I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing, wrapped in clothes that didn’t belong to me. They were clean, soft, maybe even expensive, but every thread felt like someone else’s skin. I couldn’t stop thinking about the snow, the wolves, the laughter that had poured out of me like it had been waiting for years to escape. For a moment, I’d felt like I belonged. And then I blinked—and the world reminded me that I didn’t.

  The moment my powers slipped, everything shifted. The way they looked at me changed. Dr. Zaraki didn’t say a word, but his silence was its own kind of weight. Even the wolves, who had circled me with warmth and curiosity, backed away like they’d seen something they couldn’t unsee. I’d glitched. Phased. Whatever it was, it felt natural to me—and that terrified me more than anything else.

  My reflection in the window was still catching up. Just a second behind, like it had to remember how to mimic me. I turned away from it, arms folded tight against my stomach, like maybe I could hold the broken pieces in place if I just stayed still long enough. The room around me didn’t help—too quiet, too untouched. The kind of silence that made your heartbeat feel like shouting.

  I kept replaying it all in my head. The way Staroko’s amber eyes had narrowed when I flickered out of sync. The way the laughter died in my throat before I even realized it. The way even the youngest wolves, the ones who had tumbled and wrestled with me minutes before, had watched from a distance afterward like I was something unstable. Something they weren’t sure how to approach anymore.

  My fingertips curled around the edge of the mattress, grounding myself in the pressure. I’d been trained to control my breathing, to anchor myself in prayer, silence, repetition—but none of that worked when your own body didn’t trust where it existed. My thoughts weren’t spiraling; they were drifting. Disconnected. Like echoes bouncing off a version of me that might not be solid anymore.

  A knock interrupted the stillness. Gentle. Three soft taps. I jumped anyway.

  “Erika?” Dr. Volkova’s voice came through the door—calm, collected, unforced. She always sounded like she already knew how you were feeling but wanted to let you say it first.

  I managed a response, though it came out quieter than I meant. “Yeah.”

  The door opened, and she stepped in with a coat folded over her arms. Dark gray, lined for warmth, worn enough to feel real but not ragged. She didn’t smile, not exactly, but her presence softened the room just enough to make it feel like I wasn’t under interrogation anymore.

  “I thought you might want something that actually belongs to you,” she said, stepping closer. “Or at least something that doesn’t smell like storage.”

  I glanced down at the clothes I wore—still the same set from earlier. Clean, but not mine. Nothing had felt like mine in a long time.

  Dr. Volkova set the coat beside me and didn’t press. She wasn’t trying to fix anything. Just offer something stable to lean against. “We’re going out. Not far. Nothing intense. Just... something normal.”

  The word didn’t land right. Normal. It felt like a foreign language I used to speak but hadn’t heard in years. I looked up at her, unsure if I could make myself move.

  “You could use something that feels like yours,” she said again, quieter this time, and then turned and walked toward the door.

  She left it slightly ajar behind her.

  I sat there, staring at the coat for a long moment before reaching for it. The fabric was heavy and warm, and it didn’t fight when I pulled it into my lap. It wasn’t mine, not really, but it also didn’t reject me. And maybe, for now, that was enough.

  The coat settled around my shoulders with more weight than it should have carried. It was warm, the kind of warmth that clings to the inside lining from someone else’s body heat, but it didn’t feel invasive. It felt... offered. I slipped my arms through the sleeves, one at a time, moving slow like the fabric might reject me if I rushed. The fit was close but not constricting, like it had been chosen carefully—intentionally.

  I didn’t know why that made my throat tighten.

  My boots were already by the door. Where I had left them earlier, lined up neatly on the mat still wet from the snow. I pulled them on in silence, the laces still damp and cold. Another thing waiting for me that I hadn’t asked for.

  When I stepped into the hallway, Dr. Volkova was leaning against the far wall, arms crossed loosely, her eyes calm but watchful. She didn’t say anything when she saw me. Just pushed off the wall and started walking. No commands. No soft encouragements. She knew I’d follow, and I did.

  The house was quiet in the early morning light, shadows still stretching long across the hardwood floors. I noticed the details I hadn’t paid attention to before—the way the walls held framed maps of places I didn’t recognize, how the stair railings were a little too smooth, worn down by hands that had passed over them countless times. The place felt lived in, but never quite touched. Like it was a memory that someone kept dusting clean.

  We didn’t speak as we reached the front door. She opened it, and the cold hit fast and clean, brushing across my skin with a sharpness I welcomed. It cleared the static in my head, replaced the haze behind my eyes with something real. I stepped outside, and the air felt like a reset.

  The Tahoe waited at the end of the drive—gloss black, its body humming faintly, even with the engine off. The windows were tinted too dark to see through, but I could still make out the vague shapes of reflections as we approached—mine, just a second too slow again. I tried not to look.

  Dr. Volkova opened the passenger door for me and said nothing. I climbed in, the leather seat cold against the back of my legs. She rounded the front of the vehicle and slid into the driver’s seat with practiced ease, starting the engine with a low, resonant growl that made the frame vibrate under my boots.

  For a few moments, we just sat there in the idling quiet, the heater warming slowly, the dash lights flickering to life with gentle tones. She didn’t rush the drive. She didn’t ask if I was okay.

