The darkness swallowed them whole, a suffocating weight pressing from all sides. Dani's breath came fast, ragged, her eyes flicking wildly as she clutched Lance's arm.
Kenton raised his arms, crystalline spikes glowing fiercely. "I'll—I'll shield us!" His voice cracked, the strain audible.
But the barrier he wove was jagged and unstable—a shimmering wall that flickered like a faulty projection. It warped space unevenly, creating ripples that bent the fractured Hollow Reach in unpredictable ways. Shadows stretched through the cracks, distorting as if mocking his effort.
Dani gritted her teeth. "Kenton, that's—"
A crack split the barrier, sending shards of crystalline light snapping apart like brittle glass.
Behind the fragile wall, a writhing mass of black tendrils pushed through, clawing with unnatural hunger.
Kenton's eyes narrowed, panic flickering beneath his calm facade. "It's... reacting to me. I'm... making it worse."
His hands trembled; the spikes grew longer, twisting grotesquely, cutting into his own flesh. A shard tore free, embedding in his arm, blood welling around the crystal.
Lance felt the twitch flare hotter—his veins pulsing with cold fire. The child-version of himself hovered closer, voice softer but no less menacing.
"You're losing it. Losing yourself."
The memories surged again—flashes of a man screaming in rain, hands tied, pleading for mercy. But the voice inside Lance's head wasn't his own.
"I'm not him," Lance whispered, voice cracking.
Dani pulled him close, steadying his shaking frame. "Focus on now, not whatever ghosts you're chasing."
The Hollow Reach around them shuddered violently, walls folding and snapping. From the darkness, shadowy forms lunged—creatures born of broken geometry and whispered nightmares.
Kenton surged forward, crystalline spikes whirling like blades. He slashed through the first wave, but each strike seemed to fracture more of the fragile space.
His barriers flickered erratically, sometimes vanishing mid-attack, leaving them exposed.
"I don't know what this is doing," Kenton admitted, voice raw. "It's not my power anymore—it's... something else."
Dani's grenade launcher clicked uselessly—rounds misfiring or disintegrating mid-air.
"We can't rely on the usual," she growled. "This place is twisting us, messing with everything we touch."
Lance forced his hands forward, willing the twitch to bend the warping world.
A broken streetlight warped into a spiral, bending shadows back on themselves.
It gave them a brief sliver of cover.
But his mind splintered further, the man's memories bleeding through—a fractured identity pressing in.
"Remember who you are," the ghost voice urged.
Lance screamed inside his head, fighting to push it back, but the child-version smiled sadly.
"You don't get to choose anymore."
Kenton stumbled, blood dripping from crystalline wounds that weren't fully his.
He dropped to one knee, gasping for breath.
"I'm... sorry," he said, voice hollow.
Dani shook her head. "No time. Keep moving."
The shadows closed in, claws scraping stone and flesh.
Lance's vision blurred—then sharpened in sudden clarity.
He reached into the storm inside him—not with strength, but desperation.
A pulse of warped reality rippled outward, slowing the advance.
But the cost was clear: his skin crackled, veins blackening further, a map of fracture and pain.
They had moments.
Or seconds.
The floor beneath them groaned—not from weight, but from refusal. This sideways refuge was starting to resist its own shape.
Lance's breathing was shallow, forced, like it was being rerouted through someone else's lungs. His fingers twitched in bursts, as if pulled by threads he didn't recognize. Dani sat beside him, trying to tighten the wrap around his ribs, but the cloth kept slipping. Her hands were trembling, and not from fear—from something deeper. Like her body was arguing with itself on what kind of creature it still was.
Kenton crouched a few feet away, trying to do something. His arm was extended, fingers trembling, palm pressed toward the air like it was glass he could touch—no, bend.
"Come on," he whispered. "Come on, you just did it. Just again, please—"
A ripple spread out from his hand. The air stuttered. A noise like a zipper unzipping time crawled through the room, and a thin sheet of reality peeled back. Behind it: fractured light, impossible angles, and something ancient trying to imitate modern physics.
Kenton yanked his hand back with a curse. "Okay. Okay. Don't touch that again."
The tear hovered for a second before it stitched itself closed—not healed, just impatient. The corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Not yet. But close.
Dani narrowed her eyes. "What the hell was that?"
Kenton stood quickly. "Nothing. An accident. It was a barrier. I thought I could make—doesn't matter. Just testing."
"Testing what?"
He waved her off. "I don't know yet. I just need a second. I'm close."
"No, Kenton." Her tone dropped, sharp. "You're not close. That nearly shaved the skin off my arm."
