"Run."
The girl didn't shout it but she pleased to Ariana.
Aira didn't ask questions.As soon as word left from the girl's mouth. The city started reacting.
The neon view exploded into blinking light, racing along the street like electricty through nerves.
The frozen people started jerked voilently. Head snapping upright, mouth open too wide which is impossible for normal human. Eyes rolling back to reveal glowing whites.
The sound returned all at once.
Not traffic, not wind.
Breathing.
Hundreds of breaths, layered over each other, filling the street with a wet, desperate sound.
Airana ran.
Her shoes slammed against the pavement, each step echoing unnaturally loud. The street stretched beneath her feet, pulling farther away with every stride, like the city was mocking the idea of escape.
"Don't slow down!" the girl shouted, running beside her. "Whatever you hear don't stop!"
Airana heard it anyway.
Her name.
Soft at first. Familiar. Her mother's voice, calling from behind her.
"Airana!!, where are you going?"
Her chest tightened.
"No," she whispered. "That's not"
The voice cracked. It sounded worried.
Aira almost turned.
The girl grabbed her arm hard enough to hurt. "It's lying."
The shadows peeled themselves off the buildings.
They didn't walk.
They slid long, thin shapes dragging across walls and roads, stretching toward her like starving fingers. Wherever they touched, the neon dimmed, as if afraid.
Aira risked a glance back.
The man who didn't blink stood in the middle of the street, completely still. But his shadow moved independently, rising tall behind him, splitting into many.
"You're already late," he called calmly. "Why not stay?"
The street ahead twisted.
What had been a straight path bent sharply, turning into an alley Aira knew didn't exist. Walls closed in, breathing down on her. The city wanted her contained.
"Where's the exit?" Aira screamed.
The girl pointed. "The boundary! It's still there barely!"
A thin line shimmered ahead, barely visible a crack in reality, vibrating violently.
Aira's wrist burned.
The mark flared bright, searing heat crawling up her arm.
She stumbled.
Something brushed her ankle.
Aira screamed and kicked wildly. Her foot connected with nothing solid, but the grip loosened just enough.
"NOW!" the girl shouted.
Aira lunged.
The moment she crossed the boundary, the city screamed.
Not in sound but in pressure. The air crushed inward. The neon imploded. The shadows snapped back violently, slamming into buildings like broken limbs.
Aira hit the ground hard.
Concrete. Rough. Real.
Noise exploded around her an auto horn, distant shouting, a dog barking furiously.
She sucked in a breath and sobbed.
Behind her, the city folded.
Buildings collapsed inward like paper. Streets snapped short. Light vanished.
And then
Nothing....
Just an ordinary road at 3:18 AM.
Aira lay there shaking, her entire body buzzing as if she'd been struck by lightning.
Someone shook her shoulder.
"Hey! Are you okay?"
A man crouched beside her, concern etched into his face. Real eyes. Blinking.
Aira grabbed his sleeve with trembling fingers. "Did you see it?" she gasped. "The street—the lights—the people—"
He frowned. "See what?"
Her heart sank.
Slowly, she pushed herself up and looked at her wrist.
The mark was still there.
Faint.
Waiting.
Aira nodded at the stranger too quickly, too hard.
"I—I'm fine," she said, even though her knees wouldn't stop shaking.
The man hesitated, clearly unconvinced, then glanced up and down the empty road. "You sure? You were screaming."
"I tripped," she lied. The word came easily. Too easily. "Night shift."
He accepted that the way people always accepted exhaustion as an explanation for anything strange. With a final look, he stood and walked away, footsteps fading into the ordinary night.
Aira stayed where she was.
The streetlight above her flickered once.
Her breath caught.
She forced herself to look down at her wrist again.
The mark hadn't disappeared. It had settled no longer burning, but etched into her skin like a scar that had healed too fast. Thin lines formed a broken shape she didn't recognize, faintly warm, faintly pulsing.
Alive.
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no."
Her phone buzzed.
Aira nearly threw it.
A notification lit the screen:
Battery: 3%
Below it, the time updated.
3:19 AM.
She laughed weakly, the sound close to hysteria. "Of course," she muttered. "Of course you're dying now."
She pushed herself up and hurried home, every shadow stretching just a little too far, every reflective surface threatening to show her something that wasn't there. She didn't look back. She couldn't.
Inside her apartment, she locked the door, slid down against it, and hugged her knees to her chest.
Only then did she cry.
The tears came fast and hot, her body finally releasing the terror it had been holding together with sheer stubbornness. She pressed her wrist to her mouth to muffle the sound and froze.
Her mark pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
In sync with a sound she could barely hear.
A hum.
Low. Distant. Familiar.
Aira lifted her head slowly.
The sound wasn't coming from outside.
It was coming from the walls.
From the pipes. From the floor beneath her feet. The same hum as the streetlights in the other city. The same rhythm. The same breathing.
Her phone screen flickered back to life despite the dying battery.
A single line of text appeared on a blank black screen.
YOU CROSSED AT 3:17.
Aira stared, blood roaring in her ears.
Her fingers trembled as she typed back.
Who is this?
The response came instantly.
YOU ALREADY MET US.
The lights in her apartment dimmed.
The hum grew stronger.
Aira backed away from the wall as a thin neon line traced itself along the corner of the ceiling faint, almost polite, like the city was careful not to scare her yet.
Her phone vibrated again.
DON'T WORRY.
WE ONLY APPEAR AT NIGHT.
Aira laughed, sharp and broken. "That's not comforting," she whispered.
Another message arrived.
YOU WON'T FORGET US.
THAT'S WHY YOU WERE CHOSEN.
Her wrist burned.
Outside, somewhere far below her window, a streetlight flickered and stayed on a second too long.
Aira sank onto the bed, heart hammering, as one terrifying truth finally settled in.
She hadn't escaped the city.
She had brought part of it home.
And at 3:17 AM tomorrow, it would come to collect the rest.