  She just waited, like she was letting me arrive at my own pace.

  I didn’t thank her. I didn’t know how. But I pulled the coat tighter around me, let the warmth settle in a little deeper, and stared out the window.

  The first gate opened on its own. No guards, no one watching, just a soft sound and then motion—slow, clean, intentional. The Tahoe rolled forward like it was expected. I sat quietly, hands tucked inside my sleeves, staring through the window at what waited beyond the threshold.

  SkyTeam’s campus didn’t look like a city, or a school, or any place I’d ever seen before. It felt too balanced. Too symmetrical. The buildings didn’t sit—they stood, arranged in ways that made the open spaces between them feel narrow even when they weren’t. Glass and steel stretched into sharp lines and long walls, reflecting the pale sky in fractured panels that made it hard to tell where one thing ended and the next began.

  To our left, a wide structure curved like the spine of a shell, its top edge looping in an arc overhead that supported a thin ring of tracks or wires—I couldn’t tell which. A glowing white sign near the entrance read: SkyBoarding R&D. I remembered that word—SkyBoarding. Dr. Volkova had mentioned it in Silverton, explaining it was something between sport and transportation. I didn’t understand how it worked, only that it involved movement, speed, and gravity-defiance I’d never seen outside of fantasy books.

  Whatever went on in there, it clearly didn’t involve people like me.

  Farther ahead, another building rose in a cleaner shape—taller, narrow, its face made entirely of frosted panels that shifted from blue to silver depending on the angle. The name etched into the side read: Cold Fusion Sciences Division. I read the words easily enough, but they landed flat. Cold fusion sounded like something dangerous and quiet. Something that wasn’t meant to be touched.

  The road curved gently as we passed more structures. Autonomous Transport Lab. Cybernetic Biointerface Research. Each name felt like a sentence I could pronounce but not translate. I had no context, no anchor for what any of it meant. Back at the monastery, the buildings had been stone and wood. Here, the walls weren’t meant to breathe—they were meant to withstand.

  The people walking the paths between the buildings moved with a kind of rhythm I didn’t understand. No one lingered. No one laughed. Most of them held slim black tablets or spoke quietly through small earpieces, barely glancing at the world around them. Their coats matched, in color if not in shape—charcoal, navy, deep gray. There was no ornament. No wasted color. Just movement with purpose.

  We passed a narrow tower with mirrored windows and the words Psychometrics and Cognitive Data stenciled neatly in white near the entrance. I didn’t know what a “psychometric” was, but it made my stomach clench the way certain words in sermons used to—vague and heavy, like a door I wasn’t supposed to open.

  I shifted in my seat. The coat Dr. Volkova had given me was warm, but it felt too clean, like it belonged to someone who knew how to walk confidently through this place. I didn’t know where to look, so I kept my eyes on the windows, watching the reflections slide past.

  We turned again, and this time I saw a building that felt different. It wasn’t flashy or towering like the others. It didn’t advertise its purpose with glowing signs or sleek architecture. The outer walls were brushed steel, softly matte, and the windows were tinted a faint blue that made it impossible to see inside. If anything, it looked… modest. Intentional in its silence. But there, just above the entry doors, engraved in quiet lettering, was the name: SkyTeam Aerospace Foundation – Hospital and Medical Research Division.

  It didn’t look like any hospital I’d ever seen. Not that I’d seen many.

  “That one’s mine,” Dr. Volkova said, eyes on the road.

  I turned toward her, unsure what she meant.

  “You work there?”

  She gave a short nod. “I oversee it. I’m the Dean of Supernatural Medicine.”

  The word supernatural hit like a soft knock against my ribs. She said it casually, like it belonged here as much as all the other clinical titles.

  I stared at the building as we passed it. It was unmarked beyond the name. No logos. No reception windows. No activity. It didn’t want to be seen. It wanted to be forgotten.

  “I didn’t know there was a place like that,” I said quietly.

  “There isn’t,” she replied. “Not publicly. We’re the only hospital in the United States that specializes in supernatural medicine. But SkyTeam keeps that off the books.”

  “Why?”

  “Because most people wouldn’t understand what we’re treating. Or who.” Her voice didn’t harden, but it didn’t soften either. It just leveled, like she’d explained this more times than she cared to count. “They’d call it a threat. Or a liability. Or something worse. So we don't tell them. We don't advertise. We just handle it.”

  The Tahoe coasted smoothly past the building, but I couldn’t stop looking back. It was the only place on the entire campus that didn’t feel designed to impress. It felt… deliberate. Like a secret carved into stone and then hidden in plain sight.

  I glanced at her again. “How many people know what that place really is?”

  “Fewer than you'd think,” she said. “SkyTeam is big, but the people who need to know, know. Everyone else just sees it as another research facility.”

  “And you… treat supernaturals?”

  “I train doctors to treat them. I manage long-term recovery cases. I handle admissions, transfers, breakdowns, repressions, relapses… everything most hospitals aren't equipped to see, let alone understand.” She looked over at me briefly. “You’re not the first person who didn’t know what they were. But you might be one of the rare ones who actually survives learning it.”

