> *"The difference between madness and reality often depends on who signs that report."*
— Dr. Aris Thorne, Field Notes, 2001
The light of blue and red strobes danced on the rusty surfaces of scrapped vehicles as if in the throes of an epileptic seizure. The metallic, crackling announcements rising from the radios had cut through the silence of the night—and the inconceivable horror that had just unfolded here—like a knife.
Elara braced her trembling hands against her knees and tried to breathe. The air filling her lungs wasn't oxygen; it was like a hot soup. Because of that damned "eternal summer" cycle, where thermometers still read thirty degrees at this hour of the night, sweat was flowing down her back like an ice-cold river.
The ice cream truck... That thing no longer looked like a monster. With the yellow "DO NOT ENTER - CRIME SCENE" tape stretched around it, it had turned into nothing more than a soulless, peeling heap of metal waiting to be examined.
"Holster your weapon, Elara. The show's over."
The voice was familiar. Too calm, too controlled, and irritatingly rational.
Elara straightened up and turned around. Dr. Aris Thorne was looking at her with his usual crisply pressed shirt and a weary expression. He held an evidence bag in his hand. Inside lay the object that had emerged from the center of that melting scoop of vanilla.
"It's a child's tooth," Elara said, her voice sounding raspier than she expected. Her throat was parched from gunpowder smoke and fear. "There was a piece of flesh on the root, Aris. That thing... the thing inside that truck..."
Dr. Aris held the bag up to the light. He looked at the white fragment gleaming inside the plastic as if it were an interesting insect.
"Likely a rat or a stray animal bone," he said in a flat voice. "Calcium deficiency in the city is distorting the dental structure of animals. You know this."
"A rat?" Elara laughed bitterly. The reaction was proof she was teetering on the edge of hysteria. "That thing spoke to me, Aris! It talked about the taste of my blood. It stood on two legs and..."
"And you likely hallucinated due to heatstroke," Aris interrupted. His voice was as certain and emotionless as a doctor's diagnosis. "The toxin levels in your blood are high enough to kill a normal person three times over. Nicotine, caffeine, and God knows what other chemicals... It's not surprising your brain is playing tricks on you."
Elara stormed past the doctor toward the truck. One of the police officers raised a hand to stop her, but recoiled when he saw the ferocity in her gaze.
The truck's front grille had been mangled in the recent skirmish. Those pink neons had gone out, leaving behind only rusty headlights. Elara reached for the hood. The metal was still hot enough to burn her hand, but it wasn't engine heat. It was the stifling, sticky heat of the asphalt and the air.
"Look," Elara said, forcing the hood latch. "You say that thing is biological... then how does this heap of metal move? How does it vomit that pink stuff from its exhaust?"
The hood opened with the creak of rusty hinges.
The shout of "See!" that Elara was preparing to unleash died in her throat.
It was empty.
Under the hood, there was no engine block, no battery, no radiator... nothing. There was only a vast, dark void revealing the asphalt below. Where the wires should have been, strange, sticky fibers resembling spiderwebs hung down, but there wasn't a trace of mechanical parts.
"There's no engine," Elara whispered. She should have felt victorious, but all she felt was a cold stone settling in her stomach. "Aris! Look here! No engine! How did this damn thing get here?"
Dr. Aris walked slowly to her side as the crime scene investigators' flashes popped. He looked into the void. Not a single hint of surprise registered on his face. He simply pulled a notebook from his pocket and scribbled something down.
"Illegal power line," he said, as if explaining the most natural thing in the world.
Elara looked at her as if he were the one who had lost his mind. "What?"
"Don't you see?" Aris pointed to a thick, black cable hanging from beneath the truck, appearing to be buried in the ground. "They ran an illegal line from the junkyard's main grid. This vehicle doesn't move, Elara. It's just a hollowed-out kiosk sitting here. Squatters or drug addicts probably made this place their home."
"It moved," Elara said, her voice trembling. "It came toward me. The wheels turned."
"Perceptual distortion under stress," Aris said, closing his notebook and tucking it into his shirt pocket. He turned and signaled to the tow truck operator. "Haul the vehicle away. Check the chassis number, send the rest to the crusher."
"No! We need to examine the inside! That pink liquid..."
"The scene has been cleared," Aris said, looking at her over his shoulder. "There's nothing on the ground but melted ice cream and sugar water. Go home, Elara. Sleep. And clean your blood. Or next time, the monsters you see will actually eat you."
The tow truck's winch began to groan. Thick chains wrapped around the ice cream truck's front axle. The shrill sound of metal grinding against metal set Elara's teeth on edge.
As the truck was hoisted into the air, Elara thought she saw—for just a split second—two yellow dots staring back at her from inside that empty engine compartment.
But then a police officer's flashlight swept over the spot, and the image vanished.
As the truck was loaded onto the back of the trailer, the familiar *Calliope* melody did not play. There was only the hiss of hydraulics, the crackle of radios, and the sound of the thick, bureaucratic concrete Dr. Aris was pouring over the truth.
Elara pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from her pocket. She lit one with trembling hands. As she inhaled the smoke, the nauseating taste of vanilla still lingered on the tip of her tongue.
"Rat bone, he says," she muttered to herself, blowing smoke into the purple-hued sky. "Fuck that."