The night after the square's awakening was the first in which Elara did not sleep at all. She lay in her bed but her body never softened into rest, her mind tangled between visions and fragments of sound. Every time her eyes drifted shut, she felt as though she were floating just above her own skin, watching herself breathe. Sometimes the rhythm faltered, and terror jerked her awake.
Kieran stayed near, a presence in the half-shadow by her desk. He said little, but his silence was weighted, as though he were guarding something he would not yet name. Once, she asked him outright what he feared. He did not answer; instead, he moved his hand across paper and slid it toward her.
What comes through may not only be light.
She traced the words with a fingertip until the ink blurred, then turned her face toward the wall so he would not see her weep.
Morning arrived in name only. The sun rose, but its rays did not pierce. Instead, the sky hung flat and gray, its edges bleeding violet where day should have brightened. The world looked less like dawn and more like a bruise spreading slowly outward.
When Elara opened her shop, the air carried an unfamiliar taste, metallic and sharp on her tongue. Books felt heavier in her hands, as if they resisted being moved. Customers entered sparingly, and those who did avoided meeting her gaze. Their words were clipped, brittle, as though conversation might crack into shards too sharp to gather.
By noon, she closed the shutters and locked the door. She no longer trusted what might wander in.
That evening, she and Kieran returned to the square. Not because they chose to, but because something in their bones compelled them. They arrived early, before the first torches were lit, when dusk's veins were just beginning to thread through the sky. The ring lay dormant, but the air above it shimmered faintly, like heat rising from stone.
"Do you feel it?" she asked.
He nodded. "The breach is widening. Not in size—yet. In depth. As though the skin of our world is thinning."
"And when it splits?"
"Then we see what's beneath."
The words chilled her, not only for their meaning but for how calmly he spoke them. As though he had already rehearsed the moment in his mind, prepared himself for its inevitability.
They stood in silence until others trickled in, drawn again by instinct or dread. Torches flared. The ring began its quiet hum.
This time, no light spilled outward. Instead, a sound seeped into the square—low, resonant, like the groan of earth shifting deep below. Some covered their ears, though the sound did not come through air but bone. It settled into marrow, vibrating there.
A child whimpered. His mother clutched him close, whispering comforts that trembled into prayer.
Elara felt the sound press against her chest, demanding entry. She closed her eyes and resisted, nails digging into her palms. Kieran's hand brushed her arm, grounding her.
The hum rose, peaked, then stilled. The ring quieted once more.
But when silence returned, it was not empty. The townsfolk felt it too—the way shadows clung closer, the way the air seemed thinner, as though something had drawn a breath but not exhaled.
They scattered quickly. Only Elara and Kieran lingered.
"It's speaking," she whispered.
"Yes," he said. "And soon it will expect an answer."
The days that followed fell into strange rhythm. The town worked less, spoke less. At market stalls, exchanges were conducted quickly, with eyes fixed downward. Laughter had vanished entirely, replaced by brittle murmurs. Even the church bells, once steady in their peals, rang duller, as though the air swallowed their sound before it could travel.
Elara wrote notes to Kieran in the drawer during daylight hours, desperate for something human to cling to. His responses grew longer, more urgent, laced with fragments of memory he rarely shared before—visions of his own world fracturing, of voices that sounded inside the skull rather than the air, of fire that did not burn but hollowed.
One line stayed with her more than any other:
The breach does not open between places. It opens between states of being. One world drawn over another, neither fully surviving.
She read it again and again, until she could not bear to.
On the fifth night, the breach shifted.
The people gathered as always, though fewer came, fear thinning their numbers. Elara and Kieran stood near the front, unwilling but unable to stay away.
The ring glowed faintly, pale as ash. Then, instead of light or sound, something else stirred—movement. From the center, faint tendrils rose, not smoke nor flame but threads of dusk itself. They twined upward, curling like veins unspooling into the air.
The townsfolk gasped. Some fled. Others stared, rooted by dread.
One of the tendrils reached outward, brushing across the cobblestones until it touched a man's boot. He froze. Then he screamed—high, shattering—as the shadow-thread climbed his leg. It left no mark, but his body convulsed, and his eyes rolled white.
Elara leapt forward before thought could stop her. She seized his arms, trying to tear him free, but the tendril clung as if fused. His skin was ice under her hands. Kieran pulled her back, voice sharp.
"Let go! You can't fight it like that."
But the man's scream cut off abruptly. He collapsed, trembling, his breath shallow but steady. The tendril withdrew, sinking back into the ring.
Silence smothered the square.
The man blinked, eyes clearing slowly. He looked around, bewildered, then fixed on Elara. His voice was thin, rasping:
"It showed me."
"What did you see?" she asked.
He shuddered. "Not light. Not dark. A place in between. And voices—so many voices. They… they want something."
The crowd erupted. Shouts, demands, accusations. Some pointed at Elara, others at the ring, others at the mayor who stood helpless at the edge.
But above it all, Kieran whispered near her ear, words only she heard:
"This is the beginning of negotiation."
That night, she dreamt of veins crawling across the sky, each one pulsing with faint light. They spread outward until the heavens were a lattice, a net holding something vast and unseen above. She woke with her heart racing, certain that the dream was not hers alone.
Kieran was already awake, watching her. "You felt it too?"
"Yes."
"Then we have less time than I thought."
By the week's end, three more had been touched by the tendrils. Each collapsed, screamed, and returned with fragments of visions—voices, images, words that dissolved when spoken aloud. The more the town witnessed, the more fear festered.
Some began to leave, abandoning homes under cover of daylight. Others clung closer, as though distance from the breach would only worsen their fate. And some turned fully toward Elara, their eyes pleading not for understanding but for command.
She hated it. She wanted no part of their dependence, no mantle of leadership. Yet she also could not step back. Each night she found herself at the ring's edge, her breath syncing with its pulse.
Kieran stayed with her always, but he grew quieter, as though conserving energy for something still ahead. Once, when she pressed him, he admitted:
"The breach is feeding on us. On attention, on presence. The more we gather, the stronger it becomes."
"Then why come?" she demanded.
"Because if we don't, it will take anyway. At least here we can see it."
The twentieth night was different.
The dusk deepened until the torches seemed useless, their flames absorbed by the air. The ring pulsed, veins rising again, curling outward. This time, they did not retreat. They spread across the square, weaving in patterns too intricate for human eyes to follow.
Elara felt her body sway toward them, as though drawn by a current. Kieran's grip on her hand was iron, holding her steady.
Then, from within the web of veins, a sound rose. Not the groan of earth, but a voice—not single, not plural, but a chorus layered into one.
It spoke in no language she knew, yet she understood. The words echoed inside her skull, resonant and undeniable:
We are coming through.
The square erupted. People screamed, fled, dropped to their knees in prayer. The mayor shouted, but his voice vanished under chaos.
Elara stood frozen, the words vibrating through her bones. She wanted to deny them, to shut them out, but they lingered. They anchored.
Kieran's face was pale, set with grim certainty. "This is it. The threshold is thinning beyond return."
"What do they want?" she whispered.
He looked at her, eyes dark and heavy. "You. Or what you carry. Maybe both."
Her breath hitched. "And if I refuse?"
"Then they'll take it."
The veins above the square pulsed again, brighter, sharper, weaving into a pattern that resembled neither sky nor earth. A lattice of twilight, veins of dusk spreading outward.
And Elara knew, with a clarity that felt like falling: the breach was no longer a wound.
It was a mouth.
And it was opening.