For a moment there, I thought the world was breaking again. Not exploding, not collapsing, but flexing. It was like reality was some old door frame and something on the other side was driving its knuckles through the wood. The air around thickened, the shadows began to stretch long, and the tunnel floor shivered under my boots.
"Eliana." I managed to call out.
She snapped. "Don't move. Whatever happens, Milano, do. not. move."
"Okay, fine, but just FYI, the ground is literally breathing, so moving might be involunta—"
"Quiet." She interrupted, her voice cutting sharp, blade-clean. She'd positioned herself in front of me with her hands raised, and power stirred under her skin like trapped lightning. Not glowing yet, but coiling; anticipating.
"That… wasn't reassuring."
The Veil pulsed again. Not above us this time. It was all around.
Like a heartbeat I wasn't supposed to hear. Or worse, one that wasn't supposed to hear me.
My ribs tightened, and my spine locked. And that strange hum inside me, the one she'd been trying to stabilize, kicked back on, vibrating through my bones like someone flicked a tuning fork inside my lungs.
I sucked in a breath.
Bad mistake.
The air tasted wrong. Not just metallic, it was more bitter-metallic, like lightning mixed with cold ocean water. It was almost like someone had boiled storm clouds and forced me to inhale the steam.
And then… The world tilted. Not sideways. Not upside down.
Inward.
"Milano," Eliana said sharply. "Look at me. Eyes on me. Now."
I tried. I really did. But my vision slid right off her like she'd suddenly become some sort of optional background decoration. My attention narrowed to a point just behind her; a soft place in the air, a shimmer, some sort of bruise in the shape of a ripple.
Then, my name slid through my skull. Not spoken. Not whispered.
Recognized.
Milano.
I staggered. "Did you... did you hear t—"
"No," she said instantly. Too fast. "Which means it's already inside your resonance. Stay with me."
Easy request. Just an impossible action.
My pulse thudded hard enough to shake my teeth. The walls rippled. The cables dangling overhead straightened like they were being pulled by some invisible hands, and pebbles trembled at my feet.
"Eliana," I croaked. "Something's—"
Before I could finish, I noticed I wasn't standing. I wasn't falling either. I was…
dislocated.
Pulled sideways from the inside out.
The tunnel blurred, smearing like wet paint in a rainstorm. Sound stretched thin… and Eliana's voice turned into a distant underwater echo.
"Milano! Stay anchored — anchor to me!"
I tried to reach for her, but my hand didn't cooperate.
Actually — correction — my hand stayed exactly where it was. But the rest of me drifted away from it like some cheap CGI that someone forgot to render fully.
"Oh, hell nah," I wheezed. "Nah! I'm not— this isn't—"
The Veil rippled.
Reality tore open.
Not like a wound. It was more like someone unzipped it. And I saw it. Well, not clearly, not fully. Just pieces, sort of.
A shape pressed against the tear; a silhouette with too many edges and no consistent outline. Its form changed every second… a shifting geometry of limbs and shadows and vertebrae that didn't stay vertebrae for long.
And its eyes…
God—
Its eyes weren't eyes at all.
They were voids filled with reflected stars.
It stared at me. And everything inside me responded like a tuning fork that was slammed against concrete.
Found you.
Those words crawled through my skull like cold fingertips, and my knees buckled, as the hum inside my chest surged into a full-throated electrical scream.
"Eliana," I said, except my voice came out wrong; distorted, double-layered.
She moved. Fast.
Not just fast, inhumanly; blur of silver and shadow. Her hand locked around my arm, her fingers burning cold, and power erupting around her like a sudden halo of storm-light.
"Let him go!" she shouted at the Veil.
The entity didn't react.
Because why would it? Why would something older than empires acknowledge something that's like a mosquito compared to it?
It remained focus, its attention staying on me.
Milano, it breathed into my bones.
My vision stretched sideways. My pulse became three pulses. My body felt too thin, too transparent, almost like I was made of wet paper and someone was peeling me apart from the corners.
Then Eliana yanked me. Hard. And her voice boomed with force that cracked the air.
"HE. IS. MINE."
A shockwave ripped through the tunnel, vibrating the floor, snapping hanging cables like twigs. Her power flared bright silver-white, slicing across the breach like a blade of pure radiance.
The entity shifted. It didn't retreat. Didn't recoil.
It simply noticed her.
And the Veil buckled. The shadows behind the tear deepened, swirling. The air pressure plummeted, and the tunnel's lights died with a popping series of sparks.
Then something happened that froze every cell in my body:
The entity smiled.
Not with a face. Not with a mouth. But with the shape of the darkness around it, folding into an expression of delighted recognition.
Ah. Guardian.
Eliana went even paler, and the grip she had on my arm tightened painfully.
