The black column didn't rise—
It folded.
Like a sheet of night being crumpled by something inside it.
Zoya yanked Manraj up the embankment stairs, both of them slipping on the damp stone as the river churned violently below.
"KEEP MOVING!" she shouted.
Manraj tried.
But pain ripped through his chest—raw, hot, scraping through bone like claws.
Thirty-six throbbed beneath his ribs.
Too fast.
Too sharp.
Too wrong.
They reached the street level just as a passing auto screeched, the driver yelling obscenities at the sudden spray of water from the river.
Zoya ignored it.
Manraj didn't hear it.
His eyes stayed locked on the twisting black column.
"Zoya…" he rasped. "That's not Azhar coming through."
"I KNOW THAT," she snapped. "MOVE!"
A new sound rose from the black water—
not a roar
not a voice
something scraping
like nails dragging along a wall underwater.
The river bulged again.
Something pushed against the surface from underneath.
Something thin.
Wrongly shaped.
Manraj staggered backward, clutching at the railing as white pain tore through his lungs.
Zoya grabbed his face.
"HEY—HEY—stay with me! I can't carry you up this slope alone—"
But he wasn't listening.
His eyes were locked on the water.
Because a silhouette broke the surface.
A long arm.
A wrist made of twisting shadow.
Fingers…
too many fingers.
Zoya's breath hitched.
"Azhar doesn't move like that."
"No," Manraj whispered hoarsely. "He doesn't."
The thing dragged itself upward, its form unstable, melting and reforming like tar trying to stand. It had a shape almost human—but elongated, stretched thin, like someone had taken a person and pulled the limbs until the joints screamed.
A hole gaped where its face should be.
Empty.
Dark.
Nothing.
The empty hole tilted toward the street.
Toward Manraj.
Toward Eryth.
Zoya pressed him behind her instinctively.
"Okay," she whispered, "that's not Root. That's not Azhar. That's—"
The thing twitched, head snapping toward them with a sickening jerk.
Manraj took one step back—
—and the number in his chest shifted again.
36 → 36 →
It didn't fall.
It trembled.
Like the countdown was afraid.
Zoya grabbed his wrist.
"Manraj—we go NOW."
But the shadow-thing moved.
In a single, sickening shift, it collapsed and reformed ten meters closer.
Zoya's Silence surged instinctively—a crackle of warped air around her palms—
But it faltered.
Not because she failed.
Because the thing absorbed the wave before it even reached it.
Like Silence was a flavor it recognized.
Tasted.
Wanted.
Manraj whispered, horrified:
"…it's not from the Root."
Zoya clenched her jaw. "Then where—"
He swallowed hard.
"It's from under it."
The creature straightened—
long limbs unfolding like a nightmare origami—
and a faint whisper dripped from the hollow in its face.
"Er…yth…"
Manraj froze.
The whisper wasn't loud.
It wasn't threatening.
It was…
hungry.
Zoya stepped in front of him, hands shaking.
"No," she said. "Not happening. You don't get to have him."
The creature took another lurching step.
Azhar's faint shadow-energy still clung to its limbs—like it was wearing shreds of Azhar's power like stolen clothes.
Manraj's breath caught.
"…it's using him."
Zoya stiffened.
"What?"
"It's using Azhar's attempts," Manraj said, voice breaking. "Every time he hit the barrier—this thing fed on the cracks."
Zoya stared at the creature.
"That means—"
"It slipped through Azhar's wounds," he finished.
"Zoya… this thing came through the same hole Azhar's fighting in."
Her Silence flickered out completely.
"Oh God…"
The creature's hollow face turned toward them directly now, as if finally locating them in the light.
It took one step onto the street.
Cars braked.
A motorbike swerved and crashed.
People began screaming.
Zoya hissed, "Okay—okay—MOVE—LEFT—GO—NOW—"
Manraj grabbed her shoulder.
"Wait."
She spun on him. "WAIT? WAIT FOR WHAT—?!"
He pointed shakily.
The creature wasn't chasing.
It wasn't attacking.
It was…
tracking him.
Every time his heart beat, every time the symbols under his skin pulsed, the creature's head twitched toward it like a moth drawn toward a candle that could kill it.
Manraj whispered:
"It smells my core."
Zoya's hand tightened around his wrist.
"Then shut it down—"
"I CAN'T!"
The thing twitched.
Then—
it dissolved into a smear of black—
and reappeared right behind a man walking his dog.
The man turned—
and the shadow-thing passed through him.
Not cutting.
Not consuming.
Searching.
It jerked in frustration.
Wrong target.
Manraj trembled.
"It's looking for me."
Zoya grit her teeth.
"Option one: we run and it follows you until the end of the world."
Manraj swallowed.
"And option two?"
"We let it find you," she said flatly. "But on our terms."
Manraj stared at her.
"You want to use me as bait?"
"No," she said. "I want to use you as a trap."
He blinked.
"That's not better."
"Too late," she said, pushing him backward. "It's coming."
He turned.
The creature had stopped moving.
It was crouched low, fingers splayed like a starving animal ready to pounce.
A tremor rolled across the street.
The creature inhaled—
not air, but Manraj's light.
Manraj gasped, doubling over.
Zoya grabbed him.
"HEY—HEY—FOCUS—STAY WITH ME—DON'T LET IT IN!"
The creature leaped—
straight at them—
silent, fast, horrifyingly precise—
Manraj's chest flared—
and the number inside panicked:
36 → 36 · 36 · ·
It didn't drop.
It froze.
Paralyzed.
Zoya threw her hands outward—
HER SILENCE DETONATED—
and the creature hit the wall of Silence with a sound like bone shattering underwater.
It reeled back— twisted— snapped—
but didn't die.
Manraj whispered, voice shaking:
"Zoya… your Silence… it hurt it—"
Zoya nodded slowly.
"That's good."
The creature twitched violently, reforming.
"That's bad."
She grabbed Manraj's arm.
"We lure it somewhere empty—NOW!"
Manraj staggered forward, chest burning, trying to run—
but he gave her the one answer she needed:
"Where?"
Zoya looked at the river.
Then the old construction yard.
Then the aba
ndoned tram tunnel entrance two streets over.
Her eyes hardened.
"There."
Manraj swallowed.
"The tunnel ruins."
She nodded.
"We trap it where the world is already broken."
The creature rose again—
its hollow face glowing faintly—
and whispered:
"Er…yth…"
Manraj grabbed Zoya's hand.
"Then let's go."
They ran.
And the shadow followed.