A Thief’s Story

"AAAAHHHHH!"

Leo's scream was lost inside the hole, which closed behind him. His body, spinning out of control, was sucked in by a whirlwind of lights.

"Where am I?! What's happening?!"

The fall wasn't like that of a well, but rather like that of a conduit. A tunnel of vibrant energy and psychedelic colors stretched before him, twisting and curving in on itself.

"I'm going to throw uuuuup!!"

The sensation was dizzying, as if he were being dragged at high speed through a kaleidoscope.

(Is it new?)

(I don't know)

(Help?)

Around him, tiny straw dolls floated, spinning slowly, carried by the same current that was pulling him along. They seemed carefree, as if this madness were their normal way of moving.

"Aaaaaaaaaargh!!"

The journey was a mix of terror and wonder, a breathtaking spectacle of lights and shadows that completely disoriented him.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!"

Leo's scream turned into an incoherent blabber.

(He'll be fine)

(Are you sure?)

(Here they come!)

(I was expecting it!)

Meanwhile, in contrast, the straw dolls were excited, as the energy tunnel was not only a means of transport but also a cosmic junkyard.

"It can't be!!"

Leo was unable to contain his cry of frustration as he saw what was approaching: pieces of marble from the temple, deflated balloons from an amusement park, broken action figures, and faceless stone statues floated around him.

(Fun!)

(Let's go!)

(Cheater!)

(That's not true!)

"What's wrong with this place?!"

In that situation where gravity meant nothing, the straw dolls played, having fun with the objects around them. In contrast, Leo avoided the debris as best he could, getting lost in the flow of madness while clocks with melted hands spun slowly.

(Rookie!)

(He's getting away!)

(Bye, bye!)

(See you soon!)

The straw dolls, who had recently been floating placidly, playing around him, waved goodbye as they noticed him moving away, as if it were a casual farewell. With an adorable tilt of their heads, they turned and veered off into another branch of the tunnel, their path as sure as a highway's.

"Wait...!"

(Plop!)

"Argh!"

Leo tried to scream, reaching out for help, but distracted by the dolls, he collided head-on with a marble figure that was floating, causing him to be knocked off course.

"UUUWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!"

In that way, he completely lost control, feeling how he was falling down a kind of endless slide, descending toward what seemed to be both down and up at the same time, without control.

"IS THAT THE EXIT?!!"

At the end of the fall, Leo saw a light. It was a soft white glow that grew larger with every passing second, pulling him toward an unknown destination.

"Please let it be an exit!!"

Praying fervently, Leo squeezed his eyes shut and threw himself toward the light, feeling the void that opened before him.

"......."

The silence that followed the fall was so profound that Leo felt his ears were exploding. He opened his eyes and what he saw left him breathless.

"N-no... It can't... Be..."

He opened his eyes hoping for the best, only to be left breathless by what he saw. He was no longer in a tunnel of madness, but in a place of strange and surreal beauty.

"......"

Before his eyes, a vast ravine of furniture stretched out, an entire landscape created from furniture and cushions of all kinds. The canyon walls were formed by the backs of dozens of antique sofas piled on top of each other, with their wooden and steel legs peeking out as if they were rocks. The cliffs and plateaus were built with the bases of beds, nightstands, and dressers precariously stacked. The floor of the ravine was not dirt, but a sea of cushions, a fluffy tapestry of different shapes, sizes, and colors that stretched as far as the eye could see.

"......."

In the distance, floor lamps rose like lighthouses, their filament lights shining over the landscape. Woven rugs stretched over the surfaces, creating rivers of patterns and colors that flowed down the slopes. The air smelled of old fabric, dust, and something sweet, almost as if time had stopped in a warm, old home.

"....."

As he finished taking in the surreal landscape, Leo felt the wind on his face. The sensation of falling suddenly hit him, and he regained his senses upon realizing that he was falling from a considerable height.

"AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

His desperate scream echoed in the furniture ravine as he fell like a meteorite.

(WHOOOSH! PLOOF!)

His desperate screams finally stopped after he impacted one of the giant cushions that made up the floor, creating a cloud of dust and lint that rose into the air, covering the entire area.

"Huff, huff.... Uff..."

The air, dense and charged with the smell of fabric and mold, was suffocating him.

"Haaa... Haa... Aaahh..."

Leo, with his lungs burning and his body exhausted from the impact, found himself in a hollow he had created in the sea of cushions. The pressure of his fall had sunk him into a soft and oppressive world.

"Huff... Fuuu..."

The silence was overwhelming. Leo stayed still, breathing heavily, his heart pounding. All around him, the plush of the cushions wrapped him completely, like a soft prison.

