Part V: The City Swallowed by the Storm
Adam’s breath hitched as the screen flickered with a message from that void of an account—no name, no picture, no history. “Adam, do you want to know where Leila went?”
He felt a chill, as if someone were whispering directly into his ear. He had never seen this account before; he couldn’t fathom how this stranger even knew he was in contact with Leila. Outside, Kiruna was vanishing beneath mountains of snow. The storm lashed against the windows with primal ferocity, the wind emitting a sound akin to a mournful howl. Visibility was stripped down to a mere two meters; everything was white, vast, and terrifying.
And Adam’s heart was racing faster than ever.
Less than an hour ago, Leila had been talking to him. Her voice had trembled as she said: “Something is moving under my window… I don’t know if it’s a person or just the storm.”
Then, the unexpected happened. She whispered, her voice low: “Adam… if the tracks disappear under the snow, we’ll never know who was here. I have to look now, before they’re covered and gone forever.”
He tried to stop her: “Leila, don’t go out… the weather is lethal.”
But the connection severed completely. And from that moment on… Leila ceased to respond.
The Problem: The Storm Swallows Everything Adam called the police in Boden, but the response was clear and devastating: “The roads are entirely blocked. We can’t dispatch anyone right now. Visibility is near zero.”
There was no rescuer. No way to reach her. The storm was erasing every trace before it could even be witnessed.
The Temporary Solution: A Strange Realization Adam scoured his memory for anything Leila had said in their final moments… a word, a sound, a feeling. One thing kept pounding in his head: she hadn’t been afraid of the noise itself, but of the sensation that someone had been watching her apartment for days.
He remembered a sentence she muttered under her breath: “Adam… I feel like someone passes by my door every single night.”
And just before the call dropped… there was a faint sound behind her—a soft friction, like a footfall on snow-covered ground.
A new notification flashed… the same sender. The Stranger. “Adam… Leila shouldn’t have opened the door tonight.”
A shudder ran through him. He typed frantically: “Who are you? What do you know?”
But before he could hit send, another message arrived: “The storm will hide everything… just like every other time.”
Adam looked out his window into the depths of the blizzard. Amidst the total whiteness, he glimpsed something—a tall, elongated shadow standing still for a fleeting second… before vanishing as if it had never existed.
To be continued…
