At first, all I heard was my breathing. Then I realized it wasn't actually breathing. At least, not mine.
It was the Veil. It was inhaling; slow, massive, patient, like something that was the size of a mountain was filling its lungs and deciding whether it wanted to climb through the cracks in it, crawl between realities, and say hello. Or maybe, eat me.
If I'm being honest, after the last twelve hours, those two possibilities were starting to feel disturbingly similar.
Eliana still had her hands on my shoulders, steadying me. Or maybe she was bracing herself. Her fingers dug in just slightly, as if she was checking if I was still solid matter, or if I'd quietly dissolved into spectral confetti when the creature… well, welcomed me. Her eyes swept over my face; her pupils blown wide, and glowing silver-blue in the dim. Then she said;
"Milano. Look at me."
"Huh… I am looking at you, right?" I said, confused, and it came out more like a drunk confession than a statement.
"Are you stable?" She asked. Her thumb pressing gently against my cheek, grounding me.
"Um… define stable."
"No hallucinations, no double vision, definitely, no auditory distortions."
"Well, I hear the walls breathing. Does that count?"
"That's real," she said softly. "So, no."
"Great!"
She pulled me upright fully, and yeah, I absolutely noticed how close we were, how warm her body was against mine, and how her hand slid from my jaw to my collarbone, like she was checking a pulse she already knew the rhythm of. But something was wrong. She didn't let go.
"Eliana…you're shaking." I whispered softly, and she froze for half a second. Then withdrew her hand.
"I'm fine." She responded.
She was not fine. A hairline crack of fear ran through her composure; it was quick, tiny, and gone the moment she straightened her coat. But I saw it. Felt it. Whatever that shadow-thing was, whatever had crawled out of the Veil and said my name like it was tasting it… it had rattled her.
And if someone like Eliana was rattled, then I was extremely, cosmically screwed.
I combed my fingers through my hair, trying to steady my breath. "Okay, what now? Do we leave? Do we hide? Do we get a snack? Oh, I could really use a snack. And therapy. Yeah, mostly therapy."
She ignored all of that.
"We need to keep moving," she said. "It's not gone."
"I know," I said quietly. "I can still feel it."
Then her eyes snapped to mine.
"Wait. What do you mean you can feel it?"
I hesitated. "Like… like a pressure. In my chest. And, and the back of my skull. And maybe the floor. Or maybe that's just me losing touch with reality?"
"Milano," she whispered, stepping in closer, "if you are connected to it…"
"I didn't connect to anything on purpose! It just—"
The tunnel shuddered. Not violently. Not like a quake. It was more like a cat stretching. Eliana grabbed my arm. "Move."
We broke into a run, more like a "run-but-also-stumble-because-I'm-running-on-adrenaline-and-fear." The emergency lights overhead flickered, casting orange glows that stuttered, turning the corridor into a flipbook of disaster.
Every few seconds, I felt something tug at the back of my mind. Not a pull. More like a… suggestion. A nudge.
Here.
This way.
Come back.
Come deeper.
Not words. Intentions.
"Eliana, do you feel that?" I gasped.
"Feel what? Oh, no," she said sharply. "Do not respond to it."
"I'm not responding! I'm ignoring it!"
"Good. Keep ignoring it."
I didn't tell her it was getting harder.
After a few minutes… or hours — honestly time didn't work in these tunnels — we reached a ladder that led up to a maintenance hatch.
Eliana climbed first, pushed the hatch open, and checked the opening for a full ten seconds, before motioning me up. I followed. Badly. There was a moment there, where my foot slipped, and my knee slammed the metal rung. I yelled something that definitely wasn't a real word.
"Shh," she hissed.
"I SHH'D! BUT THE LADDER DIDN'T LISTEN!" I responded, as I scrambled up beside her. The room above was some sort of old distribution substation; cracked cement, flickering fluorescents, walls lined with outdated electrical panels that were humming softly.
It would've been comforting if the hum didn't harmonize with the vibrating energy in my chest. But, no, it had to.
