Pi-Pu began to deflate quietly.

  It was almost imperceptible, as though someone were slowly letting the air out of him. His enormous sides sank, his fur settling back into place. He no longer blocked the door. He simply… diminished. As if the danger had passed, and the need to be large had passed with it.

  “Remove it,” Alexander shouted sharply.

  He was speaking to Frau Schwarzenegger. Short. Commanding. Without a trace of doubt — like an order that is never questioned.

  Then he strode quickly toward my house.

  I recoiled from the window, yet instantly leaned forward again — I couldn’t stop watching. My heart pounded somewhere in my throat, making it hard to breathe.

  Alexander passed Phil’s house.

  And suddenly stopped.

  He raised his hand.

  And gave someone in the second-floor window a thumbs-up.

  The gesture was brief. Businesslike. Affirming.

  Someone was there.

  I couldn’t make them out — too far, too dark, too fast. A silhouette. A movement. A shadow.

  Phil?

  A cold spread through me, as if the heating inside my entire body had just been switched off.

  They’re all together.

  The thought struck so clearly it made me dizzy.

  They didn’t argue.

  They didn’t hesitate.

  They didn’t explain.

  They simply took — and acted.

  They just… killed an old woman.

  For what?

  Who was she?

  Who are they?

  I slammed the window shut and scanned the street frantically.

  Empty.

  No neighbors.

  No passersby.

  No curious faces at windows.

  As if the street had been carefully wiped clean — erased of every living witness.

  Pi-Pu had nearly returned to his usual size. He looked at me with yellow eyes — and there was no fear in them. He quickly pulled his hat on and began fussing near the door, sniffing at the crack beneath it.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Alexander turned toward my house.

  He was walking straight to my door.

  The doorbell rang.

  Sharp. Clear. Not demanding — confident, like a period at the end of a sentence.

  Pi-Pu jerked, lifted his muzzle, sniffed the air — and vanished. Simply dissolved somewhere inside the house, so quickly it was as if he had never been there.

  And I was left alone.

  An icy wave crashed over me.

  He’s come for me.

  I saw.

  I’m a witness.

  The thought was simple and terrifying — no fantasies: they would kill me too. Quietly. Neatly. Just as they had done out there in the street.

  I didn’t know what to do.

  Where to run?

  The bell rang again.

  Shorter this time.

  And a voice.

  Calm. Familiar. Too close.

  “Molly.”

  I flinched all over.

  “Molly…” Alexander repeated, softer now, almost tender. “I know you’re home.”

  My heart was pounding so loudly I thought he could hear it through the door.

  “Open,” he said. “Please.”

  A pause.

  “We need to talk.”

  I stood frozen, unable to take a single step, and for the first time understood:

  The question was no longer what was happening.

  The question was whether I would survive this conversation.

  My hands were shaking so badly the phone nearly slipped from my grip. I dialed emergency services. The ringing felt endless — one, two, three — and finally someone answered.

  “Hello.”

  A man’s voice.

  “They killed a woman!” I screamed, not even trying to sound calm. “They’re at my door right now! They’ve come for me! Please hurry! Violet Street, house 418. Paxburg!”

  I was gasping, words tangling together.

  “They… they turned her into… into stone. Into metal. Crushed her! She was alive! It was on the street! Please, they’re about to come in!”

  “Molly,” Alexander’s cheerful, steady voice came through the phone. “I’m asking you. Open the door.”

  My hands went cold.

  I didn’t understand at first.

  For a second I thought it was coincidence. That I had misheard. That stress was playing tricks on my ears.

  But the voice was in the phone.

  Not behind the door.

  In my phone.

  I jerked it away from my ear as if it had burned me.

  “What…” I whispered. “What does this mean?..”

  The same voice. Calm. Almost friendly.

  “Molly,” Alexander said. “You’re wasting your strength.”

  My breath caught.

  I looked at the screen.

