Great. We're entering one of the darkest and most disturbing chapters yet.--

# **New Dark Series – Chapter 4: "Vanishing Street"**

*(written long, detailed, atmospheric, and dark—as you wish)*

The book showed a spot where someone was disappearing *at the same time*.

A red dot pulsed like a beating heart.

Jacob and the ally ran from their hiding place, and Argo followed them, racing like the shadow of a lion on the prowl. The night was cold, heavy, and unnaturally quiet, as if the entire city were holding its breath. Only the echo of footsteps echoed through the empty streets.

"This is it," the ally said, stopping at the entrance to a long, narrow alley.

Jacob raised his flashlight. The beam struck the walls of the buildings, but… something was wrong. Very wrong.

---

## **The Street That Shouldn't Be There**

This street didn't appear on any map.

Neither paper nor digital.

It seemed to have been cut from the city and pasted inaccurately—too long, too straight, too… dead.

Argo suddenly stopped and began growling. But not in the direction they were supposed to go.

He was growling at the **street itself**.

"He can feel it," Jacob said. "Something here is… not of this world."

The ally pointed to the asphalt.

"See?"

Jakub took a closer look.

The asphalt… rippled.

Softly. Gently.

As if it were breathing.

"This is sick…" the ally whispered.

Argo placed a paw on the street and immediately withdrew it, as if the asphalt had burned him. The lion growled, warning them.

Jakub drew his gun.

"We're moving slowly. Don't split up."

They stood on a "breathing" street. Something moved beneath their feet, as if hundreds of thin, long... silhouettes were crawling beneath the thin layer of asphalt. Shadows that didn't belong to any human being.

The further they walked, the more the street seemed alive.

The flashlight flickered off every few seconds.

The light from the streetlamp behind them vanished.

And the silence was so absolute that they could hear their own breathing and the Argo's heartbeat.

After about a hundred meters, they spotted something in the middle of the road.

A figure.

It stood with its back to them.

Moveless.

In the bright light, it looked unnaturally pale.

The ally raised his weapon.

"This could be a victim."

Jakub signaled him not to shoot.

They approached cautiously, slowly, tensing every muscle.

The Argo suddenly howled a warning.

The figure twitched.

--

## **Something's wrong**

"Ma'am?" Jacob said. "Please don't move, we're here to help."

She didn't move.

"Ma'am, can you hear me?"

Then... she lifted her head.

She didn't turn around.

She lifted her head.

*Up.*

Unnaturally.

Until her face became visible, even though her back was still turned.

Her face was... erased.

Smoothed.

No eyes.

No mouth.

No nose.

Just blank, smooth skin.

The ally took a step back.

"What is that?"

The figure suddenly raised a hand and pointed at them.

At that moment, the asphalt beneath their feet began to tremble.

Violently.

As if something beneath it was trying to escape.

“Run!” Jacob roared.

They broke into a run, Argo leading the way back.

But the street began to… disappear.

Literally.

The buildings on the sides dissolved like mist.

The asphalt vanished beneath their feet, as if someone were erasing it layer by layer.

The ally shouted,

“This isn’t a street! It’s a trap!”

Behind them, a figure began to move.

Fast.

Too fast.

It moved in a jerky, jerky motion, as if it were being fast-forwarded.

Argo lunged forward and led them onto the main street—ordinary, real, human.

And as soon as the last of them had emerged from “that” street…

It vanished.

It closed as if it had never existed.

Jakub fell to one knee, gasping for breath.

The ally peered into the darkness.

“What the… hell was that?”

Jacob looked up at Argo, who was staring into the void, fur bristling.

“It was Shadow Gaze,” he said quietly. “A test. A warning. Or… a hunt.”

The ally asked,

“And what was that thing we saw?”

Jacob slowly replied,

“It wasn’t human. And it wasn’t a hallucination. It was a *taste* of things to come.”

--

If you want, we’ll now begin **Chapter 5: “The Night That Remembers Names”**—an even longer, even darker one, with the first confrontation with the real Shadow and the discovery that the book… doesn’t just look. It *calls*.

Want to continue?