The moment the burn mantra touched the wall, it crawled across the stone like bloodshot veins—then struck one of those glowing red eyes. A sharp fluttering sound ripped through the air, louder than any bird’s wing. And just like that, the forest went still. Even the wind seemed to stop, pulled upward into a sky that trembled with unseen pain.

  But for the jungle, it was as if nothing had happened.

  That was the cruel beauty of the burn mantra—it only harmed what it touched. No smoke. No collateral. Just a silent blaze that seared its target cleanly and left the world around untouched. Unlike fire spells that lasted, this one flickered out in seconds—four blinks, even on oil. But on creatures like these… it burned until death.

  They were called Silent Screams—eyes that glowed like coals, tongues like serpents, stomachs filled with acid sharp enough to melt stone, and two thin fangs that drained blood with terrifying precision. They hunted in groups, their ears so sharp they could catch the breath between words, the twitch of a falling leaf. Even in absolute darkness, their eyes saw like it was daylight. But their name didn’t come from their vision.

  It came from their scream.

  A scream that never touched human ears.

  Not like normal sound.

  Not meant to frighten—but to shatter thoughts, twist memories, confuse instinct. Their scream was felt, not heard. And once it reached your mind, even the wind would obey them.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  They were small—barely the size of rats. But their numbers turned them into a force of nature. And their bodies... slick with a slime that oozed from the center of their stomachs, masking their scent and making them impossible to grip. To another predator, swallowing them was a challenge of its own.

  But that same slime—was their doom.

  It was fire’s favorite fuel.

  When I had seen the kitten’s body earlier, it wasn’t just soaked in blood—it was sticky. Slimy. At first, I thought another creature might’ve licked it, or maybe tried to swallow it whole. But the marks told a different story—deep gashes like talons, or perhaps the prints of something aquatic. One thing was clear: the attacker had either claws… or many, many legs.

  And then there were the punctures.

  Bite marks—perfectly placed to bleed a body dry.

  All of it told me one thing—whatever was inside that cave wasn’t just dangerous. It was afraid to come out. Which meant… the ones outside were even worse.

  That explained the silence.

  It hunted by night.

  And that left me with only two possibilities—it was a bugmonster… or bugmonsters.

  Most of them fear fire. And the few that don’t? They usually live deep beneath the ground, in places hot enough to melt steel.

  Two blinks later, a swarm of a hundred Silent Screams vanished into the air—disintegrated by the flame. Their death was swift. But their absence left something even more haunting.

  Silence.

  Even the wind whispered now, unsure of its own voice. I stepped forward and drew a circle at the cave's edge using a protective stone—one that could shield the living from what watched in the dark.

  Then, from my bag, I took out the light fairy.

  A creature made of light itself—born to protect, to cloak its bearer from the gaze of what dwells in the dark. It shimmered softly, no bigger than my palm, but with a glow that pierced through shadow like hope in a nightmare.

  With it in hand, I stepped into the cave.