  I stared down at my hands in my lap. They didn’t feel different. But they didn’t feel like mine either.

  She slowed as we reached another turn. A few people crossed the street ahead of us—three men and a woman in matching charcoal coats, all moving in quiet sync, heads low, eyes alert.

  “You want to know the part no one would believe?” she added after a pause. “Most of the people who work here aren’t human.”

  I looked up, surprised. “What?”

  She gave a faint smile. Not amused—more like someone acknowledging an open secret. “Werewolves, mostly. A few other species mixed in. Couple vampires, but they tend to work nights. And yes, there are humans here too—engineers, logistics staff, public-facing roles. But SkyTeam’s real strength comes from the people who don’t exactly fit in the world outside these gates.”

  “And they all work… together?”

  “As well as anyone does in a company. Supernaturals aren’t perfect. They get territorial. They clash. But here, they have something to protect. Something to build. And that makes a difference.”

  I watched the people pass, suddenly unsure what they were beneath their coats. What they saw when they looked at someone like me.

  “Do they know what I am?”

  “Not yet. Not all of it.”

  She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t need to. The weight in her voice said enough. Whatever I was, I wasn’t something easily explained—even in a place like this.

  The road curved again, and the hospital disappeared behind a cluster of mirrored buildings.

  But its shadow stayed with me, quiet and heavy.

  The drive from SkyTeam to the mall passed quietly, but not quickly. The farther we got from the compound, the more the silence settled into something dense—thoughtful, not empty. Dr. Volkova didn’t speak, and I didn’t either. I sat curled in the passenger seat, half-watching the road, half-lost in the space between what I’d just seen and whatever was coming next.

  I kept thinking about the hospital. About what she’d said—that most of the people at SkyTeam weren’t even human. That the place had been quietly serving people like me for longer than I could imagine. I didn’t know what was harder to process—the fact that so many supernaturals were hidden in plain sight, or that I was now part of whatever world that was.

  My reflection in the window didn’t match my movements again. It lagged slightly, just enough to make me wonder if I was imagining it. I looked away before I could be sure.

  Traffic thickened the closer we got to town. Dr. Volkova drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on her thigh, her posture still, composed, but not relaxed. She didn’t seem tense. Just... ready. Like someone who didn’t believe in true off-hours.

  When we finally pulled into the mall parking lot, I didn’t realize how tightly I’d been holding my breath until it escaped in one long exhale.

  The parking lot stretched farther than it should have. It wasn’t even full—half the spaces sat empty beneath frost-streaked lights—but it still felt like too much space. Too exposed. I kept my hands in my coat pockets as I followed Dr. Volkova across the pavement, the rubber soles of my boots making soft, uncertain contact with the painted lines.

  The building loomed ahead of us like something carved out of glass and advertising. Wide, bright, and open, its front entrance pulsed with motion and color. Shoppers came and went in casual waves, some laughing, others juggling bags, a few staring at their phones like the world inside their screens was more real than the one they were walking through.

  Lindale Mall.

  The name had been printed in large, looping silver letters above the sliding glass doors. I’d read it easily enough, but it didn’t mean anything to me. I’d never been to a mall. I wasn’t even sure how they worked. Everything I knew about shopping came from donations, stockrooms, and the once-a-month supply runs made by the older girls and a priest who hated crowds.

  The glass doors parted before us with a soft sigh, and we stepped into heat, noise, and light.

  My breath hitched.

  It was like stepping into a dream someone else had designed—a world of color and motion that didn’t wait for you to adjust. Music played from invisible speakers, a thumping rhythm with no melody. Bright posters covered the walls in colors too saturated to feel real. Storefronts opened on either side of the tiled walkway, flashing signs and mannequins dressed in fabrics I’d only seen in magazines.

  People moved everywhere. Talking. Laughing. Arguing softly. Some walked with purpose. Others meandered, eyes drawn toward window displays filled with shoes or watches or electronics I couldn’t name. A few glanced in our direction as we entered, but no one really saw me.

  I walked beside Dr. Volkova, trying to keep my pace even, my head low. I didn’t want to seem out of place, but I didn’t know how to carry myself in here. Every sound echoed too much. Every face was unfamiliar. Even the air smelled different—like artificial cinnamon and warm plastic and too many people packed into a single system of vents.

  She led us toward the center of the mall, where a large skylight spilled pale daylight across a wide, circular intersection between halls. The tile was polished to a perfect shine. My boots squeaked once, and I winced.

  “This place is huge,” I muttered, more to myself than to her.

  She glanced at me, a small smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “It’s considered small by most standards.”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say. It already felt like I was underwater, like everything was too loud and too sharp at the same time. I wasn’t used to this many colors. This many moving parts. My fingers fidgeted in my coat pockets, tightening around the soft lining like I could anchor myself with texture alone.

  We passed store after store—some with names I didn’t recognize, some I could barely read through the decorative fonts. A few places sold shoes. Others had televisions playing silent commercials on repeat. Some had posters with bright-eyed people modeling clothes that showed more skin than I’d ever been allowed to. It felt like walking through someone else's imagination. A place built for people who knew who they were—and had the money to prove it.

  One window caught my eye.

