Marcus Bell held his breath, pressing himself against the warehouse wall, listening intently to the sounds coming from inside. The creaking of wood, the indistinguishable whispering… He wasn't sure if it was a person or something else. But the feeling that he wasn't alone in the red workshop was undeniable.
Slowly, cautiously, he moved toward the door at the back of the warehouse. It was made of old, rotten wood, with a circular peephole in the center, now covered by a rusty metal plate. He approached the door and pressed his ear to the wood, trying to discern anything else amid the tense silence.
Nothing. Just silence. But the feeling of presence, of invisible eyes watching him from the other side, persisted, intensifying with each passing second.
Slowly, with smooth, precise movements, Marcus slid the safety on his gun and readied his finger on the trigger. He was ready for whatever lay behind that door. But the uncertainty, the unknown lurking in the darkness, kept him on edge, his heart pounding in his chest.
With a swift, decisive movement, he kicked down the door, bursting into the next room with his gun raised, pointing into the darkness.
The room was dimly lit by a single, bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, casting long, distorted shadows across the walls. The air was even thicker and stale than in the main warehouse, thick with an acrid, chemical smell that irritated her nose and made her eyes water. It was the scent of wax, but also something else, something metallic and pungent she couldn't quite place.
The room was clearly a workshop. Workbenches covered in tools, wax molds, containers of colored pigments, and lumps of paraffin scattered on the floor. And in the center of the room, a figure with his back to him, working intently at a table.
"Police! Hands up!" Marcus shouted, his voice firm and authoritative, keeping the gun pointed at the figure.
The figure started and turned sharply, revealing its face to the light. It wasn't Silas Thorne. Not the burly, menacing man she'd imagined. It was a woman. A thin, frail-looking woman, dressed in a red-waxed overall, with a pale face and dark, frightened eyes. In her hands, she held a thin, delicate paintbrush, and on the table in front of her, she saw what she was painting.
A doll. A porcelain doll, identical to the one Silas had displayed in the mind garden, with a flawless face and bright, expressive glass eyes. But the woman wasn't creating the doll. She was… altering it. With the brush and the red paint, she was tracing fine crimson lines over the doll's face, drawing cracks, broken veins, tears of blood running down its porcelain cheeks. She was… breaking the perfect doll, desecrating its immaculate beauty, turning it into just another piece in Silas Thorne's macabre collection.
Marcus lowered his gun slightly, confused and surprised. Who was this woman? What was she doing in Silas's garage? Was she an accomplice, a victim, or something more? And, most importantly, did she know anything about Lisa Kramer's whereabouts? The confrontation in the darkness of the red garage had only just begun.
.
Hello everyone. Please comment on what you thought of the chapter so you can help me improve the writing I provide to my readers. The information on the novel "THE DESCENT" is available in PDF format in the store section. It has one volume of 20 chapters. If you want to purchase the novel, head to my Ko-Fi right now!..
🤩ko-fi.com/winterstar01/shop🤩