The world broke apart in white light.
Nancy hit the ground hard enough to lose her breath.
For several seconds she couldn't hear anything except ringing.
Cold dirt beneath her hands.
Wind through trees.
Real.
She was back.
The forest.
The cabin somewhere beyond the trees.
Reality.
Nancy gasped sharply and forced herself upright.
"Kai—?"
No answer.
Panic hit instantly.
Leo was on the ground nearby, coughing violently.
Evan had somehow landed halfway inside a bush.
"…I hate interdimensional travel," he groaned weakly.
Nancy barely heard him.
Her eyes searched frantically through the fading silver fracture carved into the air between the trees.
Collapsing.
Shrinking rapidly.
Too rapidly.
"Kai?"
Still nothing.
Fear became terror.
Nancy stumbled toward the fracture just as a hand burst through it.
Kai.
Nancy grabbed him immediately, helping drag him through as the portal snapped shut behind him with a deafening crack.
Silence.
Complete silence.
For one beautiful second, relief nearly made her collapse.
Then Kai looked up.
And Nancy's blood turned cold.
His eyes.
Still his—
but underneath the brown, silver flickered faintly.
Wrong.
Nyra's voice went deadly quiet inside her mind.
…No.
Kai blinked once like he didn't notice anything strange.
"You okay?" he asked hoarsely.
Nancy stared at him.
The silver vanished instantly.
Too fast.
Like it had never been there at all.
Leo pushed himself upright nearby.
"Okay. New group rule." He pointed weakly toward the sky. "No more nightmare dimensions."
"Seconded," Evan said from the bush. "Strongly."
Nancy still couldn't move.
Kai noticed immediately.
"Nancy?"
Something in his expression shifted when he saw her face.
Concern.
Confusion.
And underneath that—
Pain.
He suddenly sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed his arm violently.
Black veins flashed beneath his skin for half a second.
Then disappeared.
"Kai," Nancy whispered.
"I'm fine."
Lie.
Nyra's silence became unbearable.
Nancy stepped closer carefully.
"What happened when the Veil grabbed you?"
Kai looked genuinely uncertain.
"I…" His brow furrowed. "I don't know."
That terrified her more.
Because Kai remembered everything.
Always.
But now there were gaps.
Missing seconds.
Maybe minutes.
The Veil had touched his mind.
And something had touched back.
The forest around them suddenly groaned.
All four of them froze.
The trees were moving.
Not from wind.
From pressure.
The air itself warped briefly with silver distortion before settling again.
Evan looked horrified.
"Please tell me that's normal."
"Nope," Leo answered immediately.
Nyra finally spoke.
The Veil marked him.
Nancy's stomach dropped.
Marked?
Not possessed.
Not yet.
Yet.
The word hit like a knife.
Kai must've seen the panic on her face because he stepped toward her carefully.
"Nancy."
She backed away automatically.
That hurt him instantly.
She saw it.
God, she saw it.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said quietly.
"I know."
But her voice shook anyway.
And Kai noticed that too.
Silence stretched painfully between them.
Because neither of them said the real thing aloud:
What if the Veil chose him the way it once chose her?
Nyra's voice remained grim.
It lost its original doorway.
Now it seeks another.
Kai looked between Nancy and the distant fading silver cracks in the air.
Then slowly—
understanding dawned on his face.
"…It followed me back."
Nobody answered.
Because yes.
It had.
And somewhere deep beneath the forest floor—
something knocked back.