Chapter V — **Ghosts Take Over the Town**.It will be **long, heavy, gothic**, with the feeling that the world is ceasing to be the world.I begin:---

# 📖 STORY I — CHAPTER V

## **When the Town Ceases to Belong to the Living**

The next night, the sky was so black that even the moon seemed afraid to show itself. The streets emptied earlier than usual, though people pretended everything was happening naturally: they turned off the lights earlier, closed the windows sooner, and opened the latches more quickly.

But something changed.

The town clock stopped striking the hour.

First, it fell silent.

And then—it began.

The clock struck with a single, heavy strike—but it was unlike any sound it had made before. It sounded like someone striking metal that was also stone.

And then all the dogs in town began howling.

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## **Houses That Hear**

The windows trembled as if someone were running a hand across their surfaces. In some houses, mirrors began to fog up from the inside, despite the cool air. Curtains moved even though there was no wind.

Anna, standing in front of the spot where the house was just beginning to recreate itself, noticed that the town was… getting closer.

Literally.

The lines of houses, streets, and lamps seemed to be sliding toward the garden.

As if the earth were trying to occupy a different place than before.

Then they appeared.

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## **Apparitions in the Windows**

Figures began to appear in every window in the town. They weren't material—more like reflections in the water. Passersby no one remembered anymore. Faces without names.

Each of these figures looked toward the vanished house.

As if they were waiting.

Iconic, motionless, staring at a single place that doesn't exist, but is beginning to exist.

--

## **A Scream No One Heard**

Somewhere far away, a woman's scream rang out—cut off suddenly, like a sound cut off by a knife.

The lights in several houses went out at once.

And then… they all went out.

The entire town was plunged into darkness.

Without electricity, without candle flames—nothing gave light.

Anna saw only faint, phosphorescent shadows hovering above the ground.

Some resembled people.

Others… something beyond human words.

--

## **Ghosts Take to the Streets**

The first to touch the cobblestones—their feet made no sound, yet Anna heard their presence more than footsteps: she heard it in her head, in the pulse of her blood, in the growing cold.

More began to emerge from the fog.

Dozens here, hundreds there.

Some carried what looked like old clocks, overgrown with the cobwebs of time.

Some were crying.

Some were laughing softly, like children.

The worst were the silent ones.

--

## **The Town Is Dying**

Every street lamp went out as the ghosts passed by.

The houses were fading into blackness.

And then, for the first time, Anna noticed some ghosts entering the houses.

They simply passed through the doors.

And never came out again.

The silence began to grow.

So heavy it hurt.

--

## **The Shadow That Watches**

Another silhouette emerged from the fog.

This time larger.

Taller than any other ghost.

Its form was chaotic—as if it couldn't decide what its body looked like. The contours of her arms, her face, her silhouette changed – now a woman, now a man, now a child.

And yet it was one being.

She looked directly at Anna.

—

And then all the ghosts stopped.

In that same moment.

As one being.

All the faces – if these distorted nightmares could be called faces – turned towards her.

Waiting.

As if Anna were about to do something.

Or say something.

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## **The last sentence of the chapter**

Then suddenly, in that absolute silence, she heard her brother's voice:

—Anne… you have to let them through… **they're coming home.**

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