  A shirt hung in the center of a dark storefront display. Black, oversized, with jagged silver designs that looked like shattered glass across the chest. The longer I stared at it, the more it seemed to shimmer under the overhead lights. Like it was reflecting something that wasn’t there.

  I stared too long, like it might recognize me.

  Dr. Volkova stopped beside me. She followed my gaze, then tilted her head slightly.

  “Hot Topic,” she said. “You’d probably like it.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment.

  She gestured toward a bench nearby. “I need to grab a few things. Stay where I can see you, alright?”

  I nodded. She walked off toward a nearby store without looking back.

  And then it was just me.

  I sat down slowly, the bench cold beneath me despite the heating in the mall. My eyes tracked the people around me—moving, shopping, laughing like none of this was strange. Like the world had always worked this way. Like magic and monsters didn’t exist just outside the doors.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  I was used to stone floors. Candlelight. The smell of incense. Here, everything was bright and moving and fast. The world didn’t wait for you here.

  It just… kept going.

  Dr. Volkova disappeared into the crowd with quiet confidence, and for a few moments, I kept my eyes locked on the entrance she’d walked toward. She didn’t look back, but I didn’t expect her to. She wasn’t the type to hover.

  I sat on the bench like she asked, hands folded in my lap, feet pressed flat to the floor. The mall buzzed around me—people moving past in pairs and clusters, bright bags in hand, conversations tumbling over each other like wind-blown pages. I tried to focus on breathing evenly, on not letting the noise sink too deep.

  But my gaze drifted back.

  To the storefront with the jagged silver shirt.

  It hadn’t moved, but something about it felt different now. Sharper. Like it wasn’t just reflecting the lights anymore—it was reflecting me, the way a ripple might answer a whisper. The shimmer in the glass wasn’t steady. It pulsed softly, as if adjusting to my heartbeat.

  I looked away.

  Then back.

  The store was still. Darker than its neighbors, its colors more muted, the air around its entrance just a little too still. The name—Hot Topic—hung over it like a challenge. Or maybe a warning.

  It felt like something inside was watching.

  I rubbed my thumb along the edge of my sleeve. Dr. Volkova had told me to stay where she could see me. I hadn’t moved. Not really. The bench was still behind me. But my feet had already shifted. One turned slightly toward the storefront. My body leaning, just a little, without meaning to.

  It wasn’t a thought.

  It was a feeling.

  Like being remembered.

  I stood slowly.

  A few people passed between me and the entrance. One glanced toward me, then looked away. Another brushed too close and muttered something under their breath that didn’t sound like words. My focus stayed fixed on the window. The shirt. The shimmer. The way the light bent around the display like it didn’t want me to see too clearly until I stepped closer.

  Something was in there.

  Something that knew I was here.

  I turned to glance over my shoulder. The bench was there. So were the people. Everything was still normal—normal enough. But it felt farther away than it should have. Like I’d already moved, even if I hadn’t taken a step.

  My hand brushed the coat at my side.

  Then I walked.

  Toward the shadowed entrance, toward the faint hum of wrongness behind the black-framed glass. Not because I was curious. Not because I wanted to.

  Because something in me knew I was already inside.

  The air inside the store was cooler than the mall, and heavier somehow. Not cold like winter—cold like waiting. Like the moment right before a storm when the wind holds its breath. Dim track lights cast long shadows across shelves of dark clothing and graphic prints, their colors muted beneath flickering LEDs. Music played overhead, but it didn’t match the tone of the space. Too upbeat. Too loud. Like it was trying too hard to be normal.

  The shirt from the display hung just inside the door on a feature rack. It looked different up close—less like broken glass and more like a warning. The silver across the chest didn’t shimmer now. It absorbed the light instead, dull and flat, as if it didn’t want to be seen too clearly.

  I took one step inside. Then another.

  My boots barely made a sound against the smooth tile, and no one called out a greeting. There were a few other customers in the back, scattered near the shelves. None of them looked at me.

  The employee did.

  He stood near the register. Tall, too still, his black shirt tucked perfectly, sleeves rolled once at the elbow like he’d taken time to style indifference. His name tag read CHRIS, but the font felt too neat. His smile was already in place—wide, practiced, not friendly. Just… easy. Like he’d been waiting for someone to notice him.

  “You alright?” he asked, voice smooth, warm, and just loud enough to rise over the music. “You seem... misplaced.”

  The word stuck.

  I blinked at him, something in my stomach turning—not fear, not yet. Just wrongness. Too casual. Too focused. His eyes didn’t match the tone of his voice. They didn’t blink when they should’ve. They didn’t move when I did. It was like his smile worked on autopilot, but the rest of him hadn’t gotten the memo.

  I nodded, unsure why.

  “I’m fine,” I said, though it came out softer than I meant it to.

  He stepped forward, just a pace. Not aggressive, but with purpose. “That’s a nice coat,” he said, like he was trying to make conversation. But his eyes never left my face.

  I felt the shift in the air before I recognized it. Like something in the room had started to vibrate—low and slow, under the surface. Not a sound. A pressure.

  My fingertips buzzed against the lining of the coat. My breath caught in my throat.

  He tilted his head slightly. Still smiling.

  “You don’t have to pretend here,” he said. “We see all kinds.”

