The night fell faster than it should have.
They had only been walking for an hour, but the sun had vanished like it had been yanked from the sky. The clouds moved too slowly, dragging behind like heavy curtains, and the stars flickered like they were deciding whether or not to stay lit.
Susan muttered glyphs under her breath. Her hands glowed dimly, but even her light felt afraid to rise.
"I don't like this," Lucy said quietly, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. "The sky... it feels like it's watching."
"It is," Jack answered, trying to sound playful, but his voice cracked. "I think we're walking through someone else's memory."
"No," Peter said. "Someone else's lie."
Frank kept walking ahead, silent. His eyes hadn't blinked in minutes. Tom walked beside him, tense, like he could feel the air getting thicker with each step.
They were entering a field, but the trees around them didn't sway. The grass didn't move. There was no wind. No insects. No noise. Only the sound of their boots pressing into ground that felt... soft, like it didn't want to be touched.
And then, all at once—Lucy stopped.
"Guys?" she whispered.
They turned to look.
Her shadow was gone.
There was nothing behind her. No outline. No stretch of shape. The others stepped closer. Their shadows were still there—twisting, bending unnaturally with the moon—but Lucy's was simply... missing.
Susan reached into her pouch, pulled out a small crystal shard, and hovered it near Lucy's feet. It pulsed red.
"That's not possible," Susan whispered. "It's... it's as if she's not real."
Lucy stepped back, shaking her head. "I'm right here. I'm standing right—"
"Don't move!" Tom snapped.
Everyone froze.
The ground behind Lucy had started peeling.
Not crumbling—peeling. Like wallpaper. Layers of grass folding upward and falling off into ash. Beneath it, there was no dirt. Just... blankness.
White. Like a forgotten page.
Frank's hand shot to his sword.
"This is Velmorith," he growled.
"No," said Kitty, her eyes wide with dawning horror. "This is all three."
The sky bent. It didn't break. It just... folded.
Like someone had pressed a thumb into reality and bent it downward.
They heard a laugh—not from outside, but from inside their own heads. Each laugh was different. To Lucy, it was her mother. To Frank, it was Marcus. To Susan, it was herself.
Kitty stepped in front of Lucy and drew a glyph with her bare finger. The air hissed and shimmered, but it held.
For now.
"I don't think this is a memory anymore," Peter said slowly. "I think this is... something we were never meant to remember."
Frank looked over at him. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," Peter whispered, "we've been here before."
Everyone went quiet.
The peeling ground. The missing shadow. The twisted moonlight. The cold that wasn't cold.
Something in them remembered it. Not in words, but in feeling. In the ache of déjà vu that hurt too much to explain.
"We need to go," Tom said. "Now."
They turned around—
—but the path behind them was gone.
Not just overgrown. Not hidden. Gone. As if the world had decided the trail never existed.
Lucy's voice broke. "We're trapped."
"No," Susan said, pulling out another glyph lens. "They're not trapping us. They're... studying us. Watching what breaks first."
Jack ran forward and punched the air. Literally punched it. And to their horror, the air rippled like water.
He pulled his hand back. "Okay. Okay, that's not normal."
Tom's voice dropped. "They're bending space."
"No," Frank said. "They're bending us."
Then something shifted.
In the distance—too far to walk, but too clear to miss—stood a figure.
A silhouette.
It wasn't Velmorith. Not Aestra. Not Obruhn. Not Renex. Not Alexa.
It was... Marcus.
But no glow. No memory. No spirit. Just him, standing, eyes hollow, unmoving.
Lucy whispered, "That's not him."
Frank stepped forward, eyes trembling. "Marcus?"
Kitty grabbed his wrist. "No. That's what they want you to see."
The Marcus figure slowly raised one arm and pointed.
A long, crooked finger.
Behind them.
They turned—
—and saw a second Marcus.
Then a third. Then a fourth. Then seven.
Seven versions of Marcus. Each with slight differences. Different smiles. Different heights. One older. One younger. One with a scar. One with no eyes.
Frank fell to his knees.
"They're showing us the versions that could've been," Peter said. "Alternate timelines. Echoes. Or... fakes."
Lucy dropped to the ground and covered her ears. "Make it stop. Please make it stop."
The figures began to walk.
Slow. Dragging their feet like puppets.
Frank whispered, "Why would they do this?"
"Because," Tom said, voice heavy, "they know this is where we break."
Susan finally snapped. She threw the crystal into the air, shouted three glyphs in succession, and the space around them burst with blue light. The air shrieked. The ground peeled upward.
The figures vanished.
Everyone was breathing hard. No one spoke.
Susan fell back to the grass, drenched in sweat. "We're not safe here."
"We're not safe anywhere," Kitty said.
Tom turned to the others. "No one moves alone. No one closes their eyes. And if you hear someone call your name..."
"Don't answer," Frank finished.
They didn't sleep that night.
Because the shadows didn't blink.
And the voices didn't stop.