The midday Texas sun was a physical weight, pressing down on the asphalt roof of the diner with a relentless, hammering intensity that turned the parking lot into a shimmering mirage of heat waves. Inside the Slipgate, however, the air conditioning was fighting a valiant war, and the atmosphere was humming with a different kind of energy.
It was the energy of a hive that had finally found its queen, or perhaps, its generals.
Marcus Hale stood near the pass, wiping down a stainless steel counter with a rhythmic, circular motion. His movements were efficient, military-grade precise, but there was a looseness to his shoulders that hadn't been there the day before. He glanced over at Liri, who was currently reorganizing the condiment station with a speed that blurred the human eye. The High Elf moved like water, her long, pale fingers dancing over the ketchup bottles and napkin dispensers, aligning them with a geometric perfection that bordered on obsessive.
"Left flank is secure," Liri announced, her voice carrying that distinct, melodic chime that made even a report on condiments sound like a royal decree. She tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder, her pointed ears twitching slightly as she caught the sound of the delivery truck gearing down on the highway. "Supplies are inbound, Commander."
"Copy that," Marcus replied, a small smile touching the corner of his mouth. "Eira, check the loading dock door. Make sure it's unlatched."
Eira, who had been sitting on a stool near the register sharpening a massive butcher knife with a whetstone, stood up. She was the steel to Liri's silk, a warrior whose very posture suggested violence held in check by a thin thread of discipline. She sheathed the knife in a leather loop at her belt and nodded.
"The door will be opened," Eira stated flatly. "And if the driver is rude, he will be corrected."
"Just open the door, Eira," Marcus sighed. "No corrections today. We're trying to keep a low profile."
In the back booth, away from the operational hub of the kitchen, Pearl was happily devouring a stack of pancakes that was taller than her head. The Glimmuck paused, syrup dripping from her chin, and let out a happy, chirping sound that vibrated the table. She was the morale officer, the chaotic pet, and currently, the garbage disposal for the kitchen's test run.
While the "Combat Team" held down the fort upstairs, the "Engineering Team" was engaged in a much grittier, sweatier reality out back.
Raina wiped a forearm across her brow, smearing a streak of grease and dust across her pale skin. Her tank top was soaked through, clinging to her torso, outlining the curve of her ribs and the heavy rise and fall of her chest as she caught her breath. She looked at the pile of equipment that had just been dumped on the gravel by the local hardware supply runner.
"That is a lot of lumber," Raina muttered, putting her hands on her hips. She looked at Nix. "And I don't think standard two-by-fours are going to do much against tectonic plate shear forces."
Nix was crouching by a stack of PVC piping, inspecting the threads with the intensity of a bomb disposal technician. The small, wiry man looked up, his eyes darting back and forth behind his thick glasses. He was vibrating with his usual nervous energy, a hummingbird on caffeine.
"Structural integrity is a suggestion in the sphere Rainy," Nix said, his voice a rapid-fire staccato. "We aren't building a house. We are building a cage. A ribcage. To hold the tunnel throat open so it doesn't swallow us when the pressure drops. Hand me that scanner."
Raina reached down and grabbed the heavy, handheld sensor array they had cobbled together from spare parts and borrowed government tech. She handed it to him, their fingers brushing. Nix's skin was cool and dry, despite the heat. Hers was hot and slick.
"We need to get this downstairs," Raina said, looking at the setting sun. The delivery had been late, and the shadows were already stretching long and purple across the dusty ground. "Marcus and the girls are done for the day. They're exhausted. I saw Liri practically sleepwalking into the walk-in cooler earlier just to cool off."
"Regeneration cycle," Nix muttered, tapping buttons on the scanner. "High metabolic cost for the... activities. Yes. They are offline. It is just us, the grunts. The tech support."
Raina frowned. She felt the sting of the separation. She was the outsider here. The traitor. The one who had to earn every single inch of trust. Marcus barely looked at her, treating her like a contractor he couldn't wait to fire. It gnawed at her, a hollow ache in her gut that was heavier than the lumber.
"Then we do it ourselves," Raina said, her jaw setting in a stubborn line. "I'm not leaving this out here for the coyotes or the locals to steal. Grab the lights. I'll take the piping."
It took them an hour to haul the first wave of gear into the diner and down the hidden stairwell that led to the basement.
The transition from the diner to the underground level was always jarring. One moment, you were in a world of lemon polish and frying grease; the next, you were descending into a cool, damp darkness that smelled of earth and ancient electricity.
Raina carried a massive spool of heavy-duty extension cords over one shoulder and a pair of portable halogen work lights in her hands. The weight dug into her trapezius muscle, but she welcomed the pain. It was grounding. It was penance.
