ias awoke suddenly, his body drenched in cold sweat.
The strange sensation still clung to him as if he'd fallen through a vortex that warped time and space.
When he opened his eyes, his room appeared unchanged... yet something felt profoundly wrong.
An ominous aura permeated the space that had felt warm moments before.
The shadow of the wardrobe shifted slowly in unnatural motions.
A faint sulfur smell hung in the air.
He rose trembling and went to the window.
The yellow fog had thickened into a poisonous soup, swallowing everything to the sea's edge. No fishing boat lights were visible.
The world had shrunk to a tiny room and infinite gray.
He wrote in his notebook with frantic script, heart pounding with tension and fascination
"Woke feeling I fell through time. The room... breathes? Fog smothers the town. Something is deeply wrong."
He searched the room for the source of this strangeness but found nothing. After scouring every corner, he surrendered and wrote while descending the stairs
"Perhaps I'm hallucinating from stress."
He went to the tavern seeking breakfast, but the space stood empty.
"Salim?"
He called loudly—no reply. Tables clean, mugs orderly, but the stove cold.
The fresh tuna scent had vanished, replaced by a damp odor like a dead crab.
He wrote as he stepped outside
"8:00 AM. Salim vanished. Inn deserted. Fog blankets everything."
The street greeted him.
The fog felt like a living thing brushing his face with moist fingers.
Buildings had become stone specters; windows transformed into sightless eyes.
His footsteps were the only sound in a colorless world.
Everything lay shrouded in that cursed atmosphere.
Then suddenly... he heard it.
"KRRRRRRAAAAAGH"
A sound like a calving glacier mixed with a wounded beast's roar.
Cobblestones trembled beneath his feet.
Elias's heart convulsed with terror, shock, and a sliver of exhilaration.
This was his first supernatural encounter.
"12:30 PM. Sound in the fog. Neither human nor animal. As if the earth groans from its depths."
Elias scrawled with shaking hand as he hunched low, using buildings and fog for cover. A nervous, eager grin twisted his face.
He followed the sound toward the old quarter where streets narrowed like fishing net
The roar intensified, now accompanied by a stone-grinding noise.
He reached the cliff edge overlooking a hidden shore. And there... the shape emerged.
Would that it hadn't.
A horrific creature, two and a half meters tall. Its body was black and fissured like burning coal, scales resembling rusty metal plates grafted onto dinosaur hide.
Above its malformed head sat a crown of four twisted horns—roots of a cursed tree—like a demon escaped from myth.
At its forehead's center... a single blood-red eye the size of a dinner plate, radiating liquid crimson light that seemed to see everything.
This was no eye... but an open gateway to hell. Within it, Elias saw distorted visions of other worlds
Human shadows slaughtered on black rocks. Seas turning to blood under a green moon.
The beast shrieked, tearing through the fog
"KRRRRRRAAAAAGH"
Elias collapsed to his knees, hands instinctively covering his ears.
The notebook he'd clutched so tightly fell from his grasp.
Yet the creature's metallic scream... ceased abruptly.
He raised his head slowly to see the beast tapping its stone claw against the cliff wall. Like a blind ant seeking a path.
Its bloody red eye scanned the air, not the ground.
"It doesn't see me..."
Elias whispered, stunned.
He crawled backward stone by stone, heart hammering violently.
All his enthusiasm for the unknown had vanished, replaced by primal terror.
Only when twenty paces away did he stand and bolt like a bullet through the narrow street maze.
His feet pounded the gravel as fog swallowed the alleys like a wet sponge.
When he finally reached the inn, he slammed the door violently and lunged for the stairs.
He scrambled up like a frightened rat, hurtling into his room like a fugitive.
He didn't bother surveying the room—just barred the door and hid beneath the bed.
His heart battered his ribs like a crazed bird.
The stench of dust and mold filled his nostrils.
Yet he remained frozen... paralyzed by fear.
Minutes passed like hours.
Only his heartbeat and the distant sea-roar broke the silence.
Finally—God knew when—exhaustion and tension overpowered him...
And he closed his eyes.
---
He opened his eyes to timid dawn light.
He lay on the bed, clothes clean, hair neatly combed.
The room's window stood open, pouring in pure sea air.
He leaped up, body slick with cold sweat, frantically scanning the room now devoid of its former ominous aura.
Finding no evidence, he thrust a hand into his trouser pocket, pulled out a small notebook, and flipped through it wildly.
"Where is it... where is it?"
He opened it to the last written page
"Salim - Innkeeper. Seems straightforward and friendly..."
All entries after that about the sinister events... were erased.
He ran to the window.
The yellow fog that had smothered everything like a sea monster's breath had thinned dramatically, permitting the town to emerge in all its eerie glory—
With its twisted stone buildings and narrow streets.