Eliana scanned the room with that eerie efficiency that made me both trust her and want to get out of her way. Her eyes glowed faintly, as her senses widened open.
"Barrier's weak here," she murmured. "But stronger than the tunnels."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning if it comes again, it'll have to fight harder."
"Oh good," I muttered. "I love when my eldritch nightmares have to put in extra effort."
She didn't smile. Didn't look at me. She just walked to a panel, opened it, and began pulling wires aside like she was defusing a bomb.
"Eliana? What are you d—"
"I'm calibrating a local anchor." She answered before I finished asking.
"Sorry, a what now?"
"A stopgap. Something to slow the Veil's pull. I can't sever its attention from you, but what I can do, is mask your presence temporarily."
Temporarily. That word hit like a cold splash.
"How long is temporarily?"
She stopped. Didn't turn. She didn't answer.
"Eliana." I called.
Her jaw clenched.
"Milano… that thing marked you on a level I don't have a name for. You didn't just wake it, you resonated with it. You reacted like…" She swallowed hard. "…like it recognized you."
My skin prickled. "Recognized me? How?"
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"Like you belong to it."
My entire nervous system screamed NO in a full surround sound.
"Eliana, listen… I don't belong to anything. Especially not a cosmic horror that sounds like it gargles planetary cores for breakfast."
"That's not how the Veil works."
"Well maybe the Veil should shut up and mind its own damn business."
Then the lights went out. All of them. One blink, and total darkness. Then, from somewhere below us…
SCRAAAAAPE.
Not fast. Not angry. It was patient. Hunting.
Eliana swore, like actual, full-bodied swearing, and slammed her palm against the panel. Silver light flared from her hand, illuminating the room in an otherworldly glow.
"Milano," she whispered, "don't move."
I froze.
The scraping grew louder, climbing. Whatever it was, it was coming up the ladder we'd just escaped from.
"Eliana—"
"NOT. A. SOUND."
My heart hammered so loud it felt like it echoed. Then a shadow spilled from the hatch. Not poured. Not slithered. Expanded. Like ink soaking into paper but in reverse, rising and blooming, swallowing light, swallowing the edges of the world. The temperature plummeted, and frost crept across the concrete. And then…
A tendril of darkness extended. Not toward Eliana. Toward me.
"Eliana," I whispered, "it's — it's following the resonance, isn't it?"
She didn't answer. She just stepped in front of me. Exactly the way she had in the tunnels. Exactly the way that terrified me.
Her power flared; silver arcs dancing around her arms, and she shouted:
"STAY BACK!"
And the darkness froze. Just for a breath. Then it split open; a maw of nothing, a void-within-void, and from it came the same voice that had crawled inside my skull earlier.
Milano.
My knees buckled. Eliana grabbed my arm to keep me from collapsing. "Don't listen to it!"
"I'm not trying to! It's talking inside my brain!"
The tendril brushed the floor, sending cracks of black that spread out like rotten veins.
Eliana's light intensified, but flickered. She was losing power. I could see it in the tremor of her stance. The sweat beading at her temple, and the way her breath hitched.
She couldn't hold it off. Not like this. Not alone. And the thing knew it.
It reached again. Slow. Gentle. Claiming.
Eliana screamed, "MILANO! PUSH IT BACK!"
"I DON'T KNOW HOW!"
"You DO. You already did!"
"But that wasn't on purpose!"
"THEN DO IT ON PURPOSE!"
The resonance surged in my chest; it was hot, rising, unstoppable. As the creature leaned closer, Eliana braced, I cracked, then, I grabbed the light. Not literally, but I reached inward, toward the humming, burning coil of power I hadn't wanted. And the second I touched it…
Everything exploded.
Not outward. Inward. Then the creature recoiled — not in pain, but in delight.
And it whispered:
Yes. More.
The world bent. The Veil shook. And Eliana's hand slipped from my arm as she gasped my name, not in command, not in anger. But in fear.
"Milano," she whispered, "don't let it take you."
And then the darkness swallowed the room whole.