Nix scuttled ahead of her, carrying a crate of sensors and the stabilizing jacks. He moved down the stairs with a weird, scuttling grace, his feet finding the edges of the steps without him ever looking down.
They reached the bottom landing. The basement was a cavernous space, dominated by the humming, dormant bulk of the Slipgate machinery in the center. But they weren't working on the Gate itself. They were heading for the sub-tunnel, the rough-hewn passage that Nix had identified as a "leakage point" in the spatial geometry.
"Lights," Nix ordered, his voice echoing in the gloom.
Raina set the stands up, her boots crunching on the grit of the floor. She plugged the cords in, twisting the locking collars, and flipped the switch.
Twin beams of harsh, white light stabbed into the darkness, illuminating the mouth of the tunnel. It looked like a throat. The walls were rough stone, but they had a slick, organic sheen to them, as if the rock was sweating.
"Okay," Raina breathed, looking at the ominous hole. "We shore up the entrance. The ground and walls are stable here. We place the sensors. We get out."
"Simple," Nix said. "Linear. I like linear."
They worked in silence for twenty minutes. Raina hammered wooden wedges into the gaps in the rock, securing the stabilizing jacks, while Nix wired up the sensor array. The air down here was usually stagnant, dead air that had been trapped for decades.
But then, the atmosphere changed.
It wasn't a gradual shift. It was instantaneous.
Raina felt it first on the back of her neck. The fine hairs rose, prickling with static electricity. The temperature plummeted, dropping twenty degrees in a heartbeat. The smell hit her a second later.
It wasn't the smell of a dusty basement anymore. It was the smell of wet earth. Deep, rotting vegetation. Crushed ferns. Stagnant water. Moss.
"Nix," Raina said, her voice trembling slightly. She stopped hammering. "Do you smell that?"
Nix froze. He was kneeling by the sensor array, his back to the tunnel mouth. He slowly turned his head, his eyes wide and reflecting the halogen glare.
"Barometric drop," Nix whispered. "Spatial shear. Rainy. Move away from the mouth."
"What?" Raina asked, taking a step back. She looked at the tunnel.
The air inside the tunnel wasn't empty anymore. It was moving.
A swirling, grey mist had materialized out of nowhere, spinning slowly at first, then picking up speed. It looked like dirty cotton candy being spun by an invisible hand. The sound began as a low moan, a bass note that vibrated in Raina's chest, and then escalated into a high-pitched, tearing whine.
"It's opening," Nix yelled, scrambling to his feet. He dropped his screwdriver. "Raina! Back! Now!"
Raina tried to move. Her brain sent the signal to her legs to run, to scramble back up the stairs to safety, to get behind the thick concrete of the Slipgate housing.
But the floor was slick.
Condensation had flash-formed on the concrete due to the temperature drop. As she turned, her boot heel skid on a patch of oily moisture.
Raina flailed, her arms windmilling. She dropped the hammer. She fell hard onto her hip, the impact jarring her teeth.
"Got you!" Nix screamed.
He lunged for her. He was faster than he looked. He covered the distance in a single leap, his hand snatching out to grab the strap of her tank top, her arm, anything.
But the vortex was hungry.
The spinning mist exploded outward, not blowing air out, but sucking it in. It was a vacuum collapse. A tornado on its side.
Raina screamed as she was dragged backward across the floor. It felt like a giant, wet hand had clamped around her ankles. She clawed at the concrete, breaking her fingernails, leaving shallow trails in the dust.
"Nix!" she shrieked, terror seizing her throat.
Nix's fingers grazed her wrist. He felt the warmth of her skin, the frantic pulse beating under her dermis. He clamped down, his grip like a vice.
"Anchor!" Nix grunted, digging his own heels in.
But he weighed a hundred and forty pounds soaking wet, and the force pulling Raina was generating G-forces that would have tested a fighter pilot.
They slid together. One foot. Two feet.
Raina looked up at him, her eyes wide, filled with the absolute, primal fear of the unknown. Behind her, the tunnel mouth wasn't a tunnel anymore. It was a kaleidoscope of grey and green, a swirling drain of reality.
"Let go!" Raina cried out, realizing he was going to be pulled in too. "Nix, let go!"
Nix looked at her. He looked at the swirling vortex. He looked at the stairs where safety lay.
He was a coward by nature. He liked math. He liked wires. He liked staying in the van while the heroes kicked down the door.
But he remembered the look on Marcus's face when he talked about leaving no one behind.
"Calculated risk," Nix snarled.
Instead of pulling back, Nix threw himself forward.
He didn't try to stop the slide. He tackled Raina, wrapping his arms around her waist, burying his face in her shoulder to protect his eyes, and kicked off the floor, launching them both directly into the center of the storm.
The transition was not like the Slipgate. The Slipgate was precise technology. It was a smooth elevator ride.
