Anna
They did not arrive cleanly.
No portals snapping shut.
No triumphant silence.
They arrived like a sentence cut off mid-word.
Anna stumbled forward as gravity returned in fragments—too light, then too heavy—her boots sinking into damp earth that smelled of moss, rust, and something faintly sweet. Stories, she realized distantly. Old ones.
She dropped to one knee, breath tearing from her lungs.
The crystal at her belt dimmed, its facets clouded like exhausted glass.
Lexus hit the ground beside her a heartbeat later, rolling onto his back with a sharp hiss as the mark along his ribs flared once—then went quiet. Not gone. Never gone. But no longer screaming.
Rain fell. Real rain. Uneven. Cold.
Anna pressed her palm to the ground and let herself feel it. Soil. Roots. The slow, st