He turned back toward the wall, quietly—guilt settling in, but another feeling swimming under it. Fascination. Awe. That shouldn't have worked. But it did. Kind of. God, that really shouldn't have happened.
Then—a thump.
All three of them froze.
The door. Again. A second knock, heavier this time. Insistent.
Kenton stepped back instinctively. Dani reached for a weapon that wasn't whole. A handle formed in her hand out of twitching metal and memory, but no blade. It flickered.
"Stay behind me," she said, voice gone dead calm. Her muscles coiled. The weapon sparked. Almost ready.
Lance stirred. Not awake. Not asleep either. His mouth opened. No sound.
And then he moved.
Just a flicker—a jerk of his arm, then a kick that made his spine arch. He gasped. Choked. Eyes shot open—
—and saw a hallway that didn't belong.
He wasn't on the floor anymore. He was standing. Or something was, and it was wearing him.
He blinked.
A man in a driver's seat. Rain on glass. Neon bleeding into his teeth.
Blink.
A woman screaming, half-seen in a mirror—Dani? No, different.
Blink.
Himself, looking back. Younger. Sharper. Wearing a smirk he didn't remember ever learning.
"—nnnnggh."
Lance's body spasmed again, and this time he spoke. Not a word. A name, maybe? A noise? Not his voice.
Kenton's breath hitched.
"Lance?"
A pause.
Dani turned, weapon raised—but Lance's skin was already paling, going thin, like a photo overexposed. His veins pulsed black, then white, then colorless.
And then he screamed. Not loud. Not primal. Just—wrong. Like he was breathing out through someone else's throat.
His fingers cracked backward, bones popping like paper. The air bent around him. The walls flickered—
—and for a second, they were back in Hollow Reach proper.
Not the sideways one.
The real one.
But different.
Every object was slightly behind itself, like the world couldn't keep up with its own rendering. Streetlights flickered in triplets. People walked without touching the ground. Glass didn't reflect what it was in front of. Everything was five seconds late to everything else.
And Lance stood in the middle of it, swaying. Alone.
His body screamed without noise, and something peeled away from him—a fog, a shadow, a ripple of memory.
He saw:
Blood in his fingernails.
A car parked too long in a place that shouldn't exist.
A girl laughing in the back seat, her laughter sounding like static.
A voice saying, "Don't worry, I've done this before."
None of it was his.
And yet it was pulling him inward.
Dani's voice shattered it. "Lance, snap out of it!"
Back in the refuge.
He was on the ground again. Eyes wide. Chest rising and falling like something inside was knocking for escape.
"I—I didn't—" Lance mumbled. "I didn't go anywhere. I was somewhere."
Kenton knelt beside him, torn between science and fear. His hand hovered over Lance's chest. Not touching. Just measuring heat. Distortion. He could feel the magnetism coming off him. Lance was warping the rules just by breathing.
And God help him, Kenton whispered: "I think I can stabilize this."
Dani stood up hard. "No. We're not experimenting on him."
"I'm not. I'm not—I just—something's responding to him. That spike in resonance? The Codex at the breach site—Dani, this is information. This is insight. If we learn how this works, maybe we can—"
"Fix him?"
"No. Not 'fix.' Just... understand."
His voice trembled. He didn't expect it to. But there it was. Real fear. Not for Lance. Not exactly.
For what he himself might do next.
He stepped back, held out his palm again—hesitant. Shaking.
Then made the shape again.
And the barrier came.
Not clean. Not circular. A jagged splinter of warped air, light folding sideways around it. It buzzed with entropy—an accident of design. No blueprint, no theory, just desperation and awe.
Kenton looked at it like he was staring into a divine machine.
"Holy shit," he breathed. "That—shouldn't—that shouldn't have worked."
A sliver of a smile. Tight. Quiet. Almost a laugh—but swallowed before it could reach the throat.
Then the smile vanished.
He turned to the others, eyes wide again. "Forget I said that."
But the look in his pupils—sharp, constricted, lit with fascination—was already etched into memory.
Dani helped Lance up, supporting his weight. Her body kept glitching. Metal and flesh arguing.
Kenton tried forming the barrier again—carefully this time. It sparked. Wobbled. Split into three misaligned copies, each one vibrating in a different direction.
He didn't stop.
"Don't look at me like that," he said softly. "It's not about power. It's about progress."
Dani didn't answer.
Lance coughed. His voice came out shredded: "What... what did I do?"
Kenton looked at him. And for once, he didn't have an answer. Only awe.
They moved as a unit now—unstable, limping, half-broken—but moving.
Together.
And somewhere, beyond the warped door and fractured sky—something was coming that didn't belong in any timeline.
And none of them were ready.