Flaw in the world
The threads of the world tore open. What had seemed like a delicate lattice, a fragile web of balance, now shredded under an unseen hand. Carter's mind screamed as patterns twisted into chaos—colors burned too bright, shapes multiplied and collapsed, reality itself quaked under the assault. Every glance shredded another fragment of his sanity. A foreign entity, ancient and unknowable, was unraveling everything he perceived.
Varka's eyes were bloodshot, burning with exhaustion and raw, desperate focus. Snezna had set the girl down and shook Varka, shouting through the din of his own panic.
"Oi. You okay? I can hear them closing in."
Varka's consciousness snapped back. He surged upright, muscles taut with instinct, feet moving before thought could catch up.
Carter—trapped inside Varka—could do nothing. His mind was a storm of screams and impossible clarity, a torture no mortal should endure. Shapes, colors, intentions, fragments of the world: all assaulted him at once. Leaves pulsed in unnatural hues. Shadows danced across the sky. Soldiers' shouts fragmented into shards of sound, slicing through the chaos. Hours, minutes, seconds—he could not tell—passed unnoticed, a drowning in infinite streams of information.
When his vision finally reassembled, Snezna knelt behind a gnarled bush, hand clamped over the girl's mouth. Carter felt her confusion, her fear—so raw it throbbed in his chest. Her breath, shallow and uneven, sounded like distant wind through a hollow tree.
Varka remained still as stone, a rock in the current of death rushing toward them.
Valius soldiers hemmed them in, closing from two directions—behind and east. They could run, but the risk of revealing their path would turn escape into slaughter.
Carter could hear Varka's thoughts, sharp and calculating: We wait. Don't make a move. Let them come closer. Let them believe they hold the advantage.
A twig snapped under Varka's careful placement of shadow. The soldiers, drawn like moths to flame, followed the false lead, and the trio sprinted through the chaos.
Soon, they arrived at a ravine.
"Shit. Dead end," Snezna muttered, voice low.
Varka peered over the edge, hearing the distant rush of water far below. The wind carried the scent of wet stone and moss. One leaf, loosened from a gnarled branch, drifted lazily down, spinning in the air, landing with a soft splash below. The world seemed to slow, each breath stretching into eternity. Master was right, he thought, never rely on divination, never trust the world itself.
"Don't give birth to reality. Words have power—and so do you," he hissed, eyes flashing with grim determination.
Then—the world shifted.
Varka sensed it first: a shadow, impossibly vast, crawling across the misty forest. A silhouette emerged, patient, unhurried, yet every movement screamed of predation and ancient intelligence.
Its very existence looked wrong. Limbs too long, too short, bending and twisting in ways that made the mind ache. At times it mimicked human form, grotesquely, tattered robe flapping as if containing something immense and corrupt. Other times, it dissolved into shapes that should not exist—a writhing mass of impossibility.
Every glance forced a rebellion in perception. Eyes ached. Thoughts splintered. Carter's mind fractured anew, fragments of reality flickering like brittle glass: Wrong… too much… Varka… Snezna… girl… dying… impossible…
The girl's hair brushed her cheek. She shivered. A drop of rain—or maybe sweat—rolled down her temple. The mist curled around a branch. The smell of wet earth sharpened in Carter's senses, a fleeting anchor.
But one truth anchored them both: whatever this thing was, it did not belong. Not here. Not anywhere. Its presence was a violation of natural law, a shadow of some deeper, incomprehensible reality bleeding into their world.
"What the hell's that?" Snezna snapped.
The girl slumped to the ground, hollow-eyed and exhausted, barely conscious. Snezna forced her down gently, muttering a bitter joke about hope.
The pressure pressed in—weightless yet crushing. To move was to die; to breathe was to invite madness.
Carter's mind reeled, disjointed flashes of thought spinning wildly: It sees me… no… us… intelligence… hunger… wrong… dying… impossible… Every instinct screamed: This is not just a monster. This is a godmade shadow, a thing from the edges of reality.
Varka's thoughts were sharp and cold: Fight and die. Hesitate and die. There is no choice. Only survival, and I am barely human enough to survive.
The silhouette's head—or whatever served as its head—turned slowly toward Snezna, then the girl. Carter felt the pull, the hunger, the intelligence sizing them up.
A bird took flight somewhere, a single leaf fell into the ravine, water rushing far below. A fraction of a second, and then—
It moved.
A step, silent yet impossible in scale. A soundless wind of inevitability rolled over them. Carter, pressed deep into Varka's skull, knew every truth of fear, despair, and the fragility of flesh. Nothing mortal should survive this moment.
Varka's lips curved into a thin, bloody smile. He braced himself.
Let it come. Let it see me. I am nothing. But I will not fail.
Carter could feel Varka's will, sharp as a knife, slicing through the chaos, anchoring them both to the fleeting strand of survival. The world outside the ravine—the soldiers, the light, even the forest itself—faded. There was only the shadow, and the terrible, all-consuming knowledge of its existence.
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