I didn't remember much after the light explosion. All I remembered was just the sensation of my being yanked, dragged, and flung upward like a sack of spoilt potatoes.
Then suddenly…Gbam! A thud.
My back slammed into something that felt like concrete. Oh! It was concrete. Air burst out of my lungs in a squeak so pitiful that it definitely didn't match the heroic image I liked to project.
I lay there, blinking slowly at a night sky that looked… wrong.
Too dim. Too pale. It was almost like someone had taken the real sky and replaced it with a low-budget one.
"Eliana…?" I croaked.
She landed beside me just about a second later—graceful, quiet, and absolutely not looking like someone who just fought off a small army. Meanwhile, there I was, probably looking like the world's saddest pancake.
"We made it out," she said, breathing steadily. "For now." She didn't look at me. She was staring upward. Jaw tight.
I tried to follow her gaze, and my stomach dropped straight into my shoes.
The sky was… bending. Like literally bending.
The clouds swirled inward toward some sort of glowing fracture; like someone was tearing open a zipper in the atmosphere.
"Um…" I said, with my voice cracking. "Is that supposed to be happening?"
"…No," she murmured. Confused. Like she was trying to figure out what's happening
Ah. Good. Fantastic. Just fantastic.
Nothing says "relax, Milano" like the beautiful immortal woman going quiet in dread.
A gust of freezing wind whipped across the street, skittering trash along the pavement. The streetlights flickered erratically. They were buzzing like they couldn't hold the electricity in anymore, and were about to burst.
And the weirdest part? The few people who were outside; late-night vendors, a couple guys arguing by a car, an old woman sweeping… None of them reacted.
They just… kept living like the sky wasn't having a meltdown, like everything was the way it's supposed to be.
"What the hell?" I whispered.
Eliana didn't answer. Instead, she grabbed my wrist and tugged. Then, "We need higher ground. Now," she said.
"Wait! My legs are still—holy crap—okay, okay!" I responded as I stumbled after her.
She moved fast. Too fast. Like her urgency was the only thing keeping the ground beneath us from splitting apart.
We dashed down an alley, then dashed up some rusty fire escape. The metal screeched under my feet. I immediately prayed it wouldn't collapse because dying from gravity right after surviving monsters would be painfully ironic. Hell of a painful irony.
When we reached the rooftop, I bent over, resting my hands on my knees, as I was wheezing.
"I… I ne… I need to work out."
"Later." Eliana said, as she scanned the skyline. "The Riftstorm is expanding."
"The Rift—what now?"
The sky didn't wait for her to answer, before doing it for her. Then a thunderous crack echoed overhead, except it wasn't thunder. It was something else. Something hollow. Like bone splintering.
Then the fracture widened. And something crawled out.
A long, spined limb clawing at the air, dragging the rest of a twisted, shadowy form behind it.
"Nah!" I blurted. "Nah. Absolutely not. Send it back. Send it baaaaaaack"
Eliana grabbed a blade from her thigh holster. "They're coming through faster than before. Someone's pushing the Veil from the other side."
"That sounds... important. And bad."
"It is."
More limbs tore through the sky. Dozens. Maybe more. Each made my brain itch, like it wasn't built to process whatever the hell I was seeing.
"Eliana," I whispered, as I backed up, "we should run."
"We can't." She said, adjusting her stance. "They're hunting you."
"Me?! Of course, me. Why me?! I didn't sign up for some almighty interdimensional beef!"
"You're a Conduit, Milano!"
I blinked. "A con—what? The hell does that even mean?"
Then a shrill scream sliced the air. A Riftling dove straight toward us, hurtling like a meteor falling from space.
Eliana shoved me aside and met it head-on.
Her blade flashed, and the creature split in two before it even touched the roof. I just stood there, staring, with my jaw hanging.
She didn't fight like a human. She fought like something that had been in existence long before physics.
Two more Riftlings burst through the torn sky, hitting the rooftop hard enough to crack the concrete. Eliana spun, slicing through one, but the second one lunged toward me.
