The drain didn't "slam" into Finn. It anchored into him like rusted hooks.
I felt the boy’s life-force resisting—a frantic, rhythmic pulsing that beat against my palms. It wasn't a sudden flash of gray mist; it was a slow, agonizing siphoning. I saw his memories leak out in the steam of his breath: a girl named Lyra laughing by the river, the weight of his first training sword, the smell of Sarah’s pine-scented hearth.
I was eating his soul, and for the first time, I couldn't—or wouldn't—pull my hands away. My fingers sank into his chest as if his skin had turned to wet parchment.
"Finn! My baby!" Sarah’s scream wasn't a sound; it was a physical tear in the atmosphere. She threw herself toward us, but the Hollow’s aura acted like a wall of pressurized ice, tossing her back into the slus
