"Even gods can envy the living."
The words echoed like a curse each syllable rippling through the void until even the air shivered.
Casey's breath came sharp and uneven. Her fingers groped through the dark, touching nothing but the cold pulse of emptiness.
The world whatever was left of it ended in red.
Then she saw him.
A shadow staggering in the distance.
A voice soft, broken chased her name through the endless dark.
"Casey… Casey Kuc…"
The Spiral screamed.
It howled like a storm trapped inside a coffin. Dust tore across Eli's face. The ground beneath him wasn't ground at all it was breathing.
And then
"Casey Kuc!"
That voice.
His brother's voice.
It sliced through the dark like shattered glass.
Eli froze, heart splintering. "Don't…" he whispered. "Don't call me"
Too late.
The darkness peeled open like torn skin.
Casey appeared beneath the weight of fallen stone, her hair matted with blood, her eyes dazed.
And in front of her, his own body broken, lifeless, one arm still wrapped protectively around her.
Eli's stomach turned to ice.
"No. No NO!"
He fell to his knees, clawing through debris that wasn't real. His fingers brushed nothing no warmth, no pulse.
"Casey! Answer me!"
Only silence.
His hands trembled, slick with blood that wasn't his.
He looked up at the collapsing dark. "Elias!" he screamed. "Where is she?!"
The Shadow's Bargain
The void rippled.
From the black stepped Elias half man, half shadow.
One eye still human, soft with sorrow. The other drowned in ink.
"Eli," he said quietly. "You shouldn't have called again."
His voice cracked like a whip.
"Now she has to pay for your stupidity."
Eli staggered backward. "What are you talking about?!"
The air bent warped and something older whispered between them.
"You called again… and again…"
"Now you must choose."
The Spiral trembled.
Wind slammed into Eli, forcing him to his knees as red threads slithered up his arms, burning into his veins.
Casey's scream tore through the dark. "Eli! Help me!"
Eli's eyes darted between her fading shape and his brother's bleeding stare.
Elias's voice was heavy with sorrow.
"I can only save one."
Eli's body shook. His breath came out in shattered pieces.
"Then take me," he whispered. "Let her live. Just take me."
The Price of Calling
Light erupted so bright it burned the dark away.
Time froze.
Elias moved through the silence like a dream breaking apart. His coat rippled like water.
He raised his hand the shadow recoiled, screaming like something dying.
"Elias!" Eli shouted.
But Elias didn't speak.
He turned his wrist.
And Casey appeared falling into Eli's arms, warm, breathing, alive.
Eli's tears fell freely. "Casey please"
When he looked up, Elias was still there half-smiling, half-fading.
"Can't you stay?" Eli pleaded. "You saved us!"
Elias's fingers twitched as if reaching for his brother's face. Then, with a soft smile, he only waved.
A human gesture.
A goodbye.
And then he vanished.
The Spiral shattered.
The wind screamed.
The darkness laughed.
"Choices have prices."
Eli held Casey close, his lips trembling against her hair as Elias's warmth faded from the world.
After the Eye
The world ended in red again.
Casey blinked awake, her breath ragged.
Eli stood amid the rubble, blood streaking his face.
Above them, the Eye cracked the heavens, bleeding crimson tears.
"Elias!"
His voice ripped through the silence.
No answer.
Blood fell like rain.
He stumbled, rose, fell again each step heavier, slower, more desperate.
"Eli!" Casey screamed. "Please stop!"
He didn't.
He walked until his knees gave way.
Casey ran, slipping on blood-slick stone. She dropped beside him.
"Stay with me," she begged.
He leaned weakly into her touch. His lips parted but no words came.
Then light.
The Eye dissolved into gray clouds. Sunlight broke through like cruelty disguised as mercy.
Around them, doors creaked open.
People began stepping cautiously from their homes, their faces pale but their eyes shining with relief. They knelt on the bloodstained pavement, some sobbing, some lifting trembling hands to the sky.