"Milano," she hissed, "if you ever listen to me in your damn life, listen now — do NOT look directly at it."
"I— I'm—I'm trying— b—but it's—"
My gaze kept dragging back to it. Like gravity. Like fate. Like addiction.
The hum inside me became a burning coil, and my veins lit up under my skin, glowing faintly blue. And my fingertips sparked.
"Eliana, um... something's happening—"
"I KNOW!" she snapped. Her voice cracking with fear. "Fight it!"
"I AM fighting it!"
"You're losing!"
She pulled me close — too close — her forehead pressed to mine; her breath sharp against my cheek, and the only thing keeping our lips apart, was our noses brushing against each other.
"Look at me," she ordered. "Right here. Only me."
I dragged my eyes upward. Her face flickered between anger and panic and something painfully close to desperation.
"You're slipping," she whispered. "It's dragging you through, and I can't hold you if you don't anchor."
"How?!" I gasped.
She grabbed my jaw, fingers trembling. "Focus on anything physical. Your body. The floor. My voice. The— the way I smell, or anything. I don't care. Pick something and anchor!"
That last option was cheating.
Because yes — even in a collapsing supernatural tunnel with an ancient nightmare trying to eat my soul — I did notice the way she smelled.
Cool. Sharp. Clean. Like winter wind through cedar trees.
I latched onto it with both metaphorical hands.
"I think, um— I've got something," I breathed.
"Good. Hold it."
But the Veil pulsed again. The tear widening. And the entity leaning closer.
Not physically. Physically it didn't move at all. But the pressure of its presence shoved against my ribs, pushing my soul out of alignment like a hand pressing into soft clay.
Milano, it whispered again, almost gentle now. You woke early. You hum too brightly.
Eliana barked out a curse in a language I didn't know.
"Milano," she said, "you're going to feel a burn. Don't let go."
"Huh? What bur—"
My spine ignited. White fire raced down my nerves, hot enough to wrench a scream out of me. My knees buckled, and my vision went black at the corners.
"Eliana— what— what did you—"
"Stabilizing you," she snarled. "Temporarily."
"Temporarily?"
I didn't get to follow up. The entity pushed again. And this time I didn't just feel it. I saw it.
The Veil peeled back.
The world split down the center, and I saw two realities at once:
The cracked tunnel.
And a place made of liquid night, that churned like a sea of shadows under starlight.
Shapes moved beneath the surface. Too many shapes. Too hungry.
The entity extended something toward me; a limb? A thought? A geometric nightmare? And the whole world tilted forward.
I was falling. Not physically. Something else fell. Something deeper.
"Eliana," I gasped. "It's— it's… I think— I think it's taking part of me."
Her grip on me became iron. Her teeth clenched.
"Not while I'm here," she growled.
And then she did something that terrified me more than anything else so far.
She stepped into the Veil. Just one foot. Just one step.
But it changed everything.
Silver light erupted up her leg, coiling around her body, as her eyes flared bright enough to blind. Her hair lifted in a weightless halo, and the very air around her warped, humming like an overloaded transformer.
Then, the entity paused. For the first time… It hesitated.
Guardian.
The word rippled with something like amusement. Like challenge.
She raised her free hand. Her palm glowing white-hot.
"Back. Away. From him."
The shadows writhed. The pressure doubled, and the tear widened.
I screamed.
Eliana screamed too… but hers wasn't fear. It was fury. She shoved her hand forward, and her power detonated. A blinding blast of silver tore through the Veil, slamming into the entity with the force of a collapsing star. The entity staggered— if you could call that strange dimensional folding a stagger. The tear shrank.
Another shove — this one was violent, desperate — and the Veil snapped shut like a slammed book.
The pressure vanished. The tunnel whiplashed silent.
I collapsed to my knees, my chest heaving, breath ragged and broken. My skin felt tight, humming, wrong, and the glow under my ribs flickered like cooling embers.
Eliana was still standing. Barely. She swayed once, twice, then caught the wall. Her breathing hitched.
"Eliana," I rasped. "You— you stepped into— you literally st—"
"Yes," she said through gritted teeth.
"Are you— are you insane?"
"Possibly."
I stared at her. She stared back. Her eyes dimmed slowly, painfully, like someone turning off a pair of celestial headlights.
"You—" I swallowed hard. "You saved me."
Her expression flickered. Not proud. Not soft. Something more complicated.
"I'm your stabilizer," she said quietly. "It's what I do."
"That wasn't stabilizing. That— that was suicide."
"I'm not dead."
"Yet!"
She didn't answer. Well, because she didn't have to. We both knew the truth:
Whatever that thing was…
whatever wanted me…
It wasn't done. Not even close.
And now it knew exactly where to find me.