"......."

Slowly, his breathing calmed, the panic subsided, and Leo stared at the void of lint that surrounded him, trying to find some peace in the immensity of the fabric.

"......."

When the cloud of dust and lint finally dissipated, the light suddenly hit him. As he looked up, he saw...

".... So that's where I fell from."

... The furniture floor above him and, right in the center, the hole he realized he had fallen from.

"Are you okay? You seem to have fallen from the sky."

A moment after Leo had processed where he came from, a voice resonated in the silence, grave, soft, and curious.

"......."

Leo, exhausted and breathless, turned his head in silence. His gaze met that of a man approaching, emerging from a gap between two giant sofas. His figure was thin and his appearance, at first glance, was that of a vagabond. But there was something about him that suggested a deliberate choice in his unkempt condition.

"Not many people get to this place besides me, although I'm not proud of it!"

"......."

His hair was long and disorganized, a labyrinth of brown strands that fell to his shoulders. It wasn't a mess from neglect, but from an intentional lack of combing that, in some way, gave him a bohemian air. His beard, a tangle of light and dark brown hair, was long and shapeless, but it contrasted with his curious and penetrating eyes. He wore what looked like a checkered flannel shirt, but frayed at the seams and with patches of different colored fabrics. Beneath it, a faded polo shirt, showing the remnants of a band Leo didn't recognize, was barely visible. His jeans were torn at the knees and thighs, with the edges cut unevenly. His work boots were covered in dust, but the sole seemed to be in perfect condition, as if they had never walked on dirt.

"Aren't you going to answer me? Or are you a figment of my imagination?"

The man leaned in slightly, with an expression of genuine curiosity in his eyes, as he asked the silent Leo.

"Who... are you?"

Leo, still in the plush hollow, took a moment to process the words. His body felt heavy, and the adrenaline from the fall had left him exhausted, so with a hoarse voice, barely a whisper, he managed to articulate a question.

"Me...?"

The man straightened up. A sad and enigmatic smile crossed his face. He took a moment to observe Leo, as if he were evaluating him, before responding.

"I'm just a man who made a terrible mistake and is now paying his sentence."

The answer only confused Leo, who half-rose, feeling his head spin.

"What... does that mean?"

The man shrugged, the fabric of his flannel shirt wrinkling.

"It's a rather long story."

Leo couldn't take any more. He let himself fall back against the cushion, while frustration and panic returned.

"I don't care after everything that has happened. Right now, I just need something to calm down."

"Ahahahaha, it seems you don't have it easy either!"

The man let out a soft laugh full of resignation. He sat down on the cushion next to the hollow where Leo was and crossed his legs, as if he were about to tell a campfire story.

"Where to begin...?"

The man asked himself, his gaze lost in the void.

The past came back to him, remembering how, some time ago, he was part of a group of thieves who, at nightfall, would enter the hearts of cities, in urban neighborhoods, to plunder everything they could from people's homes. It was a dangerous lifestyle, full of adrenaline and the constant fear of being caught. It was a path he was not proud of, but, at the same time, it was the only one he knew.

"We were good. Very good."

The man settled into the cushion, his eyes narrowed as if he were reliving every moment.

"For me, we were the best."

His group was not an ordinary gang of criminals. They were artists of theft, ghosts in the night. Their assaults were not acts of brute force, but of precision and cunning. They moved as if the darkness were a second home, taking advantage of urban silences and shadows for their benefit.

"We were living the dream."

It had been a life full of success. One of their most memorable heists was in a luxury penthouse, in the heart of the city. The place was full of alarms and surveillance cameras, a labyrinth of security. But they, like shadows, slipped through the vents, disabled the systems with astonishing ease, and left with a diamond necklace, without leaving a trace of their entry. On another occasion, in the blink of an eye, they emptied a jewelry store in a shopping mall. It was a lightning attack: a coordinated and swift strike that allowed them to take the most valuable pieces in less than a minute, disappearing into the crowd before the alarm even sounded.

"Nothing seemed to be able to go wrong."

His life seemed to be going smoothly. They felt invincible, as if the rules of the world didn't apply to them. The money came in, the danger was an adrenaline rush that made them feel alive. Nothing, absolutely nothing, seemed to be able to go wrong.

"But that was just arrogance..."

Until that fateful night arrived, the night when everything they knew was about to end.

That day, the night promised to be like any other. They had located a target in a quiet suburban neighborhood, a home with a luxurious and classic appearance. "Just another mansion," they thought, one with a life that wasn't worth risking completely. They approached the house under the cover of night, moving like ghosts. Their confidence was high; nothing could go wrong.

