Great.We're moving on to the full, novel-length, dark, and very long sequel.--+10

# **CHAPTER 10 - *The Light Absorber***

*(full, long, novel-length version)*

The footsteps drew closer and closer. They were no longer human—now they resembled *sliding*, as if something inhuman was sliding across the floor, brushing its surface from beneath. The house responded to this movement with a tremor, as if every element—walls, beams, pipes, boards—knew this creature and… feared it.

The shadows around you began to coalesce, tense, as if preparing to defend themselves. One of them stepped forward slightly, forming a form in front of you that resembled a human silhouette, though still completely inhuman. You could feel it clearly—the shadows weren't fighting for you. They were fighting **against something** approaching down the hall.

The air became heavy as lead. A deep sound—a low rumbling—emerged from somewhere in the floor. It didn't sound like footsteps, breathing, or movement. It sounded more like… hunger.

When you looked toward the hallway, you first saw darkness. But not the usual kind—it was a darkness that *drawn* your eye, like a bottomless pit. As if something had sucked all the light from that part of the house.

And suddenly—it moved.

Not quickly.

Not slowly.

It simply… **changed place**.

The shadow took the shape of something long, slender, leaning. Its contours were impossible to discern—the body shifted like smoke, but with the weight of something tangible. It had no face, but the place where it should have been pulsed like a membrane, stretching and contracting.

The creature stood in the entrance to the living room.

And then you felt it:

**the light began to recede**.

It didn't fade.

It didn't dim.

It was… being taken.

Your own silhouette paled.

The shadows around you began to tremble, the first sign that even they feared what they saw.

It was him.

**Light Absorber**

For a moment, the house was completely still. Even its organic pulsations froze, as if holding its breath. Then the creature made a movement unlike anything known—as if it twisted space, arched it, and pulled it through itself, approaching you silently, soundlessly, without delay.

The shadows moved first.

They closed around you, forming a layer like living walls. But the creature didn't stop. When it touched the first shadow, it began to **disintegrate**—not into smoke, not into light, but into *nothing*. Into complete, absolute nonexistence. As if it had never existed.

The shadow managed to let out a silent scream.

The Scavenger moved even closer.

Every movement extinguished the light within a few steps. The candle in the corner of the living room began to hiss, sizzle, lose its flame color. Suddenly, it was no longer yellow—it was pale, almost white, and then… it vanished.

The Scavenger reached the center of the room.

Its faceless membrane twitched, as if listening to your breathing.

And then, for the first time, you heard its sound.

It wasn't a voice.

It was a jerk of light—long, absorbing, as if someone were tearing away a fragment of your soul.

But then…

The shadow that had stood beside you since the beginning of the forest—the one that had always been closer than the others—stepped forward. It stopped halfway between you and the Scavenger.

It did something extraordinary—it rose, expanded, and took on a form that resembled a human silhouette more closely than ever before.

Bent, stretched, yet protecting you.

The devourer stopped.

The shadow let out a low tremor—a signal you understood intuitively.

**“Run.”**

Before you could think, the floor beneath your feet began to pulsate to a different rhythm—that of the house.

But now the house wasn't against you.

The house was trying to save you.

The boards lifted as if something beneath them had moved. A narrow corridor opened, leading downward—not a basement, not an ordinary sewer, but… a *deeper place* the notebook hadn't mentioned.

The devourer stirred.

The shadow that had protected you from the forest until then lunged at it, even though it knew it couldn't win.

You leaped into the abyss beneath the floor.

The house slammed the door shut behind you, and the cries of shattered shadows echoed through the corridor.

You fell for a long time. A very long time.

Too long to be possible in the normal world.

Until finally…

you hit something soft, cool, alive.

You didn't know where you were yet.

But one thing was certain:

**What lay beneath the house was not a place made for humans.**

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If you'd like to continue,

write:

**"Yes - Chapter 11"**

and I'll start another *huge, dark, and novelistic* segment.