The hallway wasn't a hallway anymore.
It had become… something else.
The edges of the walls bent like liquid metal, twisting toward the silhouettes. The floor trembled under my feet, not with vibration, but like it was softening. Like reality itself had folded, and the shapes outside weren't waiting—they were pulling.
The stranger gripped my shoulder, firm but gentle, trying to anchor me.
"They're here," he murmured, almost to himself. "And the moment the boundary breaks… you won't know what's inside or outside. You'll just… be."
I wanted to cry. To scream. To run. But my legs were frozen. My arms were frozen. My voice… frozen.
And yet, I could feel them.
Not see. Not hear. Not touch. But feel.
Three presences. Cold. Massive. Wrong. Older than anything I'd ever known. And somehow familiar, like they remembered me long before I remembered myself.
The humming inside my chest pulsed violently. It wasn't warning anymore. It was… communicating.
"…they remember me…"
The whisper repeated in my mind, clearer this time, louder. The voice wasn't mine. It was older, layered, heavy. Patient. Curious. Hungry—but not cruel.
The stranger's hand tightened on my shoulder.
"Arin… you need to see them. Really see. Not with your eyes. With… everything."
I swallowed hard, but the moment I tried to look directly at the silhouettes… the world shifted.
I saw space bend around them. The light fractured into shards, like broken glass hanging in midair. The shapes weren't moving… and yet, the air between them and me pulsed in a rhythm that matched the thing inside my chest.
My stomach twisted.
"Do… they know me?" I whispered.
The stranger's lips pressed into a thin line.
"Yes," he said. "They remember you. They were waiting. And now… so are you."
A pulse of cold ran through my spine. I tried to step back, but the floor felt wrong, uneven. My own shadow stretched sideways before settling back. My hands trembled.
The nearest silhouette raised an arm. Not fast, not threatening. Just… raised.
And then—
The boundary snapped.
Not a crash. Not a bang. Not even a visual ripple.
Just… everything shifted.
The air around me thickened. The walls leaned inward. The ceiling disappeared into darkness. My chest heaved as the humming exploded into a roar inside me.
The stranger shouted. "Hold it together, Arin! Don't let it pull you under!"
I felt it. That same pressure from before, but tenfold. Like the thing inside me wanted to step out entirely, to move, to be. My vision blurred. My body convulsed. I fell to my knees, clawing at the floor.
And then I saw them clearly.
They weren't human.
Not fully. Not in any sense I could recognize.
Their limbs… wrong. Their posture… wrong. Their very presence… wrong. But still, familiar. And in that familiarity, a terrible clarity: they weren't here to hurt me. They were here to take me home.
The humming in my chest became words. Not audible, not speech.
"…I am here. I am ready."
I gasped.
The stranger's eyes widened, a flash of something I couldn't read crossing his face—fear? awe? warning?
"They know you're awake," he said. "And now… they're not negotiating."
The largest silhouette stepped forward. The air around it distorted, bending like liquid. The floor cracked beneath it, but no one fell. Not even me.
And then, impossibly, it spoke—not out loud, but in my head.
"Child of the awakening. You are ours."
I shook my head.
"No… no! I'm not—"
But the voice inside me whispered, patient and steady:
"…you've always been."
I realized then—the humming, the pulsing, the instinct that had guided me this far—wasn't just awareness. It was recognition. My body had remembered before my mind ever did.
The stranger stepped closer, voice sharp.
"Arin. You must control it now. Or you'll be gone before you know who they are."
I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. I wanted to hide.
But something inside me… something older, deeper, stronger… moved.
And as I felt it step forward fully, filling me entirely…
I understood the truth.
I was never alone.
I had never been human in the way I thought.
And the world outside had been waiting for this exact moment.
The silhouettes advanced.
Slow. Patient. Inevitably.
And I—finally—opened my eyes fully.
Not just seeing. Not just aware.
Alive.