010
1369 Words
I don’t remember going to bed.
The last thing I saw was that creepy thing leaning against the wall. Watching. Waiting.
I tried to sit up, but the world tilted. My head spun, and my stomach clenched like I’d swallowed fire.
What is happening to me?
There was tension beneath my skin, like something inside me was pressing up, clawing to get out. Panic scratched at my throat.
A sharp cramp buckled me forward. I stumbled to the bathroom.
I flicked on the light.
And my world rocked.
My reflection stared back, but my irises, dark wine-colored blooms threaded through them. Not gold like last night. Not red. Something… else.
My heart stuttered.
I leaned closer, breath fogging the glass. My skin was so flawless, in a way that didn’t feel earned. No gooseflesh. No warmth. Sculpted. Pale. Unmarked. Wrong. Like a painting with too much detail and no life.
A slow, unnatural pulse throbbed beneath the surface.
I stepped back, and the floor rolled under me like the deck of a ship. My vision narrowed, tunneled. I tried to grab the doorframe, but my hands slipped. My knees gave way.
I collapsed by the toilet, shaking.
Then came the heat.
Not the fever kind, something rotting, snarling, burning through my chest and gut.
I retched.
A hand lifted my hair back, gently.
Kaia.
She was still here. She must’ve stayed.
Please let this be a dream.
Please let none of this be real.
But before I could speak, another violent spasm tore through me.
A strangled sound escaped my lips, and then it poured out of me.
Thick. Dark. Like oil laced with rust. It hit the bowl with a splash that sounded… alive.
Wrong. Bitter. Vile.
Kaia screamed. “Oh my God! HELP! MOM!”
Her footsteps pounded down the stairs.
Doors slammed. Voices rose.
I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
⸻
They weren’t in the kitchen.
Not upstairs either.
The garage.
I followed the voices and burst in. “She’s throwing up, something black. I don’t know what it is. Something’s wrong! She’s sick, she’s—”
Her mom was already running.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” she muttered, rushing past me.
My mom followed. The sound of gagging echoed from upstairs as we all ran.
Her mom didn’t ask questions. Didn’t slow down. She headed straight for the pantry.
Pulled open a hidden drawer.
Her hands were steady. But her eyes were wild.
She grabbed a pouch of crushed herbs and a slim glass vial, pressing them into my mom’s hand.
“Steep this. It’ll help with the sickness.” She finally looked at me.
“What’s happening to her?” My voice cracked.
No answer. She was already gone, back into the garage.
My mom’s hand squeezed mine. “Old recipe. Good for the body. Go. Stay with her. We’ll be up soon.”
I ran.
My heart thundered like it wanted out of my chest. I’d never been so afraid for anyone before, not even myself.
Lilith was still on the floor, hunched by the toilet, gasping.
I dropped to my knees and pressed the steaming cup into her hands.
“Drink this. Please.”
She stared at it. Then at me.
Her fingers curled tightly around the heat. The mix smelled thick and sweet-sour. Almost metallic.
“I don’t… feel real,” she whispered. Her voice was hollow. Like something inside her had been scooped out. “Something’s moving in me.”
I crouched closer. “I’m here,” I said softly. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
I didn’t know if it was true.
But I had to believe it.
Then she gagged again, a horrible, wet sound, half-swallowed as she downed the mug.
———
The Seers.
They arrived before dawn.
I felt them long before I saw them. The moment they crossed into my land from the outer border, I knew. Pressure built behind my eyes, like a storm swelling in the marrow of my skull. The kind of pain only their kind brings. The Seers never come without ceremony, though they pretend otherwise.
The air had turned sharp. Electric.
My wolves stood at their post, watchful, wary. Some growled low in their throats, old instincts refusing to sleep.
It had been years since I’d last summoned them. I usually go to them. Not the other way around.
Three of them. Hooded. Faces hidden.
I know better than to trust what hides behind a veil. My Beta, Landon, flanked them, his steps steady. My Gamma was at my right. He’d tracked the Creeper. Caught it. The thing had withered in its cage, because it was not of this world in any sustainable way. All that remained was a scorched sigil in the dirt, one that bled meaning into the earth if you had the eyes to see it. I was proud of him, truly. But I said nothing yet. Pride is a luxury better shared when we’ve all survived.
The Seers stopped five paces from me, saying nothing.
All three, silent. Like the breath before a scream.
I broke the silence.
“No mate. No bond. Your line ends in death. That’s what you told me.”
One of them, the shorter figure, tilted their head. “You caught what should not have been seen.”“What it tracked… it was never meant to find.”
A low, metallic rasp followed. Laughter, maybe. “You thought it would answer. Thought it would bleed truth.”
I narrowed my gaze. “Do you know why you’re here?” I asked again, colder this time.
Their voices spilled, not from their mouths, but from the bones of the world itself. “Time does not wait for the Alpha. Nor does fate.”
Cryptic bastards.
“You seek answers,” they said.
I moved closer, just enough to let the weight of my presence settle over them like a hand at their throats. “And you never give them.”
A pause. A wet, rattling breath. A hiss between words. “We give the shape of the truth… not the edge of it.” “You ask what this thing followed…”
Their words folded in on themselves, sticky and crawling, threading through the cracks in the universe like smoke made of teeth.
“But your question is too small. She is not bound to the old lines. She walks like a flame between the threads. She is not your prophecy. She is the wound in it.”
She.
My pulse spiked. They knew. The heat of my anger poured off me. Landon flinched.
“Speak plainly,” I growled, my jaw tight. “Did your threads forget to show you this before?” They almost laughed again, something brittle curling around the sound.
“You speak of the threads,” they breathed, “weaves of fate… of creation… ahhh…”
A groan. A crack. A sound like splintering wood. “But you are wrong. There was a god, yes.A god who dreamed, who spilled himself into the stars. And in that dream, he found her. The goddess. Sleeping. Silent. Crowned in stillness. Together they dreamed a thing.”
The air flexed, twisted. “A child born not from flesh, but from dream and silence. A blade honed not by hand, but by absence.”
“A force vast enough to crack the future wide open… and not even we could see it.”
Their tone curdled. Colder than death. A long, scraping pause. The Seers began to step back as one. The wind died. The scent of ash and frost curled around their heels, and I knew they were about to leave. “She walks your path now. Not behind you. Not beside. Within.”
I said nothing. My teeth clenched. I was deep in thoughts.
The seers tilted their heads in eerie sync. “You may still shape the end. But you will not walk away unchanged.” They vanished into thin air.
Landon stared at the empty space they’d left behind.
“Why didn’t they do that when we were coming up the ridge?” he muttered.
I almost laughed. Almost. I must never find her.
- Writer
