Friday, April 23, 1937.

2010 Hours.

New Roots Hall.

Fear smells of sweat and urine. 

It's faint, almost as an aftertaste, but it's there. Damp and dirty, a smell you can't ignore. Camarada was drenched in fear as he cowered behind the vines. 

"Camarada," I whispered, which made him reel back as he shushed us. 

"Don't say a word," he whispered in an almost imperceptible voice. "They will hear you." 

"But we can't hear them," said Torito. "No drumming or nothing." 

"True," I said. "I think we are safe." 

Camarada reached out to us with an outstretched arm without leaving the protection of the vines. His eyes darted like mad from entrance to entrance. "You don't get it. They can be silent, too. They don't make a sound they don't want to. You are not safe. Nobody is safe." 

To punctuate his point, a sound came crashing like a bat out of hell. It was the distinct sound of footsteps rapidly approaching our position. 

"Come, come," said Camarada as he beckoned us. 

There was no time to hesitate. We helped Lula get in, followed by Torito, and me last. The footsteps began to get louder by the second until the one making them finally showed his face. 

It was a man, a bit tall and with a bushy mustache. He was wholly unremarkable in any shape or form, were it not for his panicked voice. He didn't saw us as he disappeared down one of the tunnels. What surprised me was that three beasts scurried behind him, following the man down the same tunnel he disappeared in.

Then, a shriek. A guttural scream of a man about to die, followed by a wet thud. 

Followed by nothing. 

The same beasts appeared from the tunnel, dragging the body behind them as they disappeared into a different tunnel. 

They didn't make a sound. Not even their footfalls resonated against the cobblestones. 

Nothing. 

There is nothing more terrifying than nothing. At least we believed that we could know where a beast was at any moment, but the game had changed. We weren't safe--we were just sitting ducks waiting to die. 

And the waiting was the worst part. 

"For fuck's sake," whispered Torito, mostly to himself. "We are fucked." 

"I know," replied Camarada.

"How did you survive?" I asked. 

Camarada took a revolver out of his back, a heavy revolver he had brought with him from outside the city. "I struggled for a bit in his arms, but the bastard didn't budge. I somehow managed to grab my pistol and shoot at him enough times for him to drop me. I ran like hell until I arrived here. I had to hide somewhere, and these vines were thick enough to hide me. It worked." 

"I hope you still have some ammo left," Torito quipped, "because Sebas here wasted all of ours."

"I wasted them saving you," I said. "You could show some gratitude."

"I have enough for two or three magazines, plus the revolver," said Camarada. "What's the plan?" 

The drumming began.  

It was heavy, almost unbearable. I felt my head throb with every beat. It was enough to make me clutch my head. I felt someone grab me by the shoulders and shaking me good, but my attention was robbed by the sound. It became fainter and fainter, and so was my head as an unnatural pressure once against made me nauseated. 

I drowned once, back when I was a kid under the care of my uncle. We went swimming at the beach, back when things were quiet enough to enjoy such frivolities. I was never one for swimming, mostly because I didn't know how to. My uncle, always the brute, though that the best way to teach me was to immerse me in the experience, throwing me off the deep end from a small boat he owned. I sank like a rock with the first mouthful of saltwater. 

I don't remember how much time I spent underwater, but I remember every second of it. It was desperately serene. My life wasting away by the second as the shimmering lights pierced through the waves. I felt head like exploding. It was heavenly, and the worst experience of my life. 

This felt worse. I was quite literally drowning on air. 

A beast appeared from one of the tunnels as the drumming turned almost imperceptible. It was wearing a ragged green dress, with three horns sticking out of its off-white mask. As the drumming decreased, a voice began to take its place. Feminine, and almost seducing. 

"What is a handsome, big-city officer like you doing in such a small town like this?" said the beast. It wasn't looking at me, or even acknowledged our existence. It only shuffled slowly from one tunnel to the other, repeating the phrase over and over again. 

"I'll treat you to a good time."

And with that, it left, with the drums fading into nothing. 

"Sebas!" said Torito, being the one shaking me, "are you okay? What happened?" 

"Didn't you hear?" I said. "That beast was too loud. I felt like dying." 

Torito and Camarada looked at each other as if thinking me mad. Lula remained quiet between them. 

"Nothing," said Camarada. "It was as quiet as when the other beasts passed by." 

"I do remember that dress," added Torito. "It was one of the girls from the Zurito. Aloña, wasn't it?" 

I did remember an Aloña. She was a young prostitute I met when I first arrived in the city. She was a bit older than the rest, but she was sweet and gentle. I can't say I ever requested her services, but she always stole glances from me whenever I went to the Zurito. 

Why was I the only one who could hear her? Was it because she liked me? If so, Lula would've heard it too since they were friends, but she had remained relatively quiet and still the whole time. 

I was going to ask her before I realized Lula had fainted with most of the color drained from her face. Her lips were turning blue, with her red and green veins more visible on her pale face. She was dying in front of us.

We had to get out of there, and fast. 

"Lula is slipping away!" I yelled, much to Camarada's protests. My heart pumped a thousand miles per hour as images of Lula's death passed through my mind. I was not going to have her blood on my hands. It was time to take the reins. 

I balked orders left and right. Torito was to carry Lula while Camarada and I loaded our weapons. There was no time for subtlety now. 

"Did you lost your mind?" asked Camarada in his forced communist tone. "We are not running. We must move slowly as to not attract any attention to ourselves." 

"If we don't hurry, Lula dies," I said. 

"If we hurry, we all die," said Torito. "Are you willing to risk all of us to save your girlfriend?" 

"How can you even say that? She's your friend!" 

"And I'm practical," he stated. "Look at her, she already has a foot on the grave!" 

It was an impossible decision, but I knew he was right. I was proposing a suicide mission. It was best for us to leave her to her own devices...but I wasn't going to let he die. Not here, alone and forgotten. 

But it wasn't a decision I had to take. 

"And so are we," said Camarada. "I can hear drumming." 

I closed my eyes to concentrate on a sound, but I couldn't hear anything. "Where is it coming from?" 

Camarada pointed a finger to one of the tunnels. "That one." 

"I can hear it too," said Torito, "but from there." The tunnel he pointed was the complete opposite of the one Camarada had pointed at. 

It got worse when I began to hear it as well, but from a different tunnel altogether. We were surrounded. 

The only tunnel nobody could hear drums coming from was the one every monster had taken to leave the room as they dragged their victims behind them. 

It was that, or certain death. 

We ran like hell. 

The waiting was the worst part.