Dr. Mira Chen's POV
I'm falling through light that shouldn't exist.
My stomach drops as reality tears apart around me. The bridge is gone. The river is gone. Everything solid and real has vanished, replaced by swirling colors that burn my eyes—gold and silver and colors I don't have names for.
I try to scream but nothing comes out. The air is too thick, like trying to breathe underwater. My lungs burn. My skin tingles like I've grabbed a live wire. Every cell in my body feels wrong, stretched and pulled in directions that don't make sense.
This is it. This is how I die.
Not from heartbreak or betrayal or jