THE COLLAPSE
1244 Words
Her eyes snapped to his.
“I am controlling it.”
“No,” he said calmly. “You’re forcing it.”
Her jaw tightened.
“I didn’t ask for commentary.”
“And I didn’t ask to be your experiment,” he shot back.
Silence struck between them like flint.
Then she pulled her hand away.
The light vanished instantly.
He exhaled slowly, the tension easing from his body by only a fraction.
“Wow,” he muttered after a moment. “You almost killed me twice.”
Her brows lifted.
“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
A pause.
“Unfortunately,” he said dryly.
That almost made her smile. Almost.
She looked down at him again, this time studying him properly. Not just the injuries. Everything.
“You’re not from here,” she said. It was not a question.
“No,” he replied. “Obviously.”
His eyes flicked back to her, sharper this time.
“You always state the obvious like that?”
“Only when it needs to be said,” she replied.
“It didn’t.”
She ignored him.
Her gaze moved over him again, tracing the unnatural blend of forms, the way his body looked as though it could not decide what it was meant to be.
“What are you?” she asked.
There was a pause. Not long, but noticeable.
Then, “A Kirin.”
She blinked.
“A what?”
His brow furrowed slightly.
“You don’t know what a Kirin is?”
“Clearly not,” she said, gesturing vaguely at him. “And I’m apparently looking at one, so an explanation would be helpful.”
He studied her for a moment, as though weighing a decision she could not see. Then he let his head rest back against the ground.
“Ancient,” he began. “Not from one realm. Not bound to one kind of magic.”
She folded her arms loosely across her chest. Listening, though she did not look like it.
“We’re not supposed to exist in pieces like this,” he continued, glancing briefly down at himself. “This...” He made a faint gesture toward his fractured form. “...is what happens when something interferes.”
Her expression did not change.
But something in her chest shifted. Because that sounded familiar.
“Interferes how?” she asked.
His jaw tightened slightly.
“Breaks things,” he said simply. “Magic. Form. Balance.”
A pause.
“Everything.”
Silence settled more heavily this time. Not empty. Understanding.
“Yeah,” she muttered. Because she had seen that already. Everywhere.
The trees.
The air.
The portal.
Her world.
She shifted slightly, glancing back toward the way she had come, though the portal was far beyond sight now.
“You picked a bad place to land,” she said.
“Wasn’t aiming for it.”
“That makes two of us.”
Another pause.
Then the ground beneath them cracked.
Not a small shift. Not subtle. A deep, splitting sound ripped through the earth, like something beneath it had finally decided to break free.
Both of them went still.
Then another c***k. Closer.
“That doesn’t sound good,” he said.
She gave him a look.
“You think?”
The ground split open a few feet away. Darkness yawned beneath it. Endless.
The trees began to tilt. Not fall. Tilt. As if something below was dragging them downward by the roots.
“We need to move,” she said.
“You think I can run like this?” he snapped.
She looked at him. Then at the ground. Then back at him.
“You’re going to have to try.”
He let out a short, humorless breath.
“Fantastic.”
The ground cracked again, closer this time.
She did not wait. She moved, grabbing his arm and hauling him up harder than she probably should have.
He staggered, then caught himself. Barely.
“You’re enjoying this,” he muttered.
“Just a little.”
Then they ran.
The ground did not merely c***k. It surrendered. A deep, violent rupture tore through the earth behind them, ripping upward as though something buried beneath the realm had finally decided to breathe.
The sound was wrong. Too loud. Too alive.
Azaliyah did not look back. She did not need to. She could feel it.
The pull.
As if something was dragging the world inward, swallowing it piece by piece.
“Faster,” she snapped.
“I’m trying...”
Camron’s voice cut off as his footing slipped, his body struggling to keep pace with itself, one half moving faster than the other.
“Try harder,” Azaliyah shouted.
“Helpful,” he shot back.
A tree lurched sharply to their left, then ripped straight out of the ground.
Not falling. Pulled.
It vanished into the split earth with a hollow, echoing sound that did not end.
Azaliyah’s breath caught.
“What is that?”
Camron did not answer.
Because he did not know.
And for the first time, it showed.
They ran harder.
The forest was collapsing around them now. Chunks of land broke apart. Roots snapped like bones. Entire sections of earth folded inward like paper crushed in an unseen hand.
The air screamed.
The magic, what little remained of it, was being dragged down with everything else.
Azaliyah felt it.
Her own magic flickered in response, unstable and reactive, as though it were being torn between two directions at once.
“No,” she muttered under her breath.
“Not now.”
The ground split beneath her feet.
She leapt, barely clearing it as the space she had just occupied vanished into darkness.
Camron did not clear it as cleanly.
His back leg slipped.
His body dropped hard for half a second.
She spun and caught him.
“Move!”
“I am moving!”
Another rupture tore through the ground directly in front of them. They skidded to a stop.
For half a second, there was nowhere left to go.
Then Azaliyah saw it.
Through the trees. Faint. Flickering.
A portal. Still open.
“There,” she breathed.
Camron followed her gaze, and something in his expression tightened.
“Is that...”
“Yes,” she cut him off, already moving again. “Run.”
They did not need to say anything else.
They drove forward, dodging falling branches, leaping broken ground, slipping, catching themselves, barely keeping pace with a world unraveling faster than they could escape it.
Behind them, the collapse surged.
Faster.
As if it knew they were leaving. As if it did not want them to.
“Go!” she snapped.
“I’m right...”
The ground split between them. Clean. Sharp.
Camron disappeared.
For half a second, he was simply gone.
Her stomach dropped.
“Antler head!” she shouted.
A hand shot up from the edge, gripping, holding.
“Still here,” he gritted out.
She did not think. She moved. Dropping to her knees, she seized his arm with both hands.
“Don’t let go.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
The ground beneath her began to give.
“Of course,” she muttered.
She pulled. Hard. Too hard.
The magic surged with it. Gold light burst from her hands, wild and uncontrolled. Not precise. Not gentle.
It struck him. Wrapped around him. Yanked.
He was torn from the edge and slammed into her.
They both hit the ground hard.
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