Evan almost made it home.
That was the irritating part.
The street looked normal in that aggressively ordinary way—shops half-lit, scooters whining past, someone arguing with their phone on speaker like it had personally betrayed them. Streetlights blinked on one by one, slow and obedient.
Too obedient.
He adjusted his bag on his shoulder, fingers brushing the diary inside. The tug behind his ribs hadn't gone away. It hadn't grown either. It just… stayed. Like someone holding a thread without pulling.
Yet.
"Okay," he muttered. "New rule. If the universe wants something from me, it can at least be direct about it."
The universe, predictably, declined feedback.
He walked faster.
Then slower.
Then stopped.
Not because something jumped out.
Because nothing did.
The noise dulled—not gone, just muted. Like the world had lowered its volume out of courtesy. Evan frowned and turned slightly, checking his reflection in a dark shop window.
For a second, it lagged.
Not like before.
Worse.
It moved—but wrong. A fraction slower. As if it needed permission.
Evan's throat tightened.
"Nope," he said quietly. "We're not doing this."
He took a step.
The tug pulled.
Hard.
His balance slipped—not forward, not back, but sideways. The street bent. Lines curved where they shouldn't. Depth flattened, like a bad drawing pretending to be real.
"Oh," Evan breathed. "That's cheating Dude."
The air thickened. Not pressure—attention. Like standing beneath a gaze too large to have eyes.
He didn't run.
That was the mistake.
Because for the first time, it didn't chase.
It arrived.
No shape. No shadow. Just absence folding inward, swallowing distance. Space compressed—not crushing, just narrowing. Like the world deciding he no longer needed room.
His thoughts echoed.
Literally echoed.
Each one returned thinner. Frayed at the edges.
Don't panic.—panic—I can still——still—
"Okay," Evan said, voice shaking but present. "You win the creepy award. Can we negotiate now?"
Something touched him.
Not skin.
Concept.
The idea of being held.
His limbs went numb. His bag slid from his shoulder and vanished before it hit the ground, like gravity forgot to finish the job. His feet no longer felt pavement. Or anything.
The street folded away.
Darkness rushed in—but not the void from before. This one moved. Adjusted. Learned.
Evan's chest burned.
"I didn't even hesitate this time," he gasped. "That's unfair man."
The darkness didn't answer.
It corrected him.
He wasn't pulled.
He was placed.
Somewhere else.
Pain came first.
Real pain. Sharp. Immediate. Honest.
Air tore into his lungs like punishment. His body convulsed, ribs screaming, muscles rebelling under unfamiliar weight. Stone pressed into his cheek, cold and wet.
Evan coughed.
Blood followed.
"Oh," he wheezed. "We're back here."
The room was dim. Not dark—dim with intent. Flickering torchlight dragged uneven shadows across stone walls. The air tasted like iron, smoke, and something old that had learned patience.
His body trembled.
Not fear.
Exhaustion.
He tried to push himself up.
Failed.
Hands entered his vision—rough, calloused, hesitant.
"He's breathing," someone said.
Not relief.
Caution.
Another voice, lower. "Careful."
Evan swallowed. It hurt.
The weight returned all at once.
Hunger so deep it felt structural. Pain threaded through joints that weren't his. His chest burned with something foreign—something Evan didn't own.
Kael.
The name surfaced without permission.
Memory bled in—not images, not yet—but sensations.
Cold nights. Empty plates. People stepping back without meaning to. The feeling of being watched even when alone.
And beneath it—
Pressure.
Familiar.
The tug behind Evan's ribs tightened, aligning with something older. Heavier. Like two threads knotting together.
"I'm… awake," Evan tried to say.
What came out was hoarse. Fragile.
Someone flinched.
"He's awake," a woman said quietly.
Still no relief.
That hurt more than the stone.
Evan forced his eyes open wider. The faces around him were tired. Wary. Afraid—not of losing him.
Of what came after.
This wasn't a rescue.
It was containment.
The realization settled cold in his gut.
Whatever took me didn't bring me back to safety.
It brought me back to consequence.
His head throbbed. Thoughts moved slow, sticky. But one thing was clear:
This wasn't the first time Kael had collapsed like this.
And they were afraid of what happened when he woke up.
Evan's fingers twitched against the stone.
"Hey," he rasped, defaulting to humor like a reflex. "Good news. I survived. Bad news… I'm still me."
No one laughed.
A man stepped back.
The pressure deepened.
The tug became a pull—not dragging him away this time. Anchoring him.
Claiming.
Evan closed his eyes, breathing shallow, fighting the pull of unconsciousness. The darkness brushed the edge of his thoughts again—no longer hostile.
Patient.
Like it knew he wasn't going anywhere.
It didn't capture me, Evan realized dimly.It handed me back.
His chest rose and fell, each breath harder than the last. Whatever strength had kept him standing on Earth was gone.
Spent.
Stone pressed into his cheek again.
The last thing he heard—so soft it might've been his own thought—was a whisper.
"Not yet."
His wrists felt heavy — not from pain, but from weight that wasn't there yet.
Then—
Nothing.