  The lights above us dimmed slightly. Just enough to notice. The music slowed by a fraction—not enough to be obvious, but enough to make the rhythm falter.

  I didn’t answer.

  I didn’t move.

  The silver shirt behind me flickered in my peripheral vision. Like a mirror that didn’t want to reflect anymore.

  He took one more step, and his smile widened just a little too far.

  “Really,” he said. “You look like someone who’s... being looked for.

  Something about the floor shifted beneath me—not visibly, not in any way someone else might notice, but I felt it. Like the space itself loosened. The kind of feeling you get right before a fever hits—when the world still looks normal, but your body knows something is wrong.

  The lights above flickered once.

  Then again.

  Slower this time.

  I turned my head slightly to the left, catching the silver-shirted display out of the corner of my eye. The shimmer had stopped. No more fractured light. No more reflections.

  Just dull fabric on still air.

  The employee—Chris—tilted his head again, but this time it wasn’t a mannerism. It was too measured, too fluid, like he was adjusting the shape of himself rather than reacting. His smile remained, but the corners of his mouth twitched—up, then down, then flat. Like he couldn’t decide which expression to hold. Or maybe like he was choosing from a list.

  “You think you can run, little girl?” he said, voice lower now. Warmer, but no longer polite. “He’s coming to collect.”

  My stomach dropped. Something in those words wasn’t meant for strangers.

  I took a step back, and the store didn’t follow the motion the way it should have. My foot landed, but the pressure didn’t return through the ground—not the way I was used to. I felt disconnected. Floaty. Like I was standing on something thinner than floor tile.

  Chris smiled wider.

  And lunged.

  It wasn’t a scream. It was instinct. My body jerked backward, my balance broken, and the world tore open under my boots. My foot slipped through—not on the floor, but through it—like the tile had become water, or smoke, or something waiting for me to fall.

  Colors drained.

  Sound folded inward.

  Everything slowed.

  I fell—not far, not fast—but sideways.

  The space around me warped like stretched glass, pulling light and sound into something quieter, muted, and thin. My heartbeat thudded in my ears, the only thing that felt solid anymore.

  I was no longer in the mall.

  But I hadn’t left it either.

  I was in the cracks somewhere in between.

  I didn’t land.

  That was the first thing I noticed.

  There was no impact. No pain. No crash of shelves or floor meeting my shoulder. One moment, I was falling—stumbling backward, trying to get away from that not-smile—and the next, I was somewhere else.

  I stood still, somehow upright again, but the store was different.

  Dimmer. Hollow.

  The air didn’t feel like air. It was heavy and soft, like mist that didn’t move. Like fabric soaked in silence. My breath came shallow, loud in my ears, but the rest of the world had gone quiet—too quiet. Even the background music was gone. No footsteps. No register beeps. No low hum of lights.

  It was like sound had been peeled out of the air and locked away.

  The space around me looked almost the same, but wrong. Shadows stretched longer than they should have. Corners drooped. Colors bled gray around the edges, like everything had been desaturated to a dream. The racks were still there, but their outlines flickered slightly, like I was seeing their memory instead of their presence.

  And Chris—

  He wasn’t Chris anymore.

  He stood exactly where he’d been, but now the glamour had cracked like glass under frost. His skin was still smooth, but it shimmered faintly beneath the surface, like something inside him was lit from within. His posture hadn’t changed, but his arms looked too long, too narrow, his fingers tapering into points that didn’t belong on anything human.

  His smile remained.

  But his teeth didn’t match the shape of his mouth anymore.

  They were too sharp. Too many. Like something had doubled them.

  I took a step back—barely—and even that movement made the world ripple. My boots didn’t echo. There was no sound, just the faint shimmer of motion behind my heels. The floor didn’t feel solid. It felt suspended. Held in place by something that didn’t believe in gravity.

  I reached for the nearest shelf to steady myself, but my fingers passed through it. Not entirely—but enough to make the texture blur against my skin, like grabbing the surface of a memory. My hand tingled. I pulled it back fast.

  The lights above me were no longer flickering. They were frozen. Mid-pulse. Stuck between off and on, casting a steady strobe that didn’t move.

  It felt like I’d stepped behind a pane of glass—and the world I knew was still out there, but sealed off.

  I looked around, searching for anyone, anything, but the other customers were gone. The registers, the clothes, the store’s background—everything looked like it was here and not here at the same time. Like I was inside the shape of it, but not its substance.

  And Chris—no, the thing that had been pretending to be him—wasn’t looking at me anymore.

  He was looking slightly to the left.

  Like he still saw the version of me I had left behind.

  Like I wasn’t where I was supposed to be.

  And the worst part?

  His smile didn’t falter.

  I kept moving backward, the edges of the store distorting as if I were walking through stretched glass. Nothing felt solid under my feet. The ground didn’t shift, but it didn’t hold me either. Like I was balanced on the idea of a floor rather than the real thing.

  The man—if that’s what he had ever been—was still facing the place I’d fallen from. Still watching a version of me that no longer stood there. The angle of his body was off. Slightly too rigid, slightly too slow to correct itself. He hadn’t noticed I’d slipped free.

  At least, not yet.

