Makun stood outside the building for ten minutes.
Just stood there. Staring at nothing.
People walked past. A woman with groceries. A man shouting into his phone. Kids kicking a deflated soccer ball down the street.
The world kept moving.
Like nothing had happened.
Like he hadn't just been thrown out by the one person who might have had answers.
He started walking.
Didn't think about direction. Just moved. One foot in front of the other. The bus ride back was a blur. Bodies pressed against him. Voices talking, laughing, complaining. All of it felt distant. Like he was wrapped in glass.
By the time he reached his apartment, the sun was high. Hot. The broken AC meant the stairwell was an oven.
He climbed.
Third floor. His door. The eviction notice was still taped there, fluttering slightly in the nonexistent breeze.
48 HOURS
Except it wasn't forty eight anymore. More like thirty six. Maybe less.
He unlocked the door. Stepped inside.
The apartment greeted him with its usual smell. Mold. Heat. Failure.
Makun closed the door. Locked it. Leaned his back against it and slid down until he was sitting on the floor.
$30 in his account.
No job.
No answers.
No way out.
He'd fought. He'd always fought. Every foster home that didn't want him. Every job that fired him. Every relationship that fell apart. Every time the world knocked him down, he got back up.
Because that's what you did.
You fought.
But sitting there on the floor of an apartment he'd be kicked out of tomorrow, Makun felt something he'd never let himself feel before.
Tired.
Not sleepy. Not exhausted.
Tired.
Of fighting. Of losing. Of getting back up just to be knocked down again.
What was the point?
He'd spent twenty three years clawing for survival. For what? To end up here? Alone in a moldy apartment with thirty dollars and nowhere to go?
The nightmare flashed through his mind. The chains. The glass tube. The shapes feeding on him.
Zuri's face. The terror in her eyes.
"I can't help you. No one can."
Twenty three years of bad luck. Of accidents that shouldn't happen. Of opportunities that evaporated like smoke.
Amara's voice. "It's like you're cursed."
Maybe she was right.
Maybe he was cursed. Or broken. Or just fundamentally wrong in some way that made the universe reject him.
Maybe it would be better if he just...
The thought crystallized.
Quiet. Cold. Simple.
Stopped.
Makun stood. Walked to the bathroom. Opened the medicine cabinet.
Half a bottle of sleeping pills. Old prescription from two years ago when the nightmares first started. He'd stopped taking them because they didn't work. The nightmares came anyway.
But if he took all of them...
He stared at the bottle.
His hand was steady. No shaking. No hesitation.
Just tired.
So tired.
He twisted the cap off. Poured the pills into his palm. White. Round. Maybe twenty of them.
His reflection stared back from the mirror. Dark circles under his eyes. Bruises on his ribs visible through his shirt. Hair matted with sweat.
He looked like someone who'd already given up.
Why keep fighting?
No answer came.
He walked to the kitchen. Filled a glass with tap water. The pipes groaned.
Back to the bathroom. He sat on the edge of the tub.
Twenty pills in one hand. Water in the other.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it.
The eviction notice was visible through the open door. Mocking him.
Makun tilted his head back. Put the first pill on his tongue. Swallowed.
Then another.
And another.
One after another until his palm was empty and the glass was half drained.
He set the glass down on the floor. Leaned back against the cold tile wall.
Now he waited.
The apartment was quiet. Just the hum of traffic outside. Distant voices. The world continuing without him.
Five minutes passed.
His eyelids got heavy. His limbs felt loose, disconnected.
Ten minutes.
His breathing slowed. Each breath took effort. Like his lungs were filling with something thick.
Fifteen minutes.
His vision blurred. The bathroom tiles swam. He tried to focus on the crack in the ceiling but it kept splitting into two, three, infinite cracks.
This is it.
The thought drifted through his mind, soft and distant.
I'm dying.
He should feel something. Fear. Regret. Relief.
But there was just...
Nothing.
Except.
Wait.
He felt something.
Not physical. Not in his body.
Deeper.
The chains.
He could feel them.
Not like in the nightmare. This was different. Real. They were there, wrapped around something inside him that wasn't quite his chest, wasn't quite his heart.
Ethereal. But present.
His consciousness was fading. Sinking. But he could feel those chains clearer than ever, like his dying mind was finally able to perceive what had always been there.
Questions flooded in.
Why can I feel them now?
What are they?
Who put them there?
What did Zuri see?
Why me?
Why has my entire life been like this?
What was I supposed to be?
The questions spiraled. Desperate. Unanswered.
His body went numb. He couldn't feel his hands. Couldn't feel the floor beneath him.
Just the chains.
And something else.
A pulling sensation.
Not from outside. From within.
Like something was being drawn out of him. Slowly. Gently.
His soul.
He was dying.
But it felt...
Wrong.
Different.
He'd read about death. Heard stories. People talked about tunnels. Light. Peaceful darkness.
This wasn't that.
This was...
Separation.
He could still feel his body. Distantly. Like it was in another room. But he was...
Rising?
No. Not rising.
Drifting.
His perspective shifted. He wasn't looking through his eyes anymore. He was looking down.
At himself.
Slumped against the bathtub. Head tilted to the side. Mouth slightly open. Skin pale. Chest barely moving.
That's me.
The thought should have been terrifying.
It wasn't.
Because he could see something else.
A cord.
Silver. Translucent. Thin as thread but somehow solid. It connected his... his self... to his body. Anchored to his chest, right where his heart was.
Astral projection.
He'd read about it. Late night internet rabbit holes. People claimed they could separate their consciousness from their body, travel in spirit form.
He'd thought it was nonsense.
But here he was.
Floating. Weightless. Connected to his dying body by a silver thread.
Is this what happens when you die?
The cord pulsed. Faint. Weak.
Like it was fraying.
If it broke...
Then I'm really dead.
But something was wrong.
He wasn't just floating here. Wasn't stuck between life and death.
He was moving.
Not by choice. Something was pulling him.
Not the cord. Something else.
A current. Like being caught in a river he couldn't see.
His perspective shifted again. The bathroom walls became translucent. He could see through them. See the building. The city. But it all looked...
Different.
Darker.
Layers of reality overlapping.
And there were things moving in those layers.
Shadows. Shapes. Wrong proportions.
The entities from my nightmare.
They were real.
They'd always been real.
And now he could see them.
The current pulled harder.
Makun tried to resist. Tried to anchor himself. But he had no body. No hands to grip with.
He was being dragged somewhere.
Deeper.
The city fell away. The walls dissolved. Reality became fluid, shifting.
He was sinking through layers of existence he didn't have names for.
The Veil.
The word surfaced in his mind. He didn't know where it came from.
The Veil.
The boundary between the living world and... whatever this was.
And he was falling through it.
The silver cord stretched. Thinner. Longer. Straining.
Where am I going?
No answer.
Just the pull. Relentless. Dragging him down.
Down.
Down into the dark.