“Protect what you didn’t want to see,” Sofia replied, pointing to the hole in the wall. “And now he knows. Let’s wake them all up.”
Ricardo didn’t doubt it. The girl could be a witch… or something worse, but she was the only one who understood what was happening.
“Take out the other one,” Mateo said calmly, extending his hand. “I trust you.”
This time, Ricardo stopped her.
Sofia repeated the same precise and terrifying movement.
From Mateo’s left eye, he drew another Nocturpo: larger, darker, you shone.
He did not jump. He remained motionless in his palm, as if awaiting orders.
Suddenly, Sofia screamed… yes, …
“He’s protecting something!” he exclaimed. “Something much bigger than the fear of light.”
From the depths of the wall, behind the piano, came a sound… humid, multiplying, dozens of movements.
Then the smell hit them: metallic, rotten, like burnt electricity and wet stone.
Ricardo pressed his hand against the wooden piano. He felt a rhythmic vibration, like a heartbeat inside the wall.
“It’s right there inside,” she whispered.
The truth behind Matthew’s twelve years of blindness was hidden just on the other side of that wall.
At that moment, the garden lights went out… because they went out, because a huge shadow fell over the mansion. The day turned into night.
The Nocturos were home.
The dam of darkness
Ricardo ordered his guards to bring demolition tools.
Tear down that wall! Now!
The interior wall of the music room collapsed in rubbish.
The stench was unbearable: old mold mixed with the same metallic smell.
Inside the narrow cavity, they saw each other.
Twelve Nocturnes. Some crawled slowly through isolation. Others crowded into a dark, throbbing mass.
Ricardo’s lyrics caused convulsions in the crowd. A chorus of sharp shrieks filled the room.
“Look closely,” Sofia said. “It’s not just meat.”
It fed on the twilight created by Matthew’s blindness: symbionts of trauma, thriving where memory had been repressed.
The secret is in the wall
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