  I turned to look for another way out and stopped when I saw him.

  Between two racks that had no business being that far apart, a figure waited in the space the light forgot. I hadn’t seen him arrive. He didn’t walk into view. He simply appeared—half-shadow, half-shape. Not threatening. Not moving. Just... present.

  He wore the outline of a man but no details. No face, no features. His edges flickered softly, like a candle seen through frosted glass. I couldn’t tell if he was wearing a coat or if his form simply was one—blurring into the shadows around him as though the world had stopped trying to define him.

  He didn’t feel hostile.

  But he didn’t feel safe either.

  I should’ve said something, asked who he was, or how I got here. My mouth opened, but the words stalled somewhere behind my ribs. I wasn’t sure if they’d even work in this place.

  Then he spoke.

  Not in my ears. Not even in my head. The sound was everywhere and nowhere at once—settling in my chest like breath I hadn’t taken.

  “You can’t hide in the cracks forever, Erika.”

  My name shouldn’t have carried weight. But here, it felt like gravity—something anchoring me in a world that had stopped obeying the rules.

  He didn’t approach. Didn’t shift. His posture remained perfectly still.

  “Ledger always finds what he’s owed.”

  The words landed without emphasis. No threat. No accusation. Just a certainty I wasn’t ready to face.

  I wanted to ask what the Ledger was. What he meant. Why my name had been spoken like a record long overdue for collection. But I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. I just stood there, cold in a place that had no temperature.

  He flickered again, briefly, like a skipped heartbeat in reality. Then the space he filled folded in on itself—and he was gone. No vanishing act. No flash or fade. Just absence, clean and sudden.

  The shadows where he had stood felt thinner now, like they’d stretched too far and snapped back out of habit.

  I wasn’t alone.

  But I was the only one left standing.

  Behind me, I heard movement—the slow, deliberate turn of something no longer pretending to be human.

  I turned to run—but the entrance was gone.

  Not blocked. Not broken. Just... missing.

  The space behind me that should’ve opened to the mall had collapsed into shadows, like the door had never existed. Where glass and light had once been, there was now only the faint outline of where I remembered the exit being, blurred and unreachable. I hadn’t seen it close. Hadn’t heard a sound. But it was gone, and I was still inside.

  The creature took another step forward.

  Its form shifted more with each motion, like the act of standing there peeled layers off its glamour. The last pieces of its human shape clung to it like bad skin. Its spine moved too much when it turned. Its limbs bent at the wrong points. The smile had never left—but now it didn’t mean anything.

  Then something tore.

  A metallic scream ripped through the store—not from inside, but from the threshold I could no longer reach. The air shivered with the sound of warped steel, as if something massive had just been pried open by force. Light—real light—poured through a sudden fracture in the world, sharp and glaring.

  A blur of motion crossed the store in an instant.

  Silver and flesh and violence collided with the creature before it could fully turn.

  Shelving shattered.

  The sound didn’t come all at once—more like it echoed in pieces, as if this place couldn’t decide how to handle something that real. The creature’s body folded inward from the impact, slammed into a display rack, and careened into the back wall with a bone-deep crunch that made my stomach twist.

  I blinked.

  The blur resolved into a form I knew, but didn’t recognize like this.

  Dr. Volkova.

  Or at least—something that had once looked like her.

  She was low and moving fast, her limbs caught in the midpoint between human and something far older. Her coat had vanished or been torn away—what remained was all sinew and silver. Not fur, exactly, but the shimmer of it. Her face was half-turned, jaw clenched tight, one eye sharp and reflective, the other hidden beneath tangled hair and a deep shadow that didn’t match the lighting.

  She didn’t look around.

  She didn’t speak.

  She lowered her head slightly, nostrils flaring once.

  Then she turned—not toward me—but toward the far corner of the store, tracing something invisible.

  Her movements were too specific to be random. Too precise.

  Like she was following something she could sense but not see.

  The creature writhed, rising slowly with unnatural grace. Its body didn’t seem broken, but it should’ve been. Bones bent in places that didn’t make sense. One shoulder cracked back into place with a sound like branches snapping underwater.

  Dr. Volkova didn’t wait.

  She lunged again, fast and clean, crashing into it before it could regain its footing.

  They collided like two storms in a glass room. The store bent around them. Fixtures scattered. Walls rippled in the wrong direction. The lights above pulsed once and then went dark, leaving only the flickering glow from places that had no bulbs.

  I stepped backward—slowly—hands raised to steady myself, though there was nothing to hold onto. My foot passed through a folded hoodie like it wasn’t there.

  Neither of them looked at me.

  Not once.

  They moved like gravity didn’t matter.

  Dr. Volkova crashed into the creature again, her body a streak of silver muscle and raw force. It let out a shriek that sounded like nothing I’d ever heard—half-human, half-animal, and all wrong. The sound didn’t echo the way it should have. It bent, warped, caught in the walls like water slipping through cracks.

  Racks buckled. Shirts scattered. A display of chains and belts twisted in midair as they tumbled through it, like the world hadn’t decided whether to slow down or speed up. Everything around them folded into chaos—too fast to follow, too sharp to ignore.

  I couldn’t look away.

