2025-10-19 00:06:35
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CHAPTER 17
Jace took a slow step backward. The reflection didn’t follow.It just kept smiling.Then, the lake began to breathe.The surface pulsed outward, slow and rhythmic, like the exhale of something alive beneath. The air crackled with static. Ana’s fingers dug into Jace’s sleeve.“Jace,” she whispered. “It’s not a reflection.”He looked again. The water wasn’t mirroring them anymore, it was recording them, frame by frame, showing each of their movements a second before they happened. He blinked, and his reflection blinked first.Time was folding.A voice, a different one this time, echoed from the water’s surface. It wasn’t his or the mirror-Jace’s. It was layered, distorted, like a thousand voices speaking through a broken speaker.“The fracture is complete. Timeline breach: irreversible.”Ana stumbled back. “No. No, that’s not real. That’s not...”The air shimmered, and black symbols appeared above the lake, rotating in slow, mechanical spirals. They weren’t letters, more like equations
CHAPTER 16
Jace and Ana moved through the skeletal remains of Creek Falls, where the fog had thinned into shreds. Burned-out containers, blackened pavement, and twisted steel glimmered in the morning light. The once-quiet town now looked hollow, as though something had stripped it of time itself.Jace's hand tightened on Ana's. "Keep moving," he murmured. His voice was raw from the smoke, his cheek still stung from the wound.But Ana wasn't really there. Her eyes drifted, unfocused, tracing shapes that only she could see. "They're still here," she whispered. "The voices... they never left."He turned to her sharply. "Ana. Look at me."Her gaze met his, but something flickered behind them, a ghost of blue light. "You heard it too, didn't you?" she asked softly. "When it spoke your name."Jace hesitated. "You mean the thing in the cavern?""No," she said, shaking her head. "The man. The one at the edge of the fog.”"The one telling me that I'm on schedule? Yeah," he said. " I saw him."Ana shivere
CHAPTER 15
Pain flared across Jace's cheek, white-hot and sudden. He staggered to his knees, hand flying to the wound. Blood slicked his fingers. Something, had thrown a blade.The chanting began again, louder, deeper, and now the fog responded by rolling inward, rising like a wave. The robed figures' faces blurred, their mouths shaping words that were not language but hunger. Ana's eyes met his again, wider now, as if she saw something beyond him, beyond the container yard, beyond the night."Jace," she whispered, but it wasn't just her voice. It echoed with others, layered, a chorus of voices he knew and didn't. "Don't..."The ground split.A long, keening sound tore from the earth as something below them woke and split the soil open. The altar toppled; the creature that had been holding Ana lurched. For one suspended second, Ana's hair brushed Jace's fingertips. He reached and missed.Then the thing in the pedestal rose like a mass of black feathers and metal, eyes like pit-holes, beaks that
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 14Jace couldn't move at first. The world narrowed to a single, hot, searing point where Ana had been ripped from his arms. Fear, anger, and the memory of Emily kicked in. He had promised. He had sworn. The vow looped in his head like a broken record: I won't let that happen again.Jace forced himself up. The fog swallowed sound and light alike. Somewhere above, wings beat slow and terrible, a sound like broken sails. Jace wiped his face with the back of his wrist and tasted Ana's fear on his teeth. He didn't get to fall apart. Not now. Not ever.He ran.The direction the creature had taken was north, toward the river, into the older parts of Creek Falls where the buildings still leaned like tired old men. He ignored sirens, ignored the whispers from the ruins that everything living was better off dead. Every step hammered a memory of Emily into him. He'd failed her. He would not fail Ana.The streets narrowed, hemmed in by houses with windows gaping like missing teeth. Jace's
CHAPTER 13
The ground shook beneath their feet as Jace and Ana sprinted through the half-collapsed streets of Creek Falls.Behind them, something massive was moving through the fog, its presence distorting the air like heatwaves."Don't stop!" Jace shouted, glancing back. "Keep moving, Ana!""I'm trying!" She gasped, stumbling over wreckage. Her breath came in ragged bursts, fear clawing at her throat. "What is that thing?"Jace didn't answer because he didn't know, and it terrified him. The creature behind them wasn't like the others. This one didn't run, didn't shriek. It hunted with purpose.As they turned a corner, the air shimmered again, and suddenly, the black-robed figure appeared at the far end of the street, its head slowly tilting toward them."Jace Walter," it said, its voice echoing like a thousand whispers at once. "You cannot outrun me forever.Jace raised his rifle and fired, but the bullets vanished midair, swallowed by the shadows surrounding the figure."Keep running!" He yell
CHAPTER 12
"Jace! Jace, can you hear me?!" Skyler's voice cracked with static over the comms. "Answer me, damn it! What the hell just happened out there?"He pressed a hand to his earpiece. "Skyler... I hear you." He replied. "The chopper... It's gone. Shot down.""Shot down?" By who?"Jace's eyes narrowed as he looked toward the rooftop where he'd seen them. "Not who, what. Some men in black robes. Faces covered. They fired a rocket and brought it down. Then..." He hesitated, his jaw tightening. "They pointed at me. Like they knew me or something."Skyler went silent for a moment, her voice trembling when she spoke again. "Jace, that doesn't make sense. No one's supposed to be in Creek Falls besides you and Ana. That place was sealed off after...""I know," Jace interrupted. "But it seems this cursed place isn't planning to let us go. Not until it gets what it wants."Ana, still shaken, clutched his arm. "You mean... until they take me?"Jace turned to her, his expression softening. "I don't kn
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