It’s been three days since the moon broke and the world rippled. Since the veil between worlds peeled back like rotted wallpaper and gave us all a glimpse of something else, something more. Something terrifying that we should never have access to. I wouldn’t even know that if not for helping a creature with fluttering wings and pointy ears who got stuck in a city bus when the worlds crossed over each other for a brief moment.
I flex my fingers and let the shadows crawl up my legs, winding around my thigh like a smoky caress given weight and shape. They reach my hand, twist around my wrist, thickeninginto a dense rope of darkness. My fist curls and the shadows pulse, coiling tighter. My whole arm thrums with pressure, with power I still don’t really understand.
Then I open my hand and let them melt away. They drip like ink, fading into nothing. I’m learning. Fast. I have to.
When it happened, when the moon cracked, I was walking home from a job site. One blink, and the world shifted. The buildings thinned into ruins. People vanished. And in their place, something else, something alien appeared. Jagged towers like bone and crystal. Creatures with wings too big for their bodies, others with glowing eyes and pointed teeth. One looked right at me. Just stared at me with surprised anger. Then the world snapped back into place like it hadn’t hiccupped at all, and it was all gone again.
The next day, a car lost control at the corner of Victoria and 14th, barreling right at me. I threw my hands up, not even thinking, and the shadows came like they’d been waiting all along, ready for me to unleash them. It was like they’d been waiting for that moment. They surged out of the alley beside me, wrapped around the hood, and stopped the car cold only a few feet from me. I fell back on my ass on the dirty concrete and just stared as my brain tried to process the madness. Stunned, I sat there until a banging noise caught my attention and pulled me from my dazed shock.
Thinking that someone must be trapped inside some of the wreckage and thankful to have something else to focus on, I picked myself up and followed the banging noise to a nearby abandoned city bus. I couldn’t see anything until I got close to the windowed door and immediately wished that I had ignored that banging sound. The bus looked normal except for a small glowing figure trapped inside, pounding on the closed doors. As I stepped closer, a shrill voice hit me through the glass.
"Oi, thick-skulled meat beast, open the damn door!"
I pried the emergency handle and the door creaked open. Out flew a tiny creature with sparkling translucent wings, wild hair, and a face like a pissed-off woodland elf. She dusted herself off, sending glitter everywhere, and immediately started berating me.
"Two days. Two bleeding days, I’ve been stuck in that glass coffin. The humans saw me and ran screaming like I was gonna hex their willies off, then locked me in like some cursed treasure. I nearly got fused into your stinking realm like a moth in a soulfire trap!"
I had stared, slack-jawed and speechless, as she scowled at me. Tiny hands landed on tiny hips as attitude radiated off of her.
"What? Never seen a Pixie before? Goddess above, the ignorance."
I muttered something about hallucinations and she rolled her eyes at me. “You really don’t know what happened when the veil tore?”
I lift my hands in bewilderment. “Veil? What the hell is that?”
She rubbed little fingers between her eyes and sighed in frustration before pinning me with an exasperated look. “Listen, shadow boy. I’ll give you the quick and dirty breakdown of what’s happening because you’ve saved me and because I’ve been stuck watching all you humans running around clueless for two days. So here it is… our realms slammed together. Boom!” She clasps her tiny hands together, sending what looks like glitter out in a puff. “Magic leaked in like a spilled potion in a sandstorm. Your kind started waking up with powers, instincts, gifts you have no right to. And if I’m here, then bigger and badder have crossed over, too. You think your little shadow tricks are special? Please. You’re like a baby demigod with training wheels."
I couldn’t tell if she was fucking with me or if I really had gone mad, but she’d been so annoyed and so smug about knowing more than me that it was almost comforting to finally know what was happening, even if it was completely unreal.
“Look, I can’t stay here and hold your hand as you readjust to your new life expectancy but…. I owe you a life debt now. So if you ever really, REALLY, need help, just call my name. It’s Syllabeth, but you’ll probably forget that, so just yell ‘Pixie’ and I’ll try not to ignore you."
She pokes me in the chest, crackling with magic. "Don’t die, shadow boy. Shit’s only gonna get weirder from here."
Then with a shimmer and a pop, she had vanished, leaving behind a faint scent of peppermint and burnt sugar.
I just stared at the empty air where she was, then looked at my hands in disbelief.
"The fuck is my life now?"
That’s when I knew, when I decided. If the world was ending, I was going to spend the last of it getting back to her. To Luna. I’ll find a way to fix what I broke somehow, even if it means dying on my knees in front of her.
I left Prairie Gap thinking I was doing the right thing. That walking away from her was the only way to make amends for what I did. But now? Fuck that. I’m not going to leave her all alone to figure out the dangers this new world has coming at us. I’ll do whatever I need to, to win her forgiveness and beg her to give me another chance to be the man she needs me to be.
I take one last look out at the madness of the city before I sling my backpack over one shoulder. It’s light with just the essentials. Some food, a couple of water bottles, and a couple of knives. One of them is the one Atlas gave me for my sixteenth birthday. I almost threw it away more times than I can count, but couldn’t bring myself to. Time to go. Time to go home.
I step off the roof.
The shadows catch me like a net, slowing me, lowering me, until I drop to the alley floor with barely a sound. I’m about to move when a voice cuts through the shadows.
"Going somewhere, cousin?"
I stiffen and slowly turn to face Rafe leaning against the alley wall like he owns it. Which, in his mind, he probably does. Leather jacket unzipped, dark eyes sharp with calculation. I spot a couple of his guys blocking the other end of the alley. One holds a bat, and the other’s cracking his knuckles like that’s supposed to intimidate me.
It doesn’t.
"I’m done, Rafe," I tell him in a tired voice. "I’m heading home."
His mouth curls, almost amused. "To the little girl you abandoned? A bit late, isn’t it?"
