Inside L’étoile, the mid-morning lull was quiet. About a dozen patrons sat scattered across the tables while a few staff members cleared away cutlery.
The glass double doors swung open, the brass bell ringing sharply as Nyx stepped inside.
A waiter near the host stand immediately smoothed his apron and stepped forward with a warm, practiced smile. "Hello! Welcome back to L’étoile. What can we do for you? Are you looking for a table, or perhaps—"
Nyx didn’t even slow down. She bypassed him entirely and headed straight for the kitchen doors at the back.
"Ma’am? Ma’am, where are you going?" The waiter’s smile dropped into confusion. "Excuse me, ma’am, but you can’t go back there!"
Nyx pushed through the swinging stainless-steel kitchen doors without a word.
Inside, two prep chefs looked up in surprise as she marched toward the heavy magnetic knife block mounted beside the butcher’s block. Her right hand swept across the wooden surface before instantly selecting a heavy, high-carbon steel cleaver and a double-edged boning knife.
"Hey! What are you doing?!" one of the chefs shouted, dropping his tongs. "Put those down!"
Nyx turned and hurried back toward the main dining floor.
"Ma’am! You shouldn’t have gone back there!" the head waiter called out again as he hurried after her.
He took three fast steps before his boots skidded to a halt.
A thick, heavy wall of gray fog rolled out of the hallway like smoke from an open furnace. It surged across the polished floor—rapid, silent, and suffocating.
As the gray mist swept over the dining room, the green potted fiddle-leaf figs and ornamental ivy shuddered. Their stems twisted and thickened by several inches as tiny, needle-sharp thorns sprouted along the vines with quiet snaps.
"What the hell is that smoke?! Is there a fire?!" a customer yelled, dropping his fork.
Panic erupted instantly.
The patrons scrambled toward the front entrance, knocking over chairs as they fought to escape. A businessman reached the glass double doors first and threw them open.
He gasped.
There was no street outside.
No cars. No sunlight. No buildings.
Only an absolute, unnatural void of gray nothingness.
"What is this?! Where’s the street?!" the man shrieked.
In his hysteria, he took a frantic step beyond the threshold.
The moment his boot crossed the boundary, his entire body vanished without a sound into the abyss.
"HE’S GONE! OH GOD, HE DISAPPEARED!"
Screams tore through the restaurant.
People backed away from the doors in sheer terror, stumbling over fallen tables and chairs as they realized they were trapped inside a building that had been completely severed from the outside world.
Meanwhile, at the far end of the rear corridor, Sabrina pushed open the restroom door, wiping her hands on a paper towel.
"What in the world...?"
She blinked into a wall of gray fog so thick that she could barely see her own shoes.
"Did... did I step outside? Is the building on fire?"
"Step back into the restroom."
Nyx’s voice sliced through the haze.
Sabrina gasped and turned toward the sound.
Nyx stepped out of the fog, a heavy cleaver in her right hand and a boning knife held loosely in the same hand.
"Miss Nyx?!" Sabrina’s eyes widened in total shock. "What’s happening? Where did this fog come from—"
CRACK!
The air in the center of the corridor tore wide open.
A jagged seam of crimson light snapped through the space, hissing violently as it distorted the surrounding air.
Something lunged through the tear and slammed onto the floor.
It was a Flesh-Hound—a beast roughly the size of a massive Bullmastiff, but completely hairless. Its skin was a raw, bruised red, lined with thick bone plates running along its spine and shoulders. It had no eyes, only a split, three-hinged jaw lined with rows of yellowed, needle-like teeth dripping with viscous saliva.
Sabrina froze.
Her breath caught in her throat as her mind struggled to comprehend the sight of a monster standing in the middle of her workplace.
The hound lifted its snout and sniffed the fog.
Then its massive jaws snapped toward them.
"Get back!" Nyx commanded, throwing the cleaver for her to hold.
The Flesh-Hound lunged like a red bullet through the narrow hallway.
Nyx waited until the last possible moment.
As the massive jaws snapped toward her chest, she sidestepped sharply to her left, ignoring the blinding throb in her fractured shoulder. She used the narrow corridor to her advantage and drove her shoe straight into the side of the hound’s knee.
CRACK!
The hound’s leg buckled.
Its massive body crashed sideways into the wall, shattering the trim.
Sabrina had caught the cleaver before pressing herself against the wall, her eyes wide with awe and terror.
She was watching a young woman with a plaster cast on her arm dodge a literal monster with precision.
Nyx didn’t look frightened.
She looked like a lethal predator executing a hunt.
Before the hound could recover, Nyx lunged forward and drove the boning knife deep into the soft, unarmored joint beneath its left ear.
SKRRRT!
Black blood sprayed across the wall.
The hound shrieked—a sound like grinding iron—and thrashed violently, slamming its heavy body back against the wall in an attempt to crush her.
The impact hit Nyx like a sledgehammer.
She was thrown backward and crashed onto the hard tile floor.
As she landed, her right leg twisted beneath her with a sickening pop.
Her knee had dislocated.
"Miss Nyx!" Sabrina screamed, tears springing into her eyes as she instinctively tried to step forward.
"STAY BACK!"
Nyx’s voice was ice-cold despite the sweat pouring down her face.
The hound, bleeding black essence, turned its split jaws toward her.
Nyx didn’t flinch.
Gritting her teeth, she grabbed her lower leg with her right hand, braced her heel against the doorframe, and wrenched.
THUMP—CRACK!
She forced the joint back into place in a single, brutal motion.
The hound lunged to crush her.
Nyx grabbed a heavy brass coat hook that had broken off the wall and drove it straight into the creature’s open, three-hinged mouth, jamming its jaws apart.
"Now!"
Nyx grabbed Sabrina by the apron, snatched the cleaver, and shoved her backward into the restroom.