"Ah—shit—silver lady—shitshitshit—I'm dead!" I screamed out as I tripped backward, my arms flailing, because, of course, running and dignity clearly couldn't coexist in my body. The creature snarled and its mandibles flared open, as it was inching closer.
"Eliana!" I yelled. "Um… little help! Please!"
She was pinned fighting three others and couldn't reach me in time.
Great. Just great. I was about to get eaten by a nightmare with teeth. "Haha," I said sarcastically.
The creature leaped. And, something inside me snapped. No… not snapped. Burst.
A violent pulse of heat miraculously surged from my chest; straight from the glowing mark Eliana touched earlier. "Did I summon it?" I thought. I didn't do anything, didn't even think. It just erupted.
BOOM!
A shockwave blasted outward, hitting the Riftling midair. The creature burst into shadowy particles and evaporated.
I froze.
Eliana froze.
Even the remaining monsters hesitated.
"…Milano," Eliana breathed.
"Woah!" I said, staring at my own hands. "I did not mean to do that."
Her eyes widened; truly widened for the first time since I'd met her.
"That was Conduit energy," she whispered.
"I don't even know what a Conduit is!"
"We'll talk later," she snapped. "Move!"
She seized my collar and dragged me toward a rooftop stairwell. Together we slammed the metal door shut and threw a rusted pole through the handles.
The door shuddered as creatures slammed into it. I slid down the wall, with my back against it, and my heart was pounding like I'd swallowed a jet engine.
Eliana crouched beside me, breathing hard. Not steadily, like before. Hard.
She'd been pushed tonight more than she wanted me to know.
"You okay?" I asked, with a faint voice. She gave me a look. "Are you?"
I shrugged. Weakly. "Well, I just blasted a monster with my chest. So…what'd you think? Mentally? No, I don't think I am."
She let out a short, but tired exhale. Not quite a laugh, but close enough to shock me. Then she pressed her palm to the mark on my chest; not touching skin, just hovering. A warmth buzzed beneath her hand and my breath hitched involuntarily.
She noticed. And her eyes flicked up to mine, a little too softly.
"Your energy is awakening," she said. "That blast shouldn't have been possible. Not for an untrained Conduit."
I swallowed hard. "So, I'm like… a wizard of OZ, I'm magic?"
"Not magic." She said, as she shifted closer. The tiny lantern-light found a way to pool through the stairwell window, reflecting in her eyes like molten gold.
"Conduits are rare individuals whose energy amplifies supernatural forces. Especially mine."
The space between us suddenly felt very warm.
"Um… amplifies? You?" I echoed.
"Yes," she responded, standing still. "Which is why every Riftling tonight came for you first. They can sense what you are."
"Cool, cool, cool," I muttered. "No pressure. Just being hunted because apparently, I'm a walking battery. Yeah!"
Her lips twitched. "A battery with terrible reflexes."
"Hey—"
"And bad running posture."
"Wha—Okay, now you're just bullying me."
Her expression softened. Just a tiny bit. "Well… you did well."
I blinked. "Me? Did well? As in, me-Milano?"
"I've seen Conduits panic themselves into unconsciousness." She said, tilting her head. "You didn't faint this time."
"That was just one time!"
"…Three," she corrected. Then, we went quiet.
Not an awkward silence. More like a strange one. It was warm, it was heavy, it was charged.
Eliana's hand was still hovering near my chest, and the faint hum of energy pulsing between us was like a shared heartbeat. Then the sky outside roared.
We both jerked our heads upward, and looked through the broken stairwell window. The Riftstorm had expanded—
No.
Not expanded.
It was tearing fully open.
A massive crack split across the sky like a some wound, glowing with jagged white light, then, something enormous moved behind it. It was too big to understand, and too wrong for my brain to process.
Eliana stiffened. Fully, completely. For the first time since meeting her…
She looked afraid.
"Milano…" she whispered.
My stomach knotted. "What is that?"
"That's not a Riftstorm."
Her voice shook. Barely, but enough for terror to curl up in my spine.
"Someone is tearing the Veil open from the other side."
Then, the rooftop door rattled again. Just as the sky screamed. And Eliana grabbed my hand with a grip that told me—
Whatever was coming next?
We weren't ready for it.