AZALIYAH RISE OF THE FAE

WHERE TO NOW (PT.2)

“No shit.”

The darkness kept coming, untouched by distance or structure. It slid over the outer buildings as though they were not there at all, climbing, wrapping, swallowing without resistance.

Then it sped up.

What had been slow and creeping suddenly closed the distance faster than it should have.

Azaliyah took a step back without thinking.

“Okay, yeah,” she muttered, watching the first row of buildings vanish into it, “I see why they have a system.”

The black smoke reached them before there was time to do anything about it.

Not like impact.

Not like force.

Just there.

Everywhere.

It wrapped around her legs first, then rose, thick and cold without ever truly touching her.

The world blurred. Edges dissolved. Sound dropped away as though something had been dragged over it.

The bowl slipped from her hand, striking the ground somewhere she could no longer see.

“Man,” she muttered, her voice already beginning to drift, “this really isn’t my day.”

The smoke climbed higher, swallowing everything.

Camron’s outline disappeared first.

Then the village.

Then everything.

The ground came back before anything else did.

Azaliyah felt it beneath her feet before she understood where she was, solid and steady in a way that did not belong to the darkness that had just swallowed her whole.

The air was warmer here. Thicker. Carrying something heavy that settled in her chest before her mind could catch up to it.

She did not need to look around to know.

That feeling alone told her everything.

When she finally lifted her head, the world around her formed slowly, as though it were being remembered instead of created.

The sky above flickered between dim light and something darker, unable to decide what it was meant to be.

The ground stretched before her in jagged patches, scorched in some places, torn open in others.

It was not destroyed.

Not yet.

It was the moment just before.

That was what made it worse.

Voices carried across the space, close enough to reach her without echoing.

When she turned toward them, she saw them exactly where she already knew they would be.

Her father stood a short distance ahead, his posture steady, yet different from the man she remembered.

There was tension in the way he held himself now. A readiness that had not belonged to the version of him she grew up with.

It showed in the way his attention remained fixed forward, as though he were already tracking something he could not yet see.

Her mother stood just ahead of him, blades drawn, her stance grounded and precise in a way that made everything else feel secondary.

She was not waiting for anything to reveal itself. She never had.

Whatever was coming, she had already decided where she would stand when it arrived.

Azaliyah tried to speak, but nothing came out.

It was not that her voice had failed her.

It simply did not belong here.

She stepped forward anyway, drawn by instinct more than thought.

But the movement disturbed nothing.

The ground did not shift. The air did not react. Neither of them turned toward her.

She already understood why.

This was not a memory she could interrupt.

It was one she had to watch.

The darkness began to move at the edges of the space, never forming into anything solid, yet pressing inward all the same.

It did not rush. It did not lash out or announce itself. That made it harder to understand.

It simply existed, spreading slowly at first, then steadily, swallowing distance in a way that felt deliberate without ever revealing intent.

Her father shifted his stance, just enough to place himself between it and everything behind him, as though his body had made the decision before his mind ever needed to.

Her mother did not move back. Did not look at him. Acknowledged nothing except what stood in front of her.

“You feel it?” he asked, his voice steady, but lower than usual, as if he already knew the answer.

“I’ve felt it,” she said, her grip tightening slightly on the blades. “It’s been sitting there, waiting.”

“It’s not waiting anymore.”

“No,” she replied, her eyes narrowing by the smallest degree. “It’s choosing.”

Azaliyah felt that more than she heard it, the meaning settling into her chest in a way that made breathing harder.

The darkness moved closer, pressing inward until the space around them began to feel smaller. Not because anything was physically closing in, but because less of it remained untouched.

It did not strike. It did not reach.

It did not need to.

It erased.

Her mother adjusted her stance, lowering one blade slightly, as though recalculating rather than reacting.

“This isn’t something you fight,” she said, and there was no uncertainty in her voice.

Her father did not argue, but the question came anyway.

“Then what is it?”

Her answer did not waver.

“Something that doesn’t stop.”

Azaliyah took another step forward without thinking, close enough now to catch the details she had missed before.

The slight flex of her father’s hands at his sides. The way her mother’s shoulders held a fraction tighter than they normally would.

As though both of them understood exactly what this moment was, even if neither chose to say it aloud.

They were not confused.

They were not guessing.

They knew.

And that knowledge carried more weight than anything else in the scene.

The darkness reached them then, not as an attack, but as a presence settling over everything at once.

Azaliyah felt it too, even standing outside it. Pressure built behind her eyes and along her arms, as though something were reaching into places it did not belong and trying to seize whatever it found there.

Her father faltered slightly, catching himself before it showed too clearly.

Her mother did not move at all.

“You need to go,” he said, the edge in his voice sharper now.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You don’t get to argue this.”

That landed harder than anything else. Not because of how it was said, but because it left no space for anything to follow.

Azaliyah felt it settle into her chest as though it had been spoken directly to her, even though she knew it had not.

Her mother’s expression did not change, but something in her stance shifted just enough to show she had heard him.

“Then we hold it here,” she said.

“For how long?”

She did not hesitate.

“Long enough.”

The darkness pressed in again, heavier now, and the space around them began to thin. Not collapsing. Not breaking apart. Simply fading in a way that made it clear nothing there was meant to last.

Azaliyah reached forward without thinking, her hand passing straight through them as though they had never truly been there at all.

Nothing changed.

It never did.