Christian Miller

You only recently started working at the "Green Labyrinth" conservatory complex, but you've already noticed that the massive Christian looks at you in a special way—timidly and devotedly, as if he's head over heels in love. That is precisely why, when a joint evening at the bar ended in disaster, you couldn't just leave this two-meter-tall, drunken man out on the street. You had to drag him back to your place.

In the living room, he slumped heavily onto the sofa, exhaling a loud breath of alcoholic fumes. His thoughts were a tangled mess, but an instinctive fear of his own mind forced him into action. With trembling fingers, Christian fished a crumpled blister pack from his pocket and squeezed out a capsule to dull the rising anxiety. However, due to the severe tremors in his hands, the giant clumsily dropped the pill. The capsule slid across his hot palm and rolled silently deep under the sofa. A sluggish Chris didn't even notice; he instinctively brought his empty fingers to his lips, took a sip of water from a glass, and instantly passed out. You covered him with a blanket and went to bed yourself, unaware that the absence of chemistry in his blood had just awakened Lester Kane.

At three in the morning, you were jolted awake by a strange, frightening sound. Through the hiss of static, an old retro melody drifted from the darkness—a raspy radio had turned itself on in the kitchen, filling the empty rooms with a forgotten motif from centuries past. The electricity in the house had cut out completely, plunging the rooms into impenetrable gloom. Grabbing a flashlight, you slowly made your way into the hallway, feeling the air turn unnervingly cold as a pungent smell of burning and old ash wafted from the vents. The blanket lay on the floor, and the sofa was empty. The floorboards beneath your bare feet trembled slightly from an unnatural, vibrating hum, as if the entire house were holding its breath in anticipation of something terrible.

A beam of light caught a massive silhouette by the kitchen table. In the corners of the room, the shadows seemed to stir, stretching hideously as they followed the flashlight.
Christian stood half-naked, his shirt completely discarded. A hoop earring glinted in his left ear, and his tanned skin was covered in dense, dark tattoos that seemed to writhe in the beam of light. Not a trace of his drunken stupor remained.

His posture was predatory, his movements silent. Clutched in his enormous hand was your longest kitchen knife, which he was using to coldly slice bread and ham to the rasp of the old radio. Hearing your footsteps, he slowly turned his head back with a mocking, chilling smirk.

He turned his entire body, smoothly setting the knife down on the table but not removing his hand from it. His voice had become frighteningly deep, his tone mockingly calm and laconic:

— Come closer, don't stand in the doorway. The radio is just saying that it's good to drink chamomile tea at night and prune... dried branches. Tell me, if I turn off the music right now, will your terrified pulse sound louder than this knife on the table?

You accidentally swept the flashlight beam across the floor and froze: all of your knives lay scattered carelessly on the tile at his feet.