Part 2: The World Between Worlds
1105 Words
The whispers faded into silence, though the ache they left in Selene’s chest lingered like a bruise. Eryon didn’t release her. His arms caged her against the unknown, his breath still uneven. It was rare to feel him shaken—his strength was usually unyielding, his calm untouchable. But here, even he bled fragments of fear.
“Stay close,” he said. His voice wasn’t a suggestion; it was command. “The Veil feeds on separation.”
Selene nodded quickly, gripping his hand with both of hers as though it were the last tether she had to reality. “But… what is it feeding for? What happens if it wins?”
He hesitated. And the pause was enough to chill her blood.
“Eryon…”
“If it takes you,” he said finally, low, “you won’t return. Your soul will be devoured by illusions, and your body in the living world will… sleep. Forever.”
Her knees weakened, but she forced herself upright. She wouldn’t give the darkness the satisfaction of seeing her crumble.
“Then we don’t give it that chance,” she said, though her voice wavered.
A flicker of something—admiration, perhaps—moved across his face, but it vanished as quickly as it came. He drew her forward.
The blackness around them began to shift. What had been an endless void now wavered with fragments of scenery—patches of broken pathways, ruined arches, staircases leading into nothingness. The ground beneath their feet solidified into pale stone, smooth but cracked as though ancient. Above, what might have been a sky swirled with shadows, constellations flickering in and out of existence like broken memories.
“This…” Selene breathed. “It looks like a world that’s falling apart.”
Eryon’s expression hardened. “That’s because it is. The Veil is built from fragments—dreams, regrets, pieces of what once was, what never was, and what can never be. It holds everything and nothing.”
Selene reached out, touching one of the stone arches as they passed. The surface rippled beneath her fingertips like water. For a heartbeat, she glimpsed something inside—a child running barefoot through tall grass, laughter echoing—and then it shattered into black mist.
Her stomach twisted. “Are those… lives?”
“Echoes,” he corrected. “Shadows of lives that once existed—or could have existed. You mustn’t get lost in them.”
Her hand fell back to her side. But her mind whispered traitorously: What if she saw her mother again? What if, hidden among these fragments, there was something real?
As though sensing her thoughts, Eryon’s grip tightened on her hand. “Don’t.” His tone was sharp, almost angry.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Selene bit back her retort. This wasn’t the time to test him. He knew this realm in ways she didn’t—and the weight in his voice suggested more than just knowledge. It suggested experience.
“Eryon,” she asked quietly, “you’ve been here before, haven’t you?”
His jaw clenched. His silence was answer enough.
They walked for what felt like hours, though time itself twisted strangely here. Sometimes their shadows stretched long, sometimes they vanished entirely. Sometimes Selene swore they were moving in circles, only to notice the archways had changed shape, the paths had rearranged themselves as if the Veil was alive, watching, shifting.
Finally, Selene broke the silence. “If you’ve been here before… how did you escape?”
Eryon’s gaze stayed forward, fixed on the nothing-path ahead. His voice, when it came, was like stone. “I didn’t escape. I was thrown out.”
Selene blinked. “Thrown out?”
He gave the faintest nod. “The Veil rejected me. I was too… bound to the darkness. It feeds on hope, on longing, on innocence. I had none of those left. It spat me out like poison.”
Her chest tightened. She looked at him—at his sharp profile, the way his eyes reflected starlight that wasn’t really there—and for the first time she saw the cracks beneath his strength. He wasn’t only her protector. He was a man marked by things she could barely comprehend.
And yet here he was, holding her hand as if she were the anchor this place had denied him.
“I don’t believe that,” she whispered.
He finally glanced at her, expression unreadable. “Believe what?”
“That you had nothing left,” she said firmly. “If you did, you wouldn’t be fighting so hard for me now.”
Something flickered in his gaze—pain, maybe, or hope, or something tangled between. But before he could answer, the world around them shifted violently.
The ground trembled. Cracks split across the pale stone, spilling black smoke. The air thickened, heavy with whispers that swelled into screams. Shapes began to claw their way out of the fissures—hollow figures, their bodies made of shadow and bone, eyes glowing white.
Selene’s breath caught. “What—what are those?”
“The lost,” Eryon growled, stepping in front of her. “Souls who surrendered to the Veil until nothing human remained. They hunger for the warmth of the living.”
The creatures shrieked, a chorus of despair and hunger that made Selene’s skin crawl.
One lunged. Eryon moved faster. His arm slashed through the air, shadows bending at his will. A blade of darkness materialized in his grip, slicing the creature in two. It dissolved into ash, its scream echoing until nothing remained.
But more came. Dozens. Their cries drowned the silence, their clawed hands reaching.
Selene stumbled back, heart hammering. “There’s too many!”
“Then stay behind me!” Eryon barked, his blade moving in arcs of deadly grace. Each strike cut down another, but for every one that fell, two more rose from the cracks.
Selene’s lungs burned. She couldn’t just stand there, useless, while he fought alone. Her blood thrummed—strangely, power humming beneath her skin. The same sensation she’d felt when the blood moon rose.
She raised her hands without thinking.
And the Veil answered.
Light erupted from her palms—silver, blinding. It cut through the shadows like fire through paper. The lost shrieked and recoiled, some disintegrating where the light touched them.
Selene gasped, her own power startling her.
Eryon turned, eyes wide. For once, his composure shattered. “Selene—”
But before he could finish, the ground beneath them split entirely.
The world shattered.
They were falling.
- Writer
