The world keeps moving when he dies.
He realizes that in the split second between breaths.
Not black this time. Not drifting.
Just a hard, ugly jerk — like someone yanked the thread of reality backward.
—
Ivante is back under the streetlamp.
Same rain. Same sirens. Same trembling gold.
But his body remembers.
His back burns where claws had torn him open. Phantom heat, phantom blood, phantom ribs flashing in wet red. His stomach tightens like he might vomit straight onto the street.
Two minutes earlier.
Again.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Across the street, Little Benny still holds his umbrella.
Mario hasn't moved yet.
Sister Lena's candles stand straight as needles.
Ivante stares at his hands. They're clean. Whole. Unbroken.
He can still smell rot.
He can still taste copper.
His breath comes shallow, ragged, a saw dragging across bone.
The alley rumbles.
Brick cracks.
Dust rolls out like a lung exhaling.
Ivante laughs before he can stop himself.
Not relief. Not hysteria.
Something colder.
"Okay," he murmurs, rain slicking his lashes. "Okay. Okay. Fine."
His voice shakes — but there's iron threaded through it now.
The Gorger bursts through again.
Bigger. Always bigger. Or maybe that's just how fear lies.
Eight feet at the shoulder and still climbing, spine ridged, skin glossy and obscene. Drool strings hiss when they touch asphalt. The pits where eyes should be drink in the street without seeing.
Mario plants his boots.
"Hold your breath," he says, calm like this is another Tuesday.
Ivante doesn't look at Mario.
He looks at the street.
He looks at the mirror shard near his foot, the crack in the curb, the smear of old blood the rain hasn't washed away. He maps it without thinking — angles, distances, timing.
Two minutes isn't just time.
It's a board.
He steps forward.
No hesitation this time.
The Gorger lunges.
Ivante doesn't dive.
He pivots.
Heel turns, weight shifts, shoulder dips. The creature's claw scythes past his face so close he feels the wind peel skin from bone. His braids whip against his cheek.
The tail snaps low.
Ivante hops — sloppy, desperate — boots skidding on wet asphalt. The barbed cartilage misses his knees by inches and shatters a parking meter into shrapnel.
He lands hard, breath punching out of him.
"Back!" Lena snaps.
Ivante ignores her.
He runs.
Straight at the monster.
Mario hesitates — again — just a breath.
Ivante cuts left at the last second, sliding across rain-slick glass. His shoe catches, ankle twists, pain flares white-hot. He grits his teeth and keeps moving.
The Gorger rears.
Jaws open wide enough to take his head clean off.
Ivante throws himself low, sliding on his hip beneath the sweep of teeth. Heat roars over him — wet, fetid, animal — and he tastes rot in the back of his throat.
The tail whips.
He rolls through it — faster this time — spine scraping pavement, teeth rattling together.
He pops up already shouting.
"Mario — now!"
Mario drops his weight and twists.
Jaws snap shut on empty air.
Momentum carries the Gorger forward, overextended, chest slamming into a parked car. Metal buckles with a sick shriek.
Ivante doesn't look at the monster.
He sprints for Benny.
He snatches the boy by the collar and throws him toward the gold circle.
"Run!" Ivante roars. "Run, damn it!"
Benny scrambles through candlelight, chalk clouding behind him like smoke.
The Gorger roars.
Sound tears rain into shreds.
Ivante turns — too slow again.
Claws rake down his back.
Fabric splits. Skin opens. Fire lances from shoulder to hip. He feels ribs like knives under his skin. Blood floods hot down his legs.
He stumbles — but doesn't fall.
Mario lunges back in, slamming his forearm into the creature's jaw. Bone cracks — the Gorger's — a splintering snap that makes windows rattle.
Lena slams both palms down.
Gold light explodes.
A radiant net snaps across the street, burning lines into the Gorger's flesh. Smoke hisses into rain.
The creature thrashes, tearing at the threads.
Ivante staggers forward, vision tunneling to a pinprick of light.
His heart pounds so hard it hurts.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He looks at Mario — shoulder intact this time, teeth bared, breathing like he's drowning.
He looks at Benny — safe behind gold, hands pressed to his mouth, eyes huge.
He looks at the Gorger — burning, writhing, furious.
His knees shake.
He thinks of teeth. Of bone. Of two minutes that keep snapping back like a cruel hinge.
He takes one more step.
His heart slams once.
Twice.
The Gorger rips free of the net with a roar that shatters windows up the block.
Its head snaps toward Ivante.
Ivante doesn't scream.
He doesn't beg.
He bares his teeth like a cornered animal.
"Come on, then," he spits through blood and rain. "Take me."
The Gorger lunges—
—and something lands on Ivante's chest.
Light as breath.
Cold as clockwork.
A moth, pale and glass-thin, its wings etched with faint, ticking lines.
It sits over his heart.
Time snaps.
The Gorger freezes mid-air.
Rain hangs in beads.
Sirens stretch into one endless note.
Ivante feels the minute open beneath his feet like a door—
—and the world tilts toward teeth.