Here is the direct English translation of the provided text, preserving the original phrasing, repetitions, style, sentence structure, and any roughness as closely as possible:
"Here," he said.
Tension ran through his voice.
"Archives. Everything matches the data on the flash drive.
"Blood samples in test tubes, labeled with subject numbers."
"Camera recordings and dates match Maria's murder."
"Experiment protocols. Corvin was conducting here… something."
"He was trying to create something stronger than vampires and even stronger than ghouls."
Ethan stepped closer, looking at the screen. On one of the photographs, a laboratory table, test tubes, the body of a ghoul cut open lengthwise.
Caption: "Subject №47, aggression off the charts. Recommended for destruction."
Next to it a photo of a man in a white coat, face blurred, but holding a syringe with black liquid in his hands.
"They created them," Ethan whispered.
"It's their fault. Maria found out about this experiment and they got rid of her."
Flash nodded without taking his eyes off the screen.
"Yes, she was here. Or someone from her group. Look at the dates, the last files were uploaded a week before her death.
She managed to copy part of it, but not everything."
Gideon leaned against the rack, breathing heavily.
"Then… let's take everything.
Discs, test tubes, documents.
And we leave. I'm not staying here a second longer than necessary."
But at that moment Pulya growled. Her fur stood on end, her eyes fixed on the far corner of the hall where the darkness was especially thick, almost tangible.
Flash spun around sharply, the knife in his hand flashed.
"He's here."
Ethan felt a cold run down his back, from the nape to the tailbone.
From the shadow emerged a silhouette, it was one of those creatures Flash had spoken about.
A ghoul.
Not as huge as Flash described in his scariest stories, but still enormous, two and a half meters, wings folded behind its back like a cloak made of skin, eyes burning red, without pupils.
Then it stepped forward, beneath it the concrete cracked, fine dust trickled down.
It rose slowly from the feet upward, as if the earth itself was trying to pull and push it toward the guys.
The air was thick, motionless, as if someone had forgotten to open a window in a grave. Every breath came with effort, the lungs resisted holding the breath.
The ghoul stood in the half-darkness, huge, hunched, resembling a broken statue that they forgot to dismantle after the war.
Its skin was gray, stretched over muscles that moved beneath it slowly and heavily, like living ropes.
Wings hung behind its back in folds of damp skin, torn in places, crusted with dried blood in others. It did not move and did not even try to growl.
Its heavy steps slowly shuffled across the stone floor, with every sigh it gave the feeling that it was searching for something.
No one moved.
Even the air seemed to stop circulating.
Flash slowly raised his fist, pointing his middle finger to his lips.
The guys understood Flash immediately, because this sign meant that you couldn't move even now.
"Just try it, I'll kill everyone here," Flash thought to himself.
Ethan felt his heart beating so loudly that the sound echoed in his teeth. He forced himself to inhale fresh air through his nose.
So that his chest didn't rise too sharply. He tried not to give away their presence.
Suddenly the ghoul was right in front of Ethan, it heavily sniffed something, even managed to exhale not the freshest air from its mouth right into Ethan's face.
"Don't breathe, pretend it's just a dream. Now I'm starting to get angry at this whole stupid adventure."
"This whole situation is just some devil's joke."
The thought was the only thing keeping him from panic. He stared straight into the creature's red eyes without looking away.
He thought that if he blinked, it would be the end. Every time he repeated it to himself like a mantra.
"Damn, damn, just get out of here already…"
The ghoul turned its head.
Sharply, as if someone had called it.
As if the joints in its neck were assembled from someone else's bones.
It drew in air.
Ethan almost physically felt that inhale, as if something had been drawn across his skin with a cold scalpel. The creature stepped back, then stood two meters away. Maybe one and a half.
Its chest rose and fell slowly, rhythmically, like a sleeping beast. It was listening and searching for something. Nostrils flared, black, wet, like a predator that had scented prey but hadn't yet decided whether it was worth the effort.
Pulya froze ahead.
Her fur stood on end.
But she was silent. Only trembling, barely noticeably, with her whole body.
The ghoul took a step.
The concrete cracked under its foot, like ice on a spring river. Fine dust rose into the air and slowly settled on its shoulders, like ash after a fire.
It stopped again right in front of Ethan.
"No, no, no, not me!"
The smell was so close that Ethan felt it on his tongue, a bitter, metallic taste.
Phh…
The creature breathed on the back of his neck, slowly, deeply, each exhalation like a gust of cold wind that made the hairs on the nape stand up.
Ethan looked into its eyes.
"It doesn't see me, why? It senses something, but it's only looking at the wall ahead?"
A second.
A second one.
A third.
The ghoul slowly turned its head to the side and walked on.
Its wing brushed against the metal rack.
Ding!
A thin ringing spread through the hall like the strike of a bell in an empty church.
Everything inside Ethan contracted into one tiny lump.
The creature stopped and tilted its head, as soon as the resonance with the sound happened, it noticed it.
Ethan stopped breathing completely.
Then the ghoul slowly spread its wings…
Dark like a wet cloak. The membranes stretched, revealing veins resembling cracks in old glass.
Shhh…