Huff. Huff.
'What am I doing?'
I didn't believe in shortcuts.
But there I was, weaving through the streets with Ray, following him because he always had a "better idea" of where to look, and I didn't have the energy to argue.
The city sprawled around us like a messy puzzle, neon reflections bouncing off wet asphalt, the air thick with exhaust and the faint tang of food stalls.
We had already explored most of the parts around the government home like the good children we were. But Ray argued that we hadn't checked out all of the safe places yet.
Ray stopped abruptly.
"Wait, look at that—"
I kept walking. Too late to stop. My shoulder bumped someone. A girl. Just a brush. She didn't turn around, just moved past, all casual, like the collision never happened. I caught the faint scent of her perfume and the click of heels, and that was it.
Ray muttered something about her being popular, but I didn't care.
We turned a corner and Ray continued, insisting we take a "shortcut" through an alley I wouldn't have noticed if my life depended on it.
I followed. Ray hesitated, sniffing the air. I did too. The alley smelled wrong. Not trash wrong. Sterile wrong. Like antiseptic and cold metal.
Something in my chest tightened, but I ignored it. I always ignored it.
We walked past the narrow residential alley, the suns already fading behind the leaning brick houses. Each step made the alley feel narrower, almost alive, pressing against our shoulders. Stalls were abandoned for the day — crates upended, a stray cloth flapping lazily in the breeze, the faint scent of rotting vegetables lingering underneath the sharper edge of metal and antiseptic.
That's when I noticed them:
Three men further down the alley, half-hidden in the shadows, perfectly still.
The first leaned against a stall, tablet in hand, scanning it with slow, meticulous movements, like a librarian checking overdue books.
His sleeves were rolled neatly to the elbow, revealing forearms thick as tree trunks, veins mapping a roadmap of strength. His boots were clean, polished — absurdly clean for an alley.
The other two flanked him, taller, broader, built like men who'd spent years bending iron bars with their bare hands. Jackets zipped to the throat, black and matte, gloves tight over large hands, trousers perfectly pressed in all black.
No expression on their faces, no flicker of emotion, just awareness — bodies trained to notice the tiniest deviation in a passerby's step.
'What is this? A funeral?'
We passed within meters of them.
Because why not walk closer to the scary men?
I faced Ray. "Shouldn't we turn back now?"
"What's the matter? We're still in the residential areas," he scoffed.
I kept my pace even, careful to brush past nothing, not to jostle air in a way that might attract attention.
Ray stumbled slightly and I caught his sleeve, tugging him forward as we walked past them.
Nothing happened.
They didn't move. Didn't even glance our way, though I knew they were tracking us.
Then my phone buzzed.
{You have crossed the residential area}
Ray jumped. I felt my stomach tighten.
I turned back.
The three were no longer by the stall. Not behind us yet, but the spacing had subtly shifted. Shadows detached themselves from the brick walls, moving with us. Not quickly, not violently — deliberately.
The spacing behind us changed again.
And the alley didn't feel narrow anymore. It felt like a corridor into something I didn't want to get to know.
"Run!" I shouted, looking to my side to find it empty.
I jerked my head forward to see Ray already in the distance.
"This bitc—" I ran before I finished the thought.
…
My lungs burned almost immediately.
Ray ran like he always did—too fast, too confident, like the city owed him clear paths. I ran like someone trying not to fall. The alley forked without warning, right splitting off into a narrower passage choked with stacked crates and rusty fire escapes.
"Ray—slow—"
He didn't.
Footsteps slapped behind us. Not hurried. Not panicked. Measured. Like they knew the alley ended and we didn't.
I glanced back again.
Bad idea.
"Stop looking back!" Ray shouted.
Too late.
The ground dipped where rain had eaten away at the concrete. My foot skidded. I windmilled, caught myself on a wall slick with old posters and grime, fingers scraping paper and brick.
The alley cut right.
Ray stopped. But I noticed too late.
BAM!
I slammed into his back in full force.
The impact knocked the breath out of both of us. Ray's shoulder hit the wall first, then my weight drove him harder into it.
CRACK.
Something cracked—not bone, not brick. The wall gave way with a hollow sound, like striking rotten wood.
And then there was no wall.
We fell.
Not down.
Through.
My stomach lurched sideways. Gravity forgot which way it was supposed to pull. The alley peeled away like wet paint, stretching thin, then tearing completely.
I heard Ray shout my name—then the sound lagged behind itself, echoing twice, three times, like it couldn't decide when it had happened.
