Eli crashed to his knees on the jagged floor. Stone splinters bit deep into his skin, warm blood slicking his palms as he stretched trembling arms toward the void where Elias had been torn away.
"Elias!"
The cry shattered against the walls, desperate enough to hurt the air itself.
The echo died.
Then the silence moved.
A shadow ripped across the ground like a blade of darkness, slicing toward him. It coiled, snapped upward, and rose shoulders, head, crooked grin. Elias.
The outline flickered, a glitch of smoke and memory. Veins of darkness curled from its edges like hungry tentacles.
"Brother…"
The word slithered through the room like smoke through a cracked door.
Eli jerked backward, boots scraping stone. His chest convulsed. "No no, you're not"
The shadow lunged, dropping to a crouch so fast the floor cracked beneath it. A blackened hand shot out and clamped Eli's shoulder. It was cold as night, heavy as a verdict.
"I stayed," the voice cracked like splintering ice. "I couldn't leave you… not yet."
Eli's face twisted, blood streaking the tears on his cheeks. His lips trembled. "You're gone. I I failed"
The shadow leaned closer until its forehead nearly touched his. The smell of burning metal filled Eli's lungs.
"Not gone," it hissed. "Not while you still need me."
The Eye answered with a deep, wet rumble.
The Spiral woke.
A scream split the dark a child's wail warped into a grinding machine-howl. Blood-threads burst from the walls like living ropes, snapping toward them.
Eli clutched his head, nails digging into his scalp. "It's coming"
The shadow uncoiled. Limbs stretched, body hardening into the real Elias. His eyes burned gold streaked with black, pupils pulsing to the heartbeat of the Eye. His skin shimmered like a body halfway to breaking.
"I'll stop it," Elias said, calm amid the chaos.
"No!" Eli lunged, grabbing his brother's wrist. "Don't you daredon't leave me again!"
Elias wiped a thumb across Eli's cheek, smearing blood and tears together. "You can't die here, Eli. She needs you."
"Who"
"Casey Kuc ," Elias breathed. "Your wife. Carry her out. She carries more than herself now. If you fall, she falls."
The Eye roared.
The Spiral erupted from the floor like a beast breaking its cage a black, many-limbed thing of smoke and sinew, eyes glowing void. Its arrival blasted the room with a wind so sharp it peeled skin.
Eli wrenched for his weapon. Red threads lashed his wrists mid-motion and snapped him backward.
Elias stepped forward, ignoring the tremor in his dissolving frame. He squared his shoulders as if bracing against a hurricane.
"Take me," he shouted over the roar. "If one of us must be swallowed, let it be me!"
The Spiral struck.
"NO!" Eli screamed, every muscle tearing against the eye.
Elias flung his arms wide. Black threads pierced him, sizzling as they burned through flesh. His back arched but he held, teeth bared in a bloody grin. He dragged the beast into his embrace like a man wrestling a storm.
The Eye convulsed. The floor split open in jagged lightning cracks.
"LET HIM GO!" Eli roared, voice shredding.
Elias turned his head. Gold-black eyes locked to Eli's, fierce and soft at once.
"Brother," he gasped, blood spilling down his chin, "don't die. Casey needs you. The child needs you."
"No! Stay with me!" Eli screamed!!!!! Don't please!!!
Elias's smile stretched wider, ragged but radiant. "I'll be there with you, Eli. Always. Even if you can't see me."
With a roar that shook the chamber, Elias hurled himself backward, dragging the Spiral into the bleeding core of the Eye.
The beast shrieked, a sound like metal tearing sky. Light imploded. Eli's outstretched hands grabbed only smoke.
Then silence.
The Eye sealed shut.
Eli collapsed, a hollow cry tearing from his chest as the floor stilled beneath him.
Casey
The street was dead.
Not quiet dead.
Only blood streaked the stones, thick and tacky under her boots.
Casey ran, lungs burning, following the copper stink until she reached a warped door. She shoved it open, heart pounding like a war drum.
Inside: ruin. Smoke coiled along the floor.
Eli knelt in the center, shoulders hunched, head bowed as if the weight of the world pinned him down. His shirt was shredded and wet with blood. His eyes wide, wild scanned the shadows like prey cornered by a predator.
"Eli," she said, breathless.
He didn't turn. His lips twitched with broken words. "I'll follow him. I'll find him. Save her"
A ragged laugh ripped from his throat, sharp enough to cut. His hand darted into the dark and came back with a blade that gleamed wet in the red gloom.
"Eli!" Casey lunged, boots skidding.
He pivoted toward her, smile hollow and dangerous. "His inside. I have to make it right."
"No." She slammed into him, fingers clamping his wrist. The blade's edge kissed her palm, slicing hot and shallow. She pressed her forehead to his trembling shoulder, grounding him. "You're not alone. Not ever."
His laugh faltered, breath hitching. The knife trembled but didn't fall until the shadows stirred.
Eli
The world thinned to a single point.
The blade pulsed in his grip, hungry for the final motion.
Maybe a clean cut would be mercy.
Darkness shifted.
A ripple slid across the floor, then climbed his arm black fingers curling over his fist. The grip was firm, steady. Not cold. Not cruel.
"Elias?" Eli whispered, the plea breaking his voice.
The shadow tightened, halting the blade mid-swing. Casey's hands covered his, shaking violently.
The shadow pressed the blade flat against his palm an impossible tenderness, urging release.
A faint voice threaded through the air, sharp and soft all at once:
"Stay, Eli. Don't make me save you like this."
Eli's knees buckled. Tears blurred his sight. The knife clattered to the floor with a ringing finality.
The Eye rumbled in distant rage.
Casey wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his neck, her sobs shaking them both. Eli clung back, forehead pressed to hers, tasting blood and salt.
The shadow lingered a heartbeat longer watchful, guarding, a sentinel between despair and the beast outside.
"Why are you here?" Eli rasped.
The shadow tilted, the curve of an absent smile flickering where a mouth should be.
Elias's voice slipped through the dark, a last thread of warmth against the cold:
"Hold on. Remember me. Don't forget. Not like this."
Outside, the Eye prowled unseen, its hunger tightening the night.
Inside the broken room, a brother's shadow stayed long enough to keep Eli alive.
The Eye pulsed again.
A slow, deliberate throb like the heartbeat of something that refused to die.
Casey's grip tightened around Eli as the floor beneath them gave a single, sharp shiver.
The shadow Elias wavered, its edges fraying into smoke.
"Don't let go," Eli whispered, voice shaking.
Casey opened her mouth to answer but the shadow suddenly recoiled.
Its head snapped toward the far wall.
A faint scrape echoed through the ruin.
Metal on stone.
Closer.
Then closer still.
Eli stiffened. "What was that?"
The shadow's shape stretched, flickering with violent urgency.
Its voice came jagged, a warning carried on static:
"They found you."
Before Casey could breathe, the Eye outside gave a single, deafening knock
a sound like a door splitting in half.
The walls bled red light.
The floor cracked beneath their knees.
And from the darkness beyond the broken door…
a second shadow stepped in.
Taller.
Smiling.
Not Elias.