin. They had seen the face of evil, the Devil’s jaw, and it was not the face of a single man, but a creature as ancient as the very fabric of the universe.

The weeks that followed were fraught with nightmares and doubt. Elara’s recordings were a minefield of chaos, a cacophony of sounds that seemed to carry the very essence of the malevolence they had encountered. Each time she played them back, she could feel the creature’s eyes on her, the weight of its hunger pressing down on her. The images she had captured were not of a simple ghost or a mischievous poltergeist; they were snapshots of a predator that had grown fat on the suffering of others, a creature that had used Kym Mûryer as a conduit for its own rapacious desires.

Ben’s research into the true crime of Blackwood Manor had led him down a rabbit hole of depravity and evil that seemed to have no bottom. The house had a history of blood and pain, a lineage of sinister families who had used its isolation to hide their dark secrets. And now, the whispers grew in his mind, the voice of the predator that had once called it home. It spoke of escape routes blocked by the very nature of fear, of the way the house had become a prison for the souls it had claimed.

The night of the exorcism had changed them all, forever linking them to the malevolence that dwelt in the shadows of Blackwood Forest. They had faced the mature, primal vampire of the soul and had survived, but at what cost? The whispers grew faint, but the horror remained, a silent scream that echoed through their dreams, a constant reminder that true evil could never truly be vanquished, only contained, biding its time until the next unwary traveler stumbled into its lair.

The whispers grew faint, but the horror remained, a silent scream echoing through their minds. They had confronted the rapaciousness of the Devil, the ultimate predator, and lived to tell the tale. Yet, the very act of listening to the voice of the evil possessed had changed them, had made them part of the story, part of the house's eternal cycle of punishment and terror. They were the newest members of Blackwood Manor's tragic family, forever bound to the whispers of the wild, the sinister laughter that would follow them wherever they went, a constant reminder that the exorcism had not just gone wrong; it had unleashed a horror that no human could ever truly understand or defeat.

By Carlos del Puente relatos