They were thanking someone
God, fate, the unknown force that had shattered the Eye and restored the world to normal.
Casey barely noticed.
Her entire world was the broken man in her arms.
Casey lifted her head, tears cutting through dirt.
"Elias is gone," she whispered. "Eli still lives… but what kind of life is this?"
Eli's Dream
Night returned like a bruise.
Eli stood in shallow water, the air thick with rain and iron.
"Eli…"
The whisper drifted from the dark.
He turned.
A tall, thin figure trembled ahead half smoke, half grin.
"Brother," it said. "I'm still here. Not for long… but enough to tell you"
Eli's heart ached. "Elias"
"Live for me. Protect her. Protect the child."
"Don't leave me again," Eli whispered.
The shadow smiled in absence.
"I never left. You carry me now."
A single red thread brushed his fingertips warm. Beating.
"Hold on, Eli," the voice faded.
"Don't make me save you like this again."
The Eye blinked shut.
Eli woke screaming.
Casey was there, gripping his face, her forehead pressed to his.
"Eli look at me. You're here. You're alive."
He gasped, chest shaking.
For a fleeting second, he swore he still felt that red thread twined around his wrist alive, pulsing.
Outside, dawn split the horizon in gold.
But Eli knew the night hadn't gone.
It had simply found a home inside him.
And deep within that darkness, a voice whispered still
"You called again."
"Every call has a cost."
"Every love demands a body."
Nine Months Passed
Nine months passed.
The world outside had changed, but Eli's heart hadn't.
Casey had done everything she could to keep him from sinking back into the spiral of his own thoughts. She'd bought an old wooden house in a quiet countryside village where mist rolled over the hills every morning, and the air always smelled of rain and pine.
The villagers called it a peaceful place.
To Eli, it felt like a graveyard that hadn't been buried yet.
Still, Casey smiled through it all. She painted the walls, tended to the garden, cooked by the fire and when he couldn't sleep, she would hold him and whisper, "You're safe here. We both are."
He believed her.
Or at least, he wanted to.
That morning, Eli had gone to the fields to work barefoot in the wet soil, his hands numb, his mind quiet for once. The wind carried the scent of rain. Nothing seemed unusual.
When he returned home around two in the afternoon, the house was silent. Too silent.
"Casey?" he called softly. No answer.
He stepped inside. The front door creaked. The air felt colder than before. He smelled blood.
And then he heard it.
A baby's cry.
Eli's heart stopped. He ran to the bedroom.
Casey lay there, pale and motionless, her hand resting weakly on the blanket.
She had given birth alone.
"Casey," he breathed, kneeling beside her. "You did it. You did so well. Just breathe, please breathe for me."
But her chest didn't rise. Her lips parted only to let out one last sigh quiet, almost peaceful.
She didn't even have the time to hold or see her newborn.
Eli's breath broke. "No..... no, please, don't leave me too."
He turned to the baby wrapped beside her. A tiny boy, crying softly alive, breathing, perfect.
Eli gathered him in his arms, his tears falling onto the child's cheeks. "I'll raise you alone," he whispered, voice shaking. "I promise. You're all I have left."
The crying slowed. The baby blinked up at him eyes brown, deep, and disturbingly familiar.
Eli froze.
Those eyes. That look.
He'd seen them before.
His smile faltered as a cold dread crept into his spine. "No. it can't be."
The child tilted his head, staring at Eli with an expression far too aware for a newborn. The candle beside the bed flickered. The shadows bent across the walls like reaching fingers.
Eli swallowed hard. The air around him shifted heavy, electric.
Then, softly, from the baby's lips, came a whisper.
"You never let go!!!!! Even when I chose to leave, you clung to me cold, silent, and everywhere. Every shadow breathed your presence. Every step I took, I felt you behind me, whispering, waiting. I couldn't escape. I never could."
Eli's eyes widened. His heart stopped.
The baby smiled small, knowing, wrong.
And then, the candle went out.