Chris Graham hit the ground so hard the breath punched out of his lungs. “Get up!” Kael shouted, his voice sharp, urgent. “Chris, move!”“I, I’m trying!” Chris rasped, scrambling backward through dirt and broken roots. Above him, the forest canopy shook as the massive shadow lunged forward.The beast came crashing out of the trees, a wolf-like monster with scales instead of fur, eyes glowing like molten gold. Chris’s heart hammered. “What is that ?!”“A Scaled Direwolf,” Lyra snapped, wind whipping around her as she raised her staff. “And it’s not supposed to be anywhere near this region!”The creature snarled, lowering its head. Chris froze. Lyra screamed, “Chris, don’t you dare just sit there, MOVE!”“I can’t outrun that thing!”Kael stepped in front of him, fists crackling with faint red energy. “You don’t have to outrun it. You just have to not die!”“That’s, THAT’S NOT ENCOURAGING!”The beast lunged. Chris rolled, barely avoiding the crushing weight of its claws. A tree exploded

Rain began to fall.Not a drizzle, sudden, heavy sheets that hissed against the blood-soaked ground. The forest dimmed under the storm, shadows stretching like claws.Chris stared at the unconscious Direwolf, chest rising and falling unevenly. Silver cracks flickered across his skin, fading and returning like unstable lightning.Lyra squeezed his shoulder. “Chris… talk to us. What exactly did you see back there?”Chris swallowed, still shaken by the images burned into his mind. “It wasn’t a dream. It was like, like standing between two mirrors. A thousand reflections of me, each one dying a different way.”Kael grimaced. “That sounds… horrifying.”“It was,” Chris whispered. “But there was one reflection that stood out. One where I wasn’t dead. I was, different.”Lyra leaned forward. “Different how?”Chris hesitated, struggling to find the words. “I looked… powerful. But wrong. My eyes were glowing. And everything around me was destroyed.”Kael raised a brow. “Destroyed as in ‘oops I b

The dust from the vanished Shardwraith still hung in the air like ash. Chris coughed, waving it away as he struggled to stand. His legs felt like wet rope, shaky, unreliable, and far too aware of nearly dying twice today.Lyra put a hand on his arm. “Chris… slow down.”“I’m fine,” he said automatically.“You’re not fine,” she replied, softer.“And you don’t have to pretend you are.”Chris hated how that made his chest tighten. Kael scanned the chamber with his flame-blade still drawn. “Focus. If that thing said ‘others,’ then we need to move.”Chris looked up sharply. “Move where? There is nowhere safer than the school, right?”Kael didn’t answer. That silence hit harder than any monster. Lyra’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Chris… Shardwraiths don’t retreat. Ever. Their whole existence is to reclaim broken power.”Chris exhaled shakily. “Okay. Follow-up question: what happens when they succeed?”Lyra looked away. Kael answered instead. “You disappear.”Chris blinked. “Disappear as in

The corridor trembled as Chris pressed his back against the cold stone wall, trying to steady his breathing. The torches flickered violently, shadows breaking apart and reforming like hungry creatures.“Elliora,” he whispered, “whatever’s inside that chamber… it knows my name.”Elliora stepped closer, staff raised, her eyes narrowing at the sealed door ahead. “You heard it too, didn’t you? That whisper. Like it was… expecting you.”Chris swallowed hard. “Yeah. And that’s the part that terrifies me.”A deep pulse rippled through the air, slow, rhythmic, like the heartbeat of something enormous. The ancient symbols carved across the door glowed faintly, lighting the cracks around it.“Chris,” Elliora said carefully, “are you sure you want to open this? We still don’t know why that crystal reacted to you. Or why your veins lit up.”“Running won’t change whatever’s happening to me.” Chris forced a weak grin. “And besides, that thing already knows I’m here.”Elliora stared at him for a lon

Branches whipped across Chris’s arms as he and Elliora sprinted through the pitch-dark forest. Every tree looked the same, tall shadows with twisted limbs, clawing at them as if trying to slow their escape.The ground was uneven, root-choked, unforgiving. Behind them, the echo of that cold, resonant laugh clung to the air like poison. “Chris, left, NOW!” Elliora shouted.He swerved wildly just as a slicing arc of compressed air tore through the trunk behind him. The tree, ancient, thick, solid, exploded into splinters.Chris gasped, “He’s not even trying to hide where he is anymore!”“He doesn’t have to!” Elliora yelled, grabbing his hand and pulling him forward. “His range is insane, he can hit us from anywhere!”Another shockwave hit the ground where they stood moments before. The earth cracked open, soil erupting upward in violent plumes. Chris stumbled, nearly falling. “Elliora, how do we stop him?!”“We DON’T stop him!” she snapped. “We survive him!”Chris swallowed panic. “He sa