Lila hit the ground hard, her knees buckling as the world snapped back into focus. The air was thick, choking, like breathing through a furnace. She coughed, her lungs burning, and squinted into the haze. Gone was the damp chill of the Chicago alley. In its place was a landscape of ash and ruin, stretched out under a sky that bled crimson, its clouds swirling like wounds. Towers of jagged, obsidian-like stone loomed in the distance, their edges glinting with a sickly green light. The ground beneath her was cracked, dusted with gray powder that puffed up with every step.
She clutched the shard in her pocket, its hum now a steady thrum, like a heartbeat syncing with her own. "Where am I?" she whispered, her voice swallowed by the heavy air. The shard had done this-ripped her from her world and dropped her here, wherever here was. She should've been terrified, but a strange thrill pulsed through her, mingling with the fear. This place was alive, electric, like the hum she'd chased for weeks.
Lila stood, brushing ash from her jeans. Her jacket was torn at the sleeve, and her phone was gone-probably lost in the fall. She scanned the horizon, searching for anything familiar, but there was only desolation: twisted, skeletal trees clawing at the sky, and faint, flickering lights that moved like fireflies but felt... wrong. Predatory. She took a step, then froze. A low, guttural sound rumbled through the ground, not quite a growl but close enough to make her skin prickle.
"Lila?" A voice, faint and distorted, cut through the haze. Her heart leapt. "Mom?" she called, spinning around. But there was no one-just the endless ash and the distant, pulsing lights. The voice came again, softer, almost like an echo inside her skull. She pressed her hands to her ears, but it didn't stop. The shard in her pocket flared, hot enough to make her wince, and the voice sharpened: "Find the seam. It's not too late."
"What seam?" Lila muttered, her voice trembling. She pulled the shard out, its light now a vivid blue, casting shadows that danced across the cracked ground. The air around it shimmered, and for a moment, she saw something-a flicker of Chicago, the alley, her mother's face, contorted with fear. Then it was gone, and the shard cooled in her hand. She gripped it tighter. Whatever this place was, the shard was her only link to home. She had to understand it, had to find a way back.
The ground rumbled again, louder this time, and Lila stumbled. The flickering lights in the distance were closer now, moving with purpose. She crouched behind a jagged rock, her breath shallow. The lights weren't fireflies-they were eyes, glinting in the gloom, attached to shapes that slithered and scuttled across the ash. Her stomach twisted. She wasn't alone here, and whatever those things were, they weren't friendly.
Clara stood in the alley, the shard cutting into her palm. The pain grounded her, kept her from spiraling into the panic clawing at her chest. Lila was gone, but not lost-not yet. The fragment in her hand was proof of that. It pulsed faintly, its light dimmer than before, but it was enough. A clue. A tether. She'd spent sixteen years protecting Lila, shielding her from a world that felt too sharp, too hungry. She wasn't about to stop now.
The alley was still, the city's hum distant, as if Chicago itself were holding its breath. Clara's mind raced. The shard wasn't natural-it couldn't be. It felt like technology, but not any she'd ever seen, and Clara knew tech. She'd spent years as a systems engineer, troubleshooting networks, decoding errors. This was something else, something that broke every rule she'd ever learned. But rules didn't matter. Only Lila did.
She needed answers, and she needed them fast. The warehouse district wasn't far-Lila had mentioned finding the shard there, near the old quantum research lab that had shut down last year. Clara had dismissed it as one of Lila's obsessions, her daughter's knack for chasing mysteries in abandoned places. Now, it was the only lead she had.
Clara ran, her boots pounding the pavement, the shard tucked into her coat. The warehouse district was a maze of crumbling brick and rusted steel, its streets deserted except for the occasional flicker of a broken streetlight. She found the lot Lila had described-a sprawl of rubble and twisted rebar, marked by a faded sign: Argent Labs. Restricted Area. The lab had been a darling of the tech world once, promising breakthroughs in quantum entanglement before it went dark amid rumors of failed experiments and missing personnel.
She climbed over a chain-link fence, ignoring the No Trespassing signs, and scanned the lot. The air felt charged, like the moment before a storm. Her eyes caught a faint glow near a pile of debris-a second shard, larger than the one in her pocket, embedded in the ground. She knelt, brushing away dirt. It hummed, just like Lila's, and when she touched it, her vision blurred. For a split second, she saw Lila-crouching behind a rock, surrounded by ash, her face pale but determined. Then the image vanished, leaving Clara gasping.
"Lila," she whispered, her voice breaking. The shard pulsed, and the air around it rippled, just as it had in the alley. Clara's heart pounded. This was it-the door, the seam, whatever had taken her daughter. She didn't know how it worked or where it led, but she didn't care. She'd tear the universe apart to get Lila back.
The ripple widened, a tear in the air, and Clara felt the pull, like gravity calling her forward. She gripped both shards, their light merging into a single, blinding pulse. "I'm coming," she said, and stepped into the void.