  Dr. Volkova wasn’t fighting like someone protecting a person.

  She was fighting like something that had found a rival in its territory.

  Each time she struck, the creature staggered, but it didn’t fall. It twisted, limbs reshaping as it tried to recover, but she never gave it the chance. She was faster. Meaner. Every movement calculated to hurt.

  But it wasn’t clean.

  She wasn’t a soldier.

  She was a predator.

  And in this place, that meant something different.

  The air buckled near their bodies. A light fixture overhead groaned as it bent sideways—not broken, just… wrong. Like it didn’t know how to hang here anymore. Glass spidered down from a cracked display behind them, glinting as it fell, and landed with no sound at all.

  I stepped back again, barely breathing. The noise didn’t touch me. The smell of blood didn’t rise. Even the pressure—the feel of violence in the room—stayed outside of me like I was behind thick glass.

  I couldn’t tell if this was protection or punishment.

  Dr. Volkova’s claws dug into the creature’s shoulder and yanked it sideways. They slammed into another wall, denting it. The creature lashed back, its arm expanding, stretching. Dr. Volkova dodged, quick and low, her form flickering for just a second in the broken light.

  They moved deeper into the store, crashing through a shelf, then another. A tower of band shirts folded in on itself. The creature screeched and shoved her into a rack of spiked jewelry that shattered across the floor like metal hail.

  She didn’t scream.

  She just pivoted—sharp, savage—and drove her elbow into its face.

  My knees locked. My breath stayed shallow. I couldn’t make a sound. I didn’t know if I was allowed to.

  I wasn’t part of this moment.

  I was the thing watching.

  Somewhere inside, something cold flickered again—like the delay in my reflection, the way I didn’t quite line up with myself.

  I pressed my back to the nearest wall that would still acknowledge I existed, trying not to slip through it. My fingers gripped the edge of a shelf that didn’t give resistance.

  I stayed there, unsure if moving would make things worse—or if I even could.

  The fight pulled them deeper into the store, past scattered shelves and toppled displays. I should’ve stayed back. I knew that. I had no part in what was happening—not in this place, not in this body that barely remembered how to exist here. But I couldn’t help it.

  My feet moved.

  Slow. Careful. Like walking through a dream that didn’t want me to wake up.

  The creature slammed into a back door and ripped it open without slowing. The sound didn’t register as real—it was muffled, swallowed by whatever space I still occupied. The door didn’t just break. It unhinged itself from the rules. The frame peeled open like paper. Dr. Volkova followed close behind, her form more wolf than woman now, silent but unrelenting.

  They vanished into the dark hallway beyond.

  I hesitated at the threshold. My fingers hovered near the edge of the ruined doorframe, and I felt the pull again—gentle, but certain. Like a tether strung through my chest, tugging me after them. The world was thinner back here. The lines between what was real and what wasn’t weren’t drawn as sharply. Even the air felt quieter, like the mall had stopped breathing.

  I stepped through.

  The hall wasn’t wide. A narrow service corridor lit by flickering fluorescents that didn’t match the rest of the mall’s glow. It smelled like dust and industrial cleaner—or maybe that was just memory trying to fill in the gaps. I wasn’t sure if I actually smelled anything anymore.

  Footsteps echoed ahead. Or maybe not footsteps—just impact. Bodies colliding with wall and floor, with metal and force. Every sound was filtered. Every light stuttered.

  Something moved in the periphery.

  I turned fast, heart skipping—but there was nothing there.

  Then I heard it again.

  Not from the hallway.

  From behind me.

  A voice—not loud, not sharp. Low. Familiar.

  “Remember, Veldrith…”

  I froze.

  The name didn’t feel like a name. It felt like a key turning in a lock I didn’t give permission to open.

  The voice came from nowhere and everywhere. The same shadow-tone I’d heard before—worn at the edges, like a memory speaking rather than a person.

  “Ledger always gets what he wants.”

  I turned slowly, but no one was there. Just that same stretch of broken air I had walked through. A shimmer. A flicker. A presence already gone.

  But the words stayed.

  I looked forward again. The hallway stretched on, bent by light and noise. I could still feel them—Dr. Volkova and the creature—somewhere ahead, locked in a clash that neither one seemed able to end.

  And even though I knew I shouldn’t… I followed.

  The corridor narrowed ahead, bending slightly to the right before opening into a wider room. It looked like a storage space—maybe once used for supplies or breakroom stock—but now it was shattered. Boxes were crushed. Ceiling tiles torn loose. One of the walls had a long, jagged crack running through it that pulsed faintly at the edges, like the damage couldn’t decide if it was real.

  The creature was pinned in the far corner.

  Its limbs were twisted, spine bent at an unnatural angle as it struggled to rise. Its body flickered between forms—glamour, true shape, something halfway dissolved. It was losing cohesion. Whatever had kept it stable was breaking. I could feel it.

  And Dr. Volkova stood over it.

  Not moving.

  Not panting.

  Just still—one clawed hand pressed to the wall beside her, blood trailing from her elbow, her head tilted slightly downward. Watching. Waiting.

  Her body didn’t look like it belonged to this world anymore. Not fully. Silver shimmered beneath her skin like light trying to push through. Her hair hung in strands, half-shifted, her eyes unreadable in the flicker of failing light.

