Zamira was standing in the middle of the room.
After everything that had just happened, silence had returned—but this silence was no longer familiar. What once felt like emptiness now carried a conscious anticipation. As if the house itself—the walls, the floor, the ceiling—was holding its breath.
The power was still out.
She looked through the window. The streetlamps stood frozen in the dark, their dim shapes barely visible. The city was not asleep; it was being forced awake. Zamira felt it deep in her bones. This was not the restlessness of night.This was the friction of layers colliding.
She touched her chest.
The bond was still there.Nayel was distant… but not gone.
Then a sound echoed through the building.
Something metallic hitting the ground—but duller. Deeper.
Zamira stiffened.
It came from the stairwell.
At this hour, no one should have been there. But nothing was normal anymore.
She didn't put on her shoes. When she opened the door, the hallway lights were out as well. Darkness poured over her like a thick veil until her eyes adjusted. And then she noticed something.
The darkness wasn't still.
It wavered.
As if the air itself bent around something unseen. Zamira took a step forward. A faint vibration rose from beneath the floor—weak, but steady. Like a pulse.
The building…The street…They were beating in rhythm with her.
As she approached the stairs, she saw it.
A shadow.
But not one that belonged to a human.
It wasn't darkness where light should have been absent; it was more like a void that light avoided. It lingered beside the railing—shapeless yet dense, as if it had chosen to stand there.
Zamira didn't step back.
What rose inside her wasn't fear.
Nor was it anger.
It was recognition.
"You're here," she said quietly."I've started to feel you."
The shadow shifted.
And for the first time, Zamira heard the voice of darkness.
A low hum speaking across multiple frequencies—not words, yet full of meaning.
Prey.
The word echoed inside her mind.
At the same moment, pain flared in her chest.
"Nayel…" she whispered.
The bond tightened.
For a brief second, her vision collapsed. The boundaries of the room, the building, even the street dissolved. Another layer—colder, harsher—slid over reality.
And she saw him.
Nayel wasn't fully visible. His presence trembled, as though seen through glass. His shoulders were tense. The edges of his shadow were breaking apart.
He was in pain.
But he wasn't screaming.
That hurt her more.
"Don't come," Nayel said, his voice weak."This… it's opening through me."
Zamira clenched her jaw.
"No," she said firmly."Not this time."
The shadow in the stairwell multiplied.
It was no longer one.
Two… three… formless densities seeped from the walls. They didn't walk—they shifted positions. With every movement, the air grew colder, gravity briefly skewed.
Hunters.
Sent from Nayel's world—but not truly belonging there anymore. Corrupted, suspended between realms. They followed orders but did not think.
And now they saw Zamira.
That… was a mistake.
Zamira closed her eyes.
She took a deep breath.
For the first time, instead of suppressing her power, she listened to it.
The light inside her didn't burst. It didn't spread. Instead… it condensed. It gathered behind her heart like a tight knot.
"Nayel," she said calmly,"I'm not severing the bond. But I am making you invisible."
"Zamira, don't—"
Too late.
She raised her hand.
No light emerged.
No darkness either.
Instead… the void bent.
As if an invisible glass sphere formed around them. Nayel's space was sealed—not fully closed, not fully open. A suspended state. A threshold.
The hunters recoiled.
For the first time, they hesitated.
Because this… broke the rules.
Zamira's knees trembled. The force threatened to pull her down, but she stayed upright. Her breath quickened, yet she didn't lose control.
Then the building shook.
Something was happening in the physical world.
Glass shattered outside. A car alarm went off, its sound muffled, as though underwater. People stepped out onto the street; some saw only darkness… others saw the shadow.
A child began to cry.
Zamira felt it.
Every bond had a cost.
As the hunters withdrew, one of them left a fractured echo in her mind:
"The threshold is bleeding."
At that moment, the barrier dissolved.
Nayel collapsed to his knees. Zamira stepped toward him—and stopped.
She didn't know what would happen if she touched him.
Still, she reached out.
The instant her fingers brushed his arm—
They both convulsed.
This wasn't contact.
It was mutual impact.
Nayel's power slammed into Zamira. Zamira's presence reverberated through Nayel. Their breaths caught at the same time.
For the first time… Nayel was afraid.
"Zamira," he said hoarsely."Don't touch me… you—"
"Quiet," she said, soft but unwavering."I'm here now."
She withdrew her hand—but the mark remained.
A trace of the bond.
At that moment, the power went out completely.
Not just in the building.
In the entire neighborhood.
The darkness was no longer ordinary darkness. In some windows, wrong shadows appeared. People wouldn't be able to explain it. They would try to forget.
But something would linger.
The hunters were gone.
Nayel was weak—but alive.
And Zamira… was still standing.
She touched her chest.
The bond was stable.The power was locked.But now it was a bleeding threshold.
And the darkness knew it.