  The signal bars were full.

  But the network icon was pulsing slowly… lazily.

  “You…” I swallowed. “What did you do?”

  He sighed. Genuinely. Almost tired.

  “You’re not speaking to emergency services,” he continued. “You’re speaking to me.

  To the one who is currently deciding how to ensure you remain alive and unharmed.”

  Alive.

  That word should have comforted me.

  Instead it made it worse.

  “Open,” he said — now not only through the phone, but simultaneously:

  in the receiver,

  and behind the door.

  I didn’t open.

  I stood with my back pressed to the wall, the phone useless in my hand. The screen went dark. There was no connection anymore — not to the world, not to logic.

  Silence behind the door.

  Then his voice.

  “I’m sorry,” Alexander said calmly. “I’ll have to come in. I’ll break the door… but I promise I’ll replace the lock. A better one.”

  I didn’t have time to breathe, let alone scream.

  The door was not broken.

  It… permitted.

  A soft click — almost polite. As if the house itself had made a decision. The door eased open slowly, without splintering, without force, without violence. Alexander stepped inside and gently closed it behind him.

  He turned to me.

  “Don’t be afraid of me, Molly,” he said softly. “I’m not here to harm you.”

  I didn’t answer. I just stared.

  “That creature you saw on the street…” he continued. “It was evil. It carried death.”

  He paused.

  “We’ll fix everything now.”

  Something shifted inside me. Not fear. Something else. As if forgotten images were stirring in my mind — not yet memories, just shadows.

  “And you’ll remember everything,” he added.

  I glanced instinctively.

  Pi-Pu was sitting beneath the Christmas tree.

  Calmly examining the ornaments, touching one with his paw and gently rocking it. No trace of panic. No attempt to hide.

  He wasn’t afraid of Alexander.

  Alexander looked at him too — and suddenly smirked.

  “You little bandit,” he said, almost warmly. “Did you think I didn’t know what you’d done?”

  Pi-Pu lifted his head. Blinked slowly with his yellow eyes. His little tail twitched.

  “You’re disobedient,” Alexander continued, “and you know it perfectly well.”

  He stepped closer and crouched down, at Pi-Pu’s level.

  “But,” he added, “for protecting her…”

  He paused, almost ceremoniously.

  “We’ll reward you.”

  I heard nothing after that.

  My mind went blank — no words, no meaning, no fear. Just one short, animal decision.

  I spun around, grabbed the first statue I could reach — heavy, cold — and without thinking for another second, I struck.

  His head.

  The sound was dull. Real.

  Alexander fell.

  Simply collapsed onto the floor, as if everything inside him had been switched off at once. No cry. No resistance.

  Silence.

  Then — Pi-Pu.

  He shrieked so sharply my heart clenched. Not a thin squeak — a desperate wail. He jumped frantically around Alexander, paws skidding across the floor. Tears poured from his eyes — not drops, but streams. A small puddle quickly formed.

  “No… no…” I whispered, not knowing to whom.

  Pi-Pu suddenly bolted for the bedroom.

  I stood motionless, staring at the body on the floor.

  Seconds — or an eternity — later, Pi-Pu returned.

  He was dragging something, struggling to pull it across the floor.

  Flowers.

  The same ones Alexander had once left for me.

  They looked fresh. Untouched by time.

  Pi-Pu pulled them to Alexander and — very carefully, almost solemnly — placed them on his head. Then he froze. Sat beside him. Cried more quietly now. Almost soundlessly.

  And then it hit me.

  Not fear.

  Not shock.

  Understanding.

  He had come to kill me.

  But it was I.

  I did this.

  I killed Alexander.

  The thought was so clear the world instantly tilted. The room slanted. The floor rose to meet me. Sound vanished, as if someone had shut a door from the inside.

  The last thing I saw was Pi-Pu pressed against Alexander, and the flowers glowing softly, stubbornly, alive.

  And then — darkness.