This was being flushed down a cosmic toilet.
Raina felt her body being stretched. It was a physical agony, as if her atoms were being pulled apart like taffy. Her vision went white, then black, then exploded into a chaotic static of neon greens and muddy browns.
There was no up. There was no down. Gravity was a suggestion that had been repealed.
She felt nausea roll over her in a massive, sickening wave. She tried to vomit, but she couldn't tell if her mouth was open or closed. She felt Nix's arms around her, crushing her ribs, the only solid thing in a universe that had turned to liquid.
Sound was distorted. The roar of the wind sounded like a thousand voices screaming in a language she didn't know. She felt wet leaves slapping her face. She felt cold water soaking her clothes. She felt the sensation of falling, falling, falling.
And then, impact.
They hit something soft, wet, and smelling of decay.
Raina groaned, the air leaving her lungs in a breathless wheeze. She rolled over, coughing, spitting out mud and brackish water. Her head was spinning so hard she had to dig her fingers into the muck just to convince herself she was on the ground.
"Stabilize," a voice hissed nearby. "Quiet. Quiet, Rainy."
Raina blinked, wiping mud from her eyes. Her vision swam, slowly coalescing into shapes.
She was on her hands and knees in mud. Thick, black, clinging mud.
She looked up.
They were in a forest. But it wasn't any forest she had ever seen. The trees were massive, their trunks twisted and gnarled like arthritic fingers reaching for a sky that wasn't there. The canopy overhead was a dense, suffocating weave of grey leaves and hanging moss that dripped constant, heavy moisture.
There was no sun. The light was a flat, gloom-filled twilight that seemed to leech the color out of everything. It was a world of greys, blacks, and sick, pale greens.
Nix was crouched beside her. He had lost his glasses. He was squinting, his face pale and smeared with muck, wiping his eyes with a shaking hand. He was frantically patting his pockets, checking for something.
"Where..." Raina coughed, her throat raw. "Where are we?"
"The Weald," Nix whispered. He found his glasses in the mud, wiped them on his shirt—which just smeared more mud on them—and jammed them onto his face. "The Shadow Weald. The Purgatory. The space between the floorboards."
Raina scrambled into a sitting position, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She looked around wildly.
"The tunnel," she gasped. "Where's the tunnel? Where's the diner?"
"Gone," Nix said, his voice dropping to a terrified hush. "The aperture closed. It was a instability rift. A hiccup. It burped us out and sealed."
Raina felt panic rising in her chest, a cold, suffocating tide. "We have to go back. We have to... Marcus. We need Marcus."
Nix grabbed her shoulder. His grip was hard, painful.
"Stop," he hissed. "Listen."
Raina froze. She held her breath.
At first, she heard only the drip, drip, drip of the water falling from the canopy. The silence of the forest was heavy, oppressive, like the air in a tomb.
But then, she heard it.
It came from the deep brush, maybe fifty yards away.
Snort.
It was a wet, guttural sound. A huff of breath. The sound of something large clearing its sinuses.
Then, the sound of heavy hooves squelching in deep mud.
Squelch. Squelch. Snort.
Raina's eyes widened. She looked at Nix.
Nix was pale as a sheet. He looked smaller than usual, a terrified little man in a muddy shirt, completely out of his element.
"Pig Men," Nix mouthed, the words barely audible. "The Boar-Kin. The locals."
Raina remembered the stories. She remembered the vague references Marcus made to the things that lived in the dark. She looked down at her hands. She was holding nothing. No wrench. No hammer. No gun.
Nix reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, folding pocket knife. The blade was two inches long. It looked laughably inadequate against the menacing gloom of the forest.
He looked at Raina, and for the first time, she saw genuine, unmasked fear in his eyes.
"We are the soft targets," Nix whispered, his voice trembling. "We have no Pearl to trick them. We have no masters to slice them. We have no Marcus to shoot them."
The snorting sound got closer. A branch snapped with a sharp crack that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet woods.
Something was moving in the mist. Something big. Something that smelled of old blood and rot.
"We," Nix said, grabbing Raina's hand and pulling her into a crouch behind the root system of a massive tree, "are completely and totally fucked."
Raina pressed her back against the wet, slimy wood of the tree root. She squeezed Nix's hand so hard her knuckles turned white. She closed her eyes, trying to wake up, praying that this was just another fever dream, another hallucination.
But the smell of the rot was too real. The cold mud seeping into her jeans was too real. And the heavy, rhythmic breathing of the thing stalking through the fog was the most real thing she had ever heard.
"Don't breathe," Nix whispered.
And in the dark, damp silence of the Shadow Weald, Raina prayed for the first time in ten years. She didn't pray for forgiveness. She prayed for a shotgun.