City was bleeding light.

Neon signs sputtered and flickered across the rain-slick streets, casting pinks and toxic greens across puddles that quivered under the breath of the storm. Metal rattled somewhere in the alley. Blaring police signs had been going off for hours, their cries drowned beneath the groan of stormy winds closing in from the coast. Garbage tumbled, glass shook in its frames, and somewhere in the distance, the power grid buzzed like it was on the edge of a breakdown.

Then came the thud of boots. Heavy, slow, measured.

Matías stepped through the misted halo of a flickering lamppost and onto the cracked pavement outside the shuttered club. His silhouette was monstrous in its calm. Trench coat soaked, hair hanging wet and wild over his forehead, blood streaked across his cheek—war paint. He stopped in front of the door, the red "CLOSED" sign swinging gently, the glass fogged from the heat inside.

He grinned. Not at the sign. Not at anything.

Just... grinned.

You looked good like that, one voice purred at the back of his skull, sweet and syrupy like a lover's voice. All wet and painted up. You should stay like this. Always. Forever.

She'd scream if she saw you now, another hissed. She'd cry. She'd run. She'd beg.

Matías laughed, low and quiet to himself, then shoved the door open with his shoulder. It creaked in protest.

Inside, the club was dark. Silent. The scent of sweat and spilled alcohol still lingered in the walls, mixed with the ozone tang of the storm sneaking through every cracked window. The floor glistened with puddles from leaking pipes and boot tracks that hadn't dried yet. Overhead, the lights flickered, casting short, staccato shadows across empty chairs stacked on tables like skeletons at rest.

"Knock, knock..." he sang softly, the words dripping like honey from a rusted blade as he stepped into the club's hush-heavy dark. Matías brought the storm with him. Wet, wild, red-handed.

Behind the bar, Ramírez barely stirred. The place was closed—midnight silence wrapped around every bottle, every chair flipped to table like corpses folded in prayer. He sat slouched on a barstool, sleeves rolled, shirt open at the neck. A glass of something hung loose in one hand. His dark eyes lifted, heavy-lidded, already tired.

He didn't even blink when Matías came in smiling.

"Guess who made a mess~?" Matías chimed. His voice was sing-song, charming, cracked. Arms out wide like he was performing a miracle. Blood laced his fingers, soaking through the sleeves of his shirt. "So loud. Like choir bells. Split 'em right open."

Matías giggled and peeled off his coat with a dramatic sweep, flinging it to the floor. The thing hit the tile with a wet slap, landing in a crimson puddle that steamed faintly under the flickering fluorescents.

"You were supposed to lie low," Adrian said flatly, lifting the glass to his lips. His voice came slow, bored, but not quite numb. "You know... storm coming in. City-wide fucking emergency. No heat on the street."

"Low?" Matías scoffed, wiping his hands on his pants. "I was low, boss. Low as hell. Practically underground. On the floor with that poor bastard's guts—"

"Stop talking."

Adrian stood now. Not fast, not loud. But the air shifted. Like gravity leaned his way. He set the glass down with a soft clink and ran a hand down his face.

"You're dripping all over my damn tiles."

Matías tilted his head. Something childlike glittered in his eyes.

"Come on, you don't want the full story?" he grinned, eyes wide. "I wrote his name on the wall with his own—"

"I said stop."

They froze.

Outside, the wind screamed like a dying woman. Somewhere in the city, a transformer blew, and the neon lights hiccupped, pulsed, went red for a second too long. The windows shivered in their frames.

Adrian exhaled, slow. His fingers twitched once before reaching for the bar towel.

"Go clean up. If someone's tailing you, I don't want their brains splattered across my booths."

Matías clicked his tongue and gave a lazy, mock salute. "Sí, jefe. As tidy as a grave."

He hummed something low and broken, tuneless, the sound of a lullaby remembered wrong. He was clean now.

She's here, you know, murmured one voice, silk-smooth, curling around the shell of his ear like the whisper of warm breath beneath bedsheets.

Sleeping. Breathing. Waiting, another added from just behind his shoulder, male this time, with a drag of teeth behind every syllable—fond, almost reverent.

Why do you keep looking? It came from somewhere deeper. His spine? His throat? It hurt to hear.

Then a fourth slipped in—not spoken but bled into him like fog under a doorframe. It was a thought more than a voice, weightless and slow and terrifyingly honest. She's the only thing that shuts us up.

They weren't snarling tonight. Not laughing. Not barking commands with blood-slick teeth. They were quiet. Curious. Hovering just beneath the skin like a fever.

Why don't you peel her open and see what's inside?

"No," he whispered, smiling like he was telling a bedtime story. "Not her. Not yet."

He kept walking, the hum returning to his throat—half hymn, half warning.

He stepped into the bathroom, stripped, and washed under water that ran lukewarm at best. Blood swirled into the drain in slow spirals, red slipping down porcelain like finger paint. He combed his fingers through his hair, then stopped to stare at himself in the cracked mirror. His smile still hadn't moved.

Matías dried off with a towel that smelled like dust and bleach, changed into a clean shirt stolen from one of the bartenders' lockers—something tight across the chest, black with faint white pinstripes. The scent of someone else's cologne clung to the collar. He liked that.

He didn't knock when he reached the upper floor. Not yet.

He just stood there, at the door. Listening.

The wind beat harder against the walls. The whole building felt like it might tip.

Inside, he could almost hear breathing. Or maybe it was just his own.

You want to see her scared, one voice teased. You want to see what her eyes do when they look at you like the others do.

"No."

He leaned close to the door, lips brushing the wood.

"...You up, stuffy?"

He exhaled slowly, fingertips pressed to the door like he could feel her pulse through it.

"I'm all cleaned up. Just a little red on the inside now."

A chuckle slipped from his throat, quiet and airy.

"You know, you're the only one that shuts them up. Even now, they're quiet. Not gone... but quiet. Makes me feel like I should lay down. Maybe talk."

He paused.

"Maybe just look at you."

Another beat passed. Lightning licked across the skyline outside the window, illuminating the hallway for just a blink.

"You should let me in. It's awful lonely in my head when you're not in it."

He reached for the knob, opened it. Because no one waited for their stuffed bunny to say "come in", that would just be silly.