  She hadn’t seen me.

  Neither had the creature.

  I stayed in the threshold of the corridor, one hand pressed to the doorframe, breathing quietly as I stared at them—both monsters, in different ways, locked in a silence that didn’t feel finished.

  And then something snapped.

  Not a sound—a feeling.

  A tug in my chest. A ripple behind my eyes.

  I blinked. The world shifted around me. Color returned. Weight came back. My boots struck the tile with a jarring solidity, the hum of broken light rising to meet me. My heartbeat jumped as everything locked into place like a puzzle snapping shut—reality remembering I was here.

  Dr. Volkova's head lifted.

  She didn’t turn toward me. Not at first. But she moved—slightly—her eyes narrowing as if she'd picked up something new. Her shoulders squared. Her claws flexed.

  The creature let out a final, guttural rasp.

  Dr. Volkova drove her hand into its face, slamming its head back against the wall with a crunch that didn’t leave room for argument. It slid down and stilled, twitching once before falling quiet.

  She stood over the body a moment longer, then finally looked toward me.

  Not shocked.

  Not surprised.

  Just... confirming what she already knew.

  I swayed forward a step and collapsed before I could think.

  The floor caught me harder than I expected. Cold tile met my knees, then my palms, and I felt everything at once—the exhaustion, the cold, the dissonance of being real again. My body wasn’t caught between reflections anymore. It was here.

  All of it.

  I heard footsteps approach, slow and controlled.

  Then warmth—fabric, pressure, steadiness. An arm wrapped under mine. Another around my back. I didn’t resist.

  I leaned into her and let her hold my weight. She just gathered me in her arms and carried me out of the ruin. The mall was behind us before I realized we’d left it.

  I don’t remember the moment we stepped outside. One breath I was on the cold floor of the back room, my body folding into itself like a closing book. The next, I was in Dr. Volkova’s arms—cradled against her like something precious or fragile, and I didn’t know which felt worse.

  The world outside was sharp. Real in a way the echo-space hadn’t been. Cold air hit my cheeks, biting through the heat still clinging to my skin. It wasn’t freezing, but it felt like it. Too bright. Too loud. Too normal.

  The alley behind the mall was quiet, but not silent. A dumpster. Cracked concrete. Faint hums from an overhead unit vibrating against the building wall. Voices far off—shoppers unaware that anything had happened.

  Dr. Volkova didn’t run.

  She moved like she had done this before. Not just the fighting. The aftermath. The extraction. Her steps were controlled, measured, each one steady beneath my weight. She didn’t shift fully back, not yet. Her features were close to human, but not completely. Her hands—still clawed—held me without cutting. Her breathing was even, but the tension in her shoulders hadn’t faded.

  She set me down gently once we were behind the building, away from sight. My back pressed against the cold brick wall, and I blinked up at her. She crouched beside me, silent, assessing—not just for injury, but for damage. The kind that doesn’t show on the outside.

  Neither of us spoke.

  I wanted to say I was fine. That I hadn’t been hurt. That I could still walk. But the words didn’t come. They felt too big. Too fake. So I just breathed.

  She reached down, brushing a strand of hair from my face. Her hand—still marked by the remnants of the shift—trembled slightly at the edge of her fingers. Whether from pain or adrenaline, I couldn’t tell.

  She didn’t ask if I was okay.

  She didn’t need to.

  We both knew I wasn’t.

  Dr. Volkova pulled her phone from her coat pocket like it was just another part of the routine. No hesitation. No fumbling. Her thumb moved across the screen with practiced ease, and within seconds, she had the line open.

  She didn’t pace. She didn’t raise her voice. She stood near the edge of the alley, back to the wall, one eye still scanning the street like she wasn’t entirely convinced the fight was over.

  “Stephan,” she said when the call connected. “We were attacked.”

  Her tone didn’t waver, but there was something under it—fatigue edged with controlled fury. She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t need to. Whoever was on the other end of the line didn’t interrupt.

  “In the mall. Incubus, I think. Not glamoured clean. He was waiting.” A pause. “No, I handled it.”

  She glanced toward me, eyes narrowing just slightly before her gaze flicked back to the street.

  “We’ll need a cleanup crew. Fast. Before local authorities try to make sense of what’s left. Containment is broken.”

  Another pause. Her jaw tightened.

  “I need clothes,” she added flatly. “Now.”

  Her eyes flicked toward me again—this time longer. Not assessing. Just... checking. Like she was anchoring herself by making sure I was still there.

  “She’s okay,” she said into the phone. “Shaken. Not injured. But I want a medic to look at her anyway. Quietly.”

  She didn’t mention my name. She didn’t say what I’d done, or where I’d gone, or what state she’d found me in. She just spoke like she was already managing a report that hadn’t been written yet.

  She ended the call without waiting for confirmation.

  Silence followed. A few seconds of stillness in the cold that felt heavier than anything that had come before it. Not because of what had happened.

  Because of how easily it was being handled.

  I looked up at her. Her expression was calm again—composed. But her hands were still faintly trembling at the edges.

  She tucked the phone away.

  The moment folded itself up like a file, already being stored.