Chapter Thirteen
1496 Words
— Dani
I don’t know how long I’ve been staring at the ceiling.
Minutes.
Hours.
Time feels slippery, like it’s trying to slide out of my hands.
Alana fell asleep in the chair beside the bed a while ago, curled up with her knees tucked under her chin. She tried to stay awake, tried to keep talking to me, but exhaustion won.
I wish it would win with me.
But my skin won’t stop buzzing.
Not humming.
Not vibrating.
Buzzing — like something under my ribs is pacing, restless, impatient.
I press my palms to my sternum, like I can hold myself together by force.
It doesn’t help.
The room is dark except for the faint glow from the hallway. Shadows stretch across the walls, long and soft, but they feel… aware. Like they’re waiting for something.
Like I’m waiting for something.
I swallow hard.
“Dani?”
The voice is soft, groggy.
Alana shifts in the chair, rubbing her eyes. “You’re still awake?”
I force a smile. “Yeah. Just… thinking.”
She studies me for a moment — really studies me — and I know she sees it. The tremor in my hands. The tension in my shoulders. The way I keep pressing my palm to my chest like I’m trying to quiet something inside me.
“Do you want me to get my dad?” she whispers.
“No.”
Too fast.
Too sharp.
She blinks.
I soften my voice. “No. I’m okay. I just… need a minute.”
She hesitates, then nods and curls back into the chair, drifting off again.
The buzzing spikes.
I sit up slowly, breathing through it, trying not to panic.
Something is wrong.
Something is waking up.
Something is—
A soft knock hits the doorframe.
Not Hale’s.
Not Alana’s.
Alaric.
I don’t know how I know — I just do. The same way I know when a storm is coming. The same way I know when someone is staring at me from across a room.
My pulse jumps.
“Come in,” I whisper.
The door opens slowly, like he’s giving me time to change my mind.
He steps inside.
He looks… wrecked.
Not physically — physically he looks like he always does: solid, controlled, carved from stone and stubbornness. But his eyes…
His eyes look like he hasn’t stopped thinking since the moment the memory shattered.
He glances at Alana, asleep in the chair, then back at me.
“Can we talk?” he asks quietly.
I nod.
He closes the door behind him, careful not to wake her.
The moment he steps closer, the buzzing under my skin sharpens — like a tuning fork struck too hard.
I grip the blanket. “Don’t.”
He freezes. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t get closer.”
His jaw tightens. “Dani—”
“I mean it.” My voice cracks. “Something’s wrong with me. I can feel it. And when you’re near, it gets worse.”
He goes still.
Completely still.
Like a predator scenting something it doesn’t understand.
“What do you mean?” he asks quietly.
“I mean,” I whisper, “that whatever is waking up inside me… it reacts to you.”
His breath catches — barely, but I hear it.
I feel it.
The buzzing spikes.
I flinch.
Alaric swears under his breath and steps back immediately, hands raised like he’s trying to calm a wild animal.
Maybe he is.
“Dani,” he says, voice low and steady, “look at me.”
I do.
And the buzzing eases.
Not because he moved away.
Because he’s looking at me like he’s trying to anchor me with his eyes alone.
“Whatever you’re feeling,” he says, “you’re not losing control.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
He hesitates.
And that hesitation tells me everything.
“You’re hiding something,” I whisper.
His jaw clenches.
“Alaric,” I say, voice shaking, “what aren’t you telling me?”
He opens his mouth—
—and the hallway light flickers.
Not a bulb.
Not electricity.
Something else.
Something alive.
Alaric stiffens.
I gasp.
The buzzing under my skin surges like a wave.
And then—
Dr. Hale bursts into the room, breathless, pale, clutching the ancient book like it’s a weapon.
“Dani,” she says urgently, “we need to talk. Now.”
Alaric steps in front of me instinctively.
Hale’s eyes flick to him — sharp, knowing, afraid.
“It’s happening faster than I thought,” she says. “For both of you.”
Both.
My stomach drops.
“What does that mean?” I whisper.
Hale looks at me.
Then at Alaric.
Then back at me.
“It means,” she says, “you’re not the only one awakening.”
The buzzing under my skin explodes.
Alaric goes rigid.
And the air between us hums — warm, electric, alive.
Hale curses. “Damn it. I was too late.”
The room tilts.
My breath stutters.
Alaric reaches for me—
And the world goes white.
---
— Dani
The white isn’t light.
It’s pressure.
Thick. Heavy. Alive.
It wraps around me like a second skin, pulling, twisting, folding me into something I don’t understand. I try to breathe, but there’s no air. I try to scream, but there’s no sound. I try to reach for Alaric, but—
There’s nothing to reach with.
And then—
Everything drops.
I hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of me.
Cold air rushes into my lungs. My palms scrape against rough stone. My vision swims, then sharpens, then steadies.
I’m not in the cabin.
I’m not anywhere I recognize.
I’m… outside?
No.
Not outside.
Somewhere between.
The air is wrong — too still, too quiet, too thick with something that feels like memory and moonlight woven together. The sky above me is a deep, endless indigo, streaked with silver veins that pulse like veins under skin.
The ground beneath me is stone, smooth and ancient, carved with symbols that glow faintly when I touch them.
My heart slams against my ribs.
“What… what is this?”
My voice echoes.
Not normally.
It echoes like the space itself is listening.
I push myself upright, legs shaking. The buzzing under my skin is gone — replaced by something deeper, heavier, like a heartbeat that isn’t mine thrumming through the air.
A soft wind brushes past me.
Except it’s not wind.
It’s… whispers.
Not words.
Not voices.
Just the feeling of being watched by something old.
Something that knows me.
Something that’s been waiting.
I swallow hard. “Hello?”
The air shifts.
A ripple moves across the stone, like a drop of water hitting a still pond. The symbols brighten. The sky pulses. The ground hums beneath my feet.
And then—
A figure appears.
Not walking.
Not forming.
Just… there.
A silhouette made of silver light, tall and indistinct, like a person carved from moonfire. No face. No features. Just presence.
My breath catches.
“Who— who are you?”
The figure tilts its head, and the air around me tightens.
Not threatening.
Recognizing.
Like it knows me.
Like it’s seen me before.
A soft, resonant sound fills the space — not a voice, not exactly, but something that vibrates through my bones.
“You are early.”
I stumble back. “What— what does that mean?”
The figure steps closer.
Not walking.
Gliding.
The stone beneath it glows brighter with every movement.
“You were not meant to awaken yet.”
My pulse spikes. “Awaken what?”
The figure lifts a hand — a gesture that feels ancient, ceremonial, inevitable.
“The Veil remembers you.”
My stomach drops.
“I don’t understand.”
The figure’s light flickers, like a candle caught in a draft.
“You will.”
The ground pulses beneath me.
The sky cracks with silver light.
The air thickens until I can’t breathe.
And then—
A voice cuts through the space like a blade.
“DANI!”
Alaric.
His voice doesn’t belong here. It tears through the world like it’s breaking rules just by existing.
The figure recoils.
The stone shatters beneath my feet.
The sky collapses inward.
And the world rips apart—
—
I gasp awake.
Not on stone.
Not under the indigo sky.
Not in the between-place.
I’m on the floor of the guest room.
Alaric is kneeling beside me, hands hovering inches from my shoulders, eyes glowing faintly — silver, flickering, unstable.
Dr. Hale is behind him, pale and furious and terrified all at once.
Alana is pressed against the wall, shaking.
My whole body trembles.
Alaric’s voice is raw. “Dani… what happened? Where did you go?”
I open my mouth.
But the only words that come out are:
“It wasn’t a memory.”
- Writer