"But everything went wrong."

They slipped through the back, forced the lock on a door with the ease that practice had given them, and entered. For a moment, everything seemed normal. A dark foyer, the smell of wood, and the silence of a sleeping family. But the first light they turned on didn't illuminate a living room; it revealed a vision that defied all logic.

"We had entered an authentic pandemonium... We... Haaaa...."

The man fell silent, his gaze lost in the space between the cushions. He took a deep breath, as if the memory alone were suffocating him.

"It wasn't normal... no, better said, it's a madhouse where nothing seems to make sense and maybe the best thing is to not give it a meaning."

After arriving, they immediately experienced all kinds of anomalies, from a room they had entered that had no end to all sorts of increasingly bizarre situations. Every door led them to stranger places.

"Truly a labyrinth of horrors and wonders."

They walked through corridors that curved in on themselves, where the walls twisted and the windows showed the outside and the inside at the same time. At one of the doors, they found one that opened to a candy forest. The trees had twisted licorice trunks, their leaves were mint crystals that shone with their own light, and the bushes were large balls of cotton candy. A river of chocolate flowed through the landscape, thick and sweet, with giant marshmallows floating on its surface.

"Now I am always grateful to that forest for being a valuable source of sustenance in this hell, Ahahaha."

"....."

"Well, let's continue... Let's see... What happened next?"

The man remembered how in another hallway, the smell of incense and the sound of chanting indicated that they were not alone. They saw a dangerous cult dressed in black robes moving in the shadows, whispering incomprehensible words. And, as if all that weren't terrifying enough, monsters—or what at that moment they could only consider as monsters—walked through the hallways with a chilling naturalness. They lurked everywhere, ignoring them as they innocently played around, as if they were nothing more than a part of the landscape.

"Even today I regret that moment, because we didn't know that there were words that should never be spoken in the presence of those beings... Had we known... We could have avoided the tragedy..."

The man, his voice barely a whisper, continued his story.

"What tragedy? What did you fight against?"

However, Leo, with his eyes wide open with curiosity, asked at that moment.

"They were adorable... Harmless... However, everything changed with a single word: those beings changed after hearing them... They became demons..."

The man swallowed hard, his eyes now shining with the memory.

".... What did you say?"

The man leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper full of dread.

"Exasperated at that moment, we said a few blasphemous insults, words that should never be spoken.... We insulted what had created this place in a thousand and one ways, we... We insulted their mother...!"

"....."

At that moment, a wave of dark energy spread through the place. The little straw dolls, who had until then been harmless, turned at the same time, their bodies twisting as they looked at the men, until their bodies tore. From within them, a thick black smoke spewed out, completely enveloping them. When the smoke dissipated, they were no longer dolls. Their bodies, now a charred black, had straw sharpened like blades and their eyes were two fiery red dots. Their long, thin legs and arms ended in sharp claws that scratched the floor as they moved.

"At that moment, the hunt had begun."

The demonic horde moved with terrifying speed and purpose, its only goal being to find and destroy the intruders who had dared to blaspheme. They split up, exploring every hallway and every room, their footsteps scratching the air and the smell of sulfur filling everything.

"That night, they all suffered horrible fates. There was no way to escape."

The man curled up more in the cushion, his eyes filled with a deep sadness.

The dolls' hunt was relentless. Some of his companions were cornered in the infinite hallways, their screams of horror echoing as they were torn to shreds until they completely disappeared, absorbed by the black smoke that emanated from the sharp claws. But their fate wasn't the worst.

"Others... others were trapped by a terrifying red-haired woman who seemed harmless. She smiled at us with a sinister sweetness and took them away... to what they called Susie's playroom. The fate they found there was, without a doubt, worse than death."

Despite all the horror, only he and a rookie from the group managed to escape. They ran, frantic, through the labyrinth until they came across a door that led them to a normal-looking living room. There, an expressionless maid with completely empty eyes was waiting for them.

The rookie, desperate and out of his mind, tried to use his weapon to take her hostage.

"It was a fatal mistake."

The maid didn't even flinch. With inhuman speed, she threw a punch that generated a gust of wind so strong that it exploded the rookie, turning him into nothing more than bloody bits that stained the walls.

"Terror took hold of me, paralyzing me for a second. So, without thinking, I ran, opening the first door I saw; without looking at what was on the other side, I simply jumped."

"......."

"There was no hallway, there was no room, just a hole into which I fell into the place I now call home."

"....."

"Since then, I've lived hidden in this house. With no one else... or at least, that's how it was until now."