IN TENEBRIS It was around midnight. A young shepherd was entering the barn where he kept his sheep, pushing a cart used to transport straw. Just to the right of the main entrance, there was a pen where some sheep slept peacefully. That afternoon, some of them had escaped to the pasture. When he went out to fetch them, the shepherd had ended up forgetting his cart in the field. Only hours later, late at night, did he remember to retrieve it. Further ahead, on the left, near the back of the shed, there was another pen. Beside it, a small closed room served to store carts, tools, and other utensils used daily in caring for the animals. Exhausted, for he should have been asleep hours ago, the young man entered the room and put the cart back in its usual place. Before leaving, he clapped his boots together, trying to remove the dirt accumulated during work. When he turned to leave the room, he noticed something. To his left, on the path leading to the back door of the shed, there was a sheep. It was standing still. Motionless. But there was something deeply wrong with that animal. All the shepherd's sheep had white fleece, soft as cotton. This one, however, was completely black. Its wool seemed so dense and matte that it barely reflected the dim light of the environment. The young man had never seen that sheep before. Its eyes were two perfectly white circles, fixed, staring directly at him. That part of the shed was poorly lit. Since he had entered through the main door, where the lamps remained on, he hadn't bothered to turn on the lights at the back. The darkness around made the animal's fleece seem even blacker. The shepherd remained motionless. His expression was that of someone who had just witnessed something that simply should not exist. For about thirty seconds, he stared at the creature, trying to understand where it had come from. Then, the shed's light flickered. Instinctively, he raised his eyes to the lamp. When he looked back at the sheep... It had disappeared. A strange emptiness took hold of his chest. It wasn't exactly fear. It was something deeper, an inexplicable anguish, as if something was terribly wrong. Without thinking much, he turned and began to walk quickly toward the main entrance. As he passed the pen near the back of the shed, he noticed a strange movement. In the small gate of the pen, a black stain writhed. It didn't seem liquid. Nor was it solid. Much less gaseous. Its appearance defied any attempt at explanation. It was like observing a state of matter that should never exist, something for which nature simply had no definition. The stain twisted continuously, assuming impossible shapes. Inside the pen, the sheep pressed against the wall, seized by absolute terror. Witnessing that scene, the shepherd felt his legs fail for a brief moment. But his instinct spoke louder. He turned and began to run toward the main door. There were still just under forty meters to reach it when all the lights in the shed went out. Darkness took over the shed. Only the moonlight came through the main entrance, casting a narrow, straight strip on the straw-covered floor. The silver trail extended over much of the shed, almost reaching the pen at the back. Surprised by the blackout, the shepherd quickly looked at the lamp above his head. When he turned his eyes back to the exit, his body reacted even before he could understand what he was seeing. The black stain was there. Right in front of the door. He stopped running abruptly. His boots slid on the straw scattered on the floor, making him lose his balance and fall to a sitting position. He remained motionless, unable to believe what his eyes were witnessing. The stain began to approach. With every inch it covered, its size increased. It expanded in all directions, as if it were growing beyond the limits of space itself. Slowly, something began to take shape. First, a head. Round, disproportionate, with two small horns projecting upward. In place of eyes, there were two perfectly white holes. The mouth seemed formed by two horizontal cracks, one above the other, open on that black and unstable surface. The shepherd got up desperately and ran back to the rear of the shed. To his right, where the back exit was and where he had found the black sheep, the darkness was absolute. It didn't seem just an absence of light. It was as if that part of the shed had ceased to exist. As if, beyond that point, there was nothing else belonging to the world he knew. With nowhere to flee, the young man ended up cornered in front of the pen. The creature continued to approach. His breathing was uncontrolled. Sweat streamed down his face as he raised his hands over his head, in an instinctive and useless attempt to protect himself. As if his arms could offer any defense against that. His entire body trembled. His eyes remained wide open, glazed, as if they were about to pop out of their sockets. Then, the creature stopped. It was about seven meters from him. The shepherd pressed his own head with both hands. But something had changed. He no longer seemed to be trying to protect himself from the creature. He seemed to be trying to contain something within himself. Even pressing his hands against his skull, his head began to vibrate. First, discreetly. Then, with increasing intensity. He squeezed even harder, trying to keep it still, but the vibrations continued. He closed his eyes tightly, clenched his jaw, and tensed all the muscles in his face, as if he were waging an internal battle against some presence trying to dominate him. For a few moments, he seemed to lose control of his own expressions. His face alternated between suffering, resistance, and involuntary movements, as if something else was trying to manifest through him. With each new contraction, he struggled to regain dominion over himself. His mouth opened in a desperate scream. There was something deeply disturbing in that scene. It was as if two wills were disputing the same body. One trying to take control. The other desperately resisting to prevent that from happening. Until, suddenly... Everything stopped. The shepherd stood still. And then, he lost. His head ceased to have a recognizable shape, giving way to a dark stain identical to that of the creature before him. There was no longer a face. Only a black mass that writhed on his shoulders. Then, his clothes disappeared, and the rest of his body began to assume the same impossible appearance. In a few seconds, nothing remained of the human figure that had been there. Now there were two shadows. One larger. Another smaller. Without any warning, the form that had once been the shepherd shot toward the darkness of the back door, moving at an impressive speed. The larger creature immediately set off in pursuit. A chase began. As it fled, the smaller shadow fragmented. Its form split into dozens of small creatures that, in a matter of moments, assumed the appearance of a litter of black rats. The animals ran desperately across the shed floor, scattering among the straw. The larger shadow advanced right behind. One of the cracks that formed its mouth opened, and the creature snatched one of the rats. At the same instant, all the others reacted. Their bodies shuddered, and small squeals of pain echoed through the shed. It was as if each of them had felt exactly what had happened to the one that was captured. The larger creature was preparing to devour another rat when, suddenly, all the animals leaped. Still in the air, their bodies transformed. Paws gave way to wings. The small black forms elongated, assuming the appearance of crows. In an almost simultaneous movement, the birds flew toward the main entrance. Seen from above, what could be observed was a flock of at least twenty black crows emerging from the shed and gradually disappearing into the night horizon. At the entrance of the shed, the larger creature remained motionless. Its white eyes followed the crows until they became small dots in the distance. Then, the two cracks on