Or maybe for a second. A minute. An hour. Days. Months. I don’t know. Time doesn’t exist anymore.
And then?—
Impact.
My feet hit solid ground and immediately give out, sending me sprawling into Hayes. I crash against him, fingers clawing at his back, the breath punched from my lungs.
“You okay?” he asks, untangling us and rising to his feet. He reaches down, hand outstretched, and helps me up.
“I—I think so?”
“Careful,” he warns. “It takes a few minutes to adjust.”
My legs wobble beneath me like cooked spaghetti as I try to stand. I feel like I’ve just stumbled off a roller coaster that’s been spinning at triple speed and moving in reverse. Even leaning against his solidframe, I can barely stay upright. A wave of nausea surges, sharp and sudden, and I clap a hand over my mouth.
Oh God.
I’m going to throw up.
Or I would, if I had anything left in my stomach, but I’m pretty sure the portal wrung me dry. Food, air, my dignity. Possibly my sanity, too.
Something cold and wet streaks across my cheek in the most vile way. I flinch, shivering, wiping it away without thinking. Sweat, I assume, or maybe rain or mist, but then I realize with a start it’s not that at all.
My brain scrambles to catch up with what I’m seeing.
No… not sweat.Not even close.
I blink, mesmerized, at the scene unfolding in front of me. Hundreds—no, thousands—of ghosts. Pale, translucent figures, half-formed and twitching, rising from the earth like steam. Some whisper. Some wail. Others scream with soundless agony, their mouths stretched wide as they swirl and twist like smoke on a breeze before vanishing into the sky above.
Theredsky.
Not a romantic sunset red or a pretty, cloudy dusk red. Red like blood, like something torn open, raw and gaping and bleeding.
But even ghosts in the air and a sky like something from a nightmare don’t compare to the monstrosity looming directly in front of us.
Just yards away, a vast sludge-black river churns,towering waves crashing against a jagged shoreline littered with bones, bleached white and splintered like wreckage after a shipwreck. Docked at the water’s edge is a ferry unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
It’s massive, titanic in scale. Weathered and brutal, with tiered decks that rise from old, chipped wood and corroded steel. It looks like something dredged from the bottom of time itself. Something that should’ve been sent to a junkyard eons ago.
And the ghosts aredrawnto it.
They surge forward in a silent flood, phasing through one another as they rush the dock, cries layered in grief as they vanish onto the broken decks by the thousands.
But the worst part isn’t the river. Or the bones. Or even the ship.
It’s the terrifying skeletal figure standing at the head of the dock.
He has to be at least ten feet tall, draped in a billowing black robe that sways though there’s no wind. His back is to us, spine unnaturally straight. One bony hand clutches a long wooden staff, which he thumps rhythmically against the planks. Each strike sends more ghosts forward, herding them like cattle.
Then he turns to face us.
I gasp, stumbling back on instinct.Nothingshould have a face like that.
Bone-white. Hollow. A perfect skull, stripped of flesh. No skin. No features. Just the raw, leering mask of death itself. It’s like something straight out of oneof my horror movies, except this time, there’s no screen between me and it.
“What theactual fuckis going on?”
Hayes grabs my elbow and pulls me forward. “Come on. We have to get on the ferry before it leaves.”