I reached out but my hands clawed at nothing.
Then—
thud.
"Urgh"
I hit ground that wasn't flat enough to be ground. It sloped, dipped, then leveled abruptly. My shoulder took most of it. Pain bloomed sharp and immediate, anchoring me.
"Ack! Shit!"
Ray landed beside me, rolling and swearing.
For a second, none of us spoke.
The silence pressed in. Not quiet—dense. Like sound was being absorbed before it could finish existing.
I lay on my back, staring upward, still processing. I noticed something strange.
'Are those white clouds?'
I pushed myself up slowly.
The air resisted every breath. Not humid. Heavy in a way that made breathing feel like pushing through abundance, wrongness. Each inhale felt like thousands of tiny needles were being punctured into our lungs.
"What… what just happened?" Ray asked.
I opened my mouth to answer and realized I had no words that wouldn't sound insane.
We weren't in the alley anymore.
The space stretched wide, but unevenly. We were in a small clearing.
The ground felt solid, but when I shifted my weight, it pulled me sideways instead of down. Not much. Just enough that I had to adjust my stance to keep from tipping.
Ray stood up slowly. "I hate this already."
Glancing to my left, we were at the base of something massive — a mountain, I realized after a moment. Its face rose at an angle that made my neck ache just looking at it, dark stone veined with pale streaks like old scars.
It broke through the white clouds that seemed to cover the whole sky.
The stone was dark and damp, covered in thick moss that clung in heavy patches.
On the other side was a forest.
The trees started immediately, packed close together. Their trunks were wide and impossibly tall, bark rough and layered. Their broad leaves blocked most of the sky, turning the light dim and greenish underneath.
There wasn't any wind, but the leaves still shifted now and then, like something was adjusting them.
I took a step toward the forest.
My foot landed a little too softly. The ground dipped, then held. It felt like stepping onto a mattress that decided to stop being one halfway through.
"Careful," Ray said behind me.
He crouched and pressed his hand to the dirt, then pulled it back like he didn't trust it. "This place's… off."
Ray picked up a small stone and tossed it toward the trees.
The stone drifted for a moment, rose up, then dropped straight down.
Behind us, the air where we'd come through shimmered faintly. I tried to focus on it, but my eyes kept sliding away, like there was nothing solid to look at.
Ray rubbed his arms. "So… where are we?"
"I don't know."
Everything looked… healthy.
Too healthy.
The leaves were broader than they should've been. The bark darker, richer, almost damp-looking even where the light touched it. The air felt heavy with elements, like breathing gave you more than you needed. It should've been comforting.
It wasn't.
I looked back.
"But I know what we should do."
Ray looked at me immediately.
"What?" he asked.
"What else?" I shrugged, forcing my voice to stay even. "Go back the way we came. Or—" I gestured toward the forest. "Explore. Be my guest."
"The rift can't be far," Ray said quickly. Too quickly. "Right? We just—fell through. It has to be close."
I looked back at the shimmer again. It hadn't moved. It hadn't grown. It also hadn't gotten clearer.
We began searching the base of the mountain
After a few dozen minutes—
"Find anything yet?" Ray asked as we regrouped.
"Nothing but wrongness and a headache—maybe permanent damage if we stay here."
cough!
My lungs have had better days.
"Maybe we have to search other places…" I said looking at the forest entrance.
"Really, you want to go into the scary forest?!" Ray exclaimed. At that exact moment I swore I saw something slither through the leaves.
But I insisted.
"Staying here is worse."
That made Ray pause. "Worse than… whatever this is?"
"Oh, do you prefer to be a sitting duck instead?" I mocked.
That decided it.
We didn't run. Running felt loud. We moved toward the forest at a careful pace, boots crunching softly over stone and root until the ground softened beneath our feet.
A few steps in, the light changed — not darker, just filtered, broken into fragments by leaves overhead.
That's when I slowed.
"What?" Ray whispered.
I didn't answer right away.
For a second, I thought I saw something — a distortion between two trunks, a shadow that didn't belong to anything casting it. When I blinked, it was gone.
Probably nothing.
Probably.
"Let's find cover," I whispered.
Ahead, the forest thinned just enough to reveal a shallow break in the stone where the mountain met the roots — an overhang, half-hidden, like the land itself had shrugged and left a hollow behind.
We moved toward it.
As I stepped beneath the trees, I couldn't shake the feeling that we hadn't left anything behind at all.
Something was just… taking its time.