“Don’t step on it,” Sofía warned sharply. “If you crush it here, the spores will activate. It’ll burst.”

Ricardo stopped instantly. The guards froze several meters away.

The creature began moving with unnatural speed, sliding toward the shadow cast by the grand piano—seeking darkness.

“What the hell is that?” Ricardo gasped.

“A Nocturne,” Sofía replied, watching the dark trail it left behind. “They live where light has been forcibly shut off.”

Mateo spoke then—the blind boy was the only one thinking clearly.

“It’s not the only one,” he said hoarsely. “My other eye burns. Like a ghost of light.”

The realization hit Ricardo like a shock. If there was one parasite… then there had to be another.

Sofía ran to the piano and knelt, staring at a small opening near the base.

“There’s a nest,” she whispered. “That one was just a scout. And its job wasn’t to steal your sight.”

Ricardo felt a deep, icy chill.

“Then what was its job?”

“To protect what you didn’t want to see,” Sofía replied, pointing into the wall cavity. “And now they know. We’re going to wake them all.”

Ricardo didn’t hesitate. The girl might be a witch—or something worse—but she was the only one who understood what was happening.

“Remove the other one,” Mateo said calmly, extending his hand. “I trust you.”

This time, Ricardo didn’t stop her.

Sofía repeated the same precise, horrifying motion.

From Mateo’s left eye, she pulled out another Nocturne—larger, darker, gleaming.

This one didn’t jump. It lay still in her palm, as if waiting for orders.

Suddenly, Sofía screamed—not in fear, but in pain.

“They’re guarding something,” she cried. “Something much bigger than fear of the light.”

From deep inside the wall behind the piano came a sound—wet, multiplying, dozens of movements.

Then the smell hit them: metallic, rotten, like burnt electricity and damp stone.

Ricardo pressed his hand against the piano’s wood. He felt a rhythmic vibration, like a heartbeat inside the wall.

“They’re in there,” he whispered.

The truth behind Mateo’s twelve years of blindness was hidden just beyond that wall.

At that moment, the garden lights went out—not from a power failure, but because a massive shadow fell over the mansion. Day turned into night.

The Nocturnes were home.

The Nest of Darkness

Ricardo ordered his guards to bring demolition tools.

“Break that wall. Now!”

The inner wall of the music room collapsed within minutes.