The Watcher Returns

There was something different in the air.

Not the chill—Kliwon had grown used to that, like a second skin. Not even the scent of burnt feathers or the taste of silence between heartbeats.

No, this was something deeper.

Something watching.

But not like before.

Now, the watcher was… waiting.

---

The rice fields were veiled in thin morning fog, but it clung to the ground unnaturally, like a wounded beast unwilling to rise. Kliwon stepped barefoot through the paddies, his body still aching from the visions of the night before. Something had changed in him, and he knew it. He felt it in the way the villagers looked away now, not just out of fear—but reverence.

A little boy holding a carved crow made of dried palm leaves watched him pass and whispered, "He walks without shadow."

Kliwon stopped.

He turned slowly toward the boy. "What did you say?"

The boy didn't reply. His eyes were black, too black. Not like eyeballs, but like something had scooped them out and filled them with ink.

When Kliwon stepped closer, the boy dropped the crow effigy and ran—barefoot, fast, and soundless, disappearing into the fog.

Kliwon bent down and picked up the crow.

It was wet.

But not with water.

With blood.

---

He didn't return to the guesthouse. He didn't trust the walls anymore. They had begun to breathe at night.

Instead, he climbed the stone path toward the hill behind the village—the one no one ever spoke of. Not forbidden by rule, but by memory. The kind of place people forget because remembering it costs too much.

At the crest of the hill stood a shrine.

No roof.

No prayers.

Just stones.

And a single stake driven into the ground.

Tied to it: feathers.

Black. So many they looked like a cloak pinned to the earth.

And beside the stake… footprints.

Large. Elongated. Too long to be human. Too narrow to be beast.

He crouched, touched the prints.

Still warm.

Still fresh.

And then he heard it.

A rustle—not of leaves, but of feathers.

A slow breath behind him.

And a voice, cold and wet:

> *"Why did you return?"*

He turned.

The Watcher stood a few feet away.

But this time…

…it limped.

---

Its once fluid movements were now jagged, uneven. The feathers on its elongated arms were dulled, patches missing. The long beak mask it wore twitched as though the thing inside were struggling to stay still.

But its eyes—deep-set and red-veined—still pulsed with hunger.

Only now, there was something else behind them.

Caution.

"Kliwon," it rasped, voice like wind dragging over old metal. "You crossed too far."

Kliwon didn't answer.

He didn't need to.

Because he could feel it now. Not just around him—but inside him.

The thing that stirred in his spine. The shadow that no longer followed him but whispered to him. It wasn't just fear or madness.

It was power.

And it reeked of ritual.

> "You carry the name," The Watcher hissed. "The true name. You shouldn't."

"I didn't take it," Kliwon said, voice steady. "It remembered me."

The Watcher's wings twitched.

Something in the trees nearby groaned.

"You are becoming what should not be. A mouth without hunger. A vessel without obedience."

Kliwon stepped forward.

And the Watcher stepped back.

---

It was subtle.

But undeniable.

The thing that once dragged corpses through the mist, that once scratched warnings into bone and whispered nightmares into the ears of sleeping children—

It was **afraid**.

Kliwon could see it now.

It wasn't just a monster.

It was a servant.

Bound to a hierarchy of rites and commands. It fed, but not freely. It watched, but not without orders.

"Who commands you?" Kliwon asked.

Silence.

"Who told you to watch this place? Who are you feeding?"

The Watcher trembled.

> "You… are becoming the question," it said slowly. "That makes you dangerous."

Then, in one motion, The Watcher spread its arms.

Feathers erupted into the air—black, jagged, and pulsing with heat.

But Kliwon didn't flinch.

He stepped into them.

And the feathers scattered like ashes.

The Watcher screamed—not in rage, but in pain.

Its body convulsed. The elongated mask cracked at the sides. Blood—black and smoking—poured from its back as if something inside it was tearing loose.

"You've been leeching power from this land," Kliwon said, eyes narrowing. "But it no longer belongs to you."

He raised his hand.

The crow-mark glowed—red, then violet, then a color that had no name.

The Watcher collapsed.

Its limbs shrunk, its feathers melted into mud, and its face broke apart into splinters of bone and teeth.

But before it vanished entirely, it whispered one last word:

> "Eater."

---

Kliwon fell to one knee.

He was sweating.

Shaking.

But not from fear.

From restraint.

There was something in him now. A voice. A rhythm. A **hunger** not for food, but for **names**.

He looked to the sky. And for a moment, it rippled—like cloth soaked in black oil.

The Watcher had called him something.

**Eater.**

He didn't know what it meant.

But it resonated. It fit like skin that had been waiting for him all along.

He staggered back toward the village.

And when he arrived, the people were waiting.

Not to stop him.

But to kneel.

---

Old women brought offerings to his feet—bowls of charcoal, broken mirrors, feathers tied with human hair.

Children sang songs in languages he didn't understand.

Men stood in silence, covering their mouths as he passed.

A dog barked once—and then fell dead.

No one flinched.

Not even Kliwon.

He entered the guesthouse again—not to rest, but to search.

He pulled up the floorboards.

Dug through the dirt.

And there it was.

A scroll.

Wrapped in dried skin. Sealed with wax shaped like an open eye.

He opened it.

Inside were only four words.

But they carved into his brain like knives.

> "Open the Ninth Mouth."

He didn't know what it meant.

But the hunger in his chest growled in approval.

---

That night, he didn't dream.

He descended.

Into a space deeper than memory.

And in that place, beneath stone and spirit, stood a gate.

Tall. Wide. Bleeding.

Nine locks.

Eight open.

One closed.

And it pulsed when it saw him.

---