She looks up sharply. “What’s worse than a world full of monsters?”
“A world without light.”
Silence falls heavy between us.
I move to her side, put my hand over hers. “I know fear. But fear is not what saves us. Action is.”
“You’re talking about fighting a nightmare with a stick,” she says. “Even if it’s magic. Even if it’s glowing. We’re not superheroes, Kursk.”
“We are not meant to be,” I say. “But sometimes, we are chosen anyway.”
Her throat bobs as she swallows. Her voice is quieter now. “I don’t want to lose this place. My home. My job. My town.”
I touch her face, my thumb brushing her cheek. “Then we protect it.”
A rustling outside breaks the moment. I grab the spear and step to the porch. Nothing visible. Just the wind. But I feel it watching.Always watching.
Back inside, Olivia’s already pulling her laptop from under a pile of books.
“I’ll see what I can find,” she says. “If Calvin’s involved—if the Veil’s weakening—there’s gotta be something. Records. Energy readings. Something he’s missed.”
I watch her, fingers flying over the keys, hair tangled from sleep, eyes bright with defiance.
This world is not made for war.
But she is.
I do not like this place. The air tastes wrong. Bitter, like copper soaked in shadow.
Olivia calls it Whispering Pines—an abandoned housing development tucked off the main road, half-swallowed by weeds and regret. The houses stand crooked, unfinished, as though they collapsed inward from some invisible wound. Paint peels like scorched skin. No birds. No insects. Just that low hum beneath everything. A sick-pitched vibration under the soles of my boots that makes my molars ache.
"This is one of Calvin’s first projects," Olivia whispers beside me. She holds a flashlight like a sword, eyes flicking nervously from boarded windows to half-rotted swing sets. "He said it was going to be a ‘communal living hub.’ Eco-conscious, minimalist, and spiritually centered."
I grunt. “It reeks of poison.”
“Yeah. Well. I wouldn’t drink the water.”
We move deeper into the ruins. My hand never leaves the haft of the spear—though even it feels weaker here, its glow dampened like moonlight through fog. I canfeelthe ley lines bleeding out, warping, curdling like spoiled milk.
Then I hear them.
First, it’s a chittering. Too fast. Too high-pitched. It flutters along my spine like insect legs.
Laughter. Wet, broken laughter, like someone trying to mimic joy with a shattered larynx.
Olivia’s breath catches.
A figure stumbles from the house ahead. Barefoot. Skin like paper stretched too tight over bone. Clothes once human, now scraps. Its mouth hangs open, leaking black ichor. Its eyes, gods… the eyes are wrong.
Three more follow—scrabbling down cracked concrete, groaning and twitching like marionettes pulled by drunken gods.
“Calvin’s… tenants?” Olivia asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
“They aretetherednow,” I say. “Twisted by prolonged exposure to the rift.”
"They're not gonnatalkthis out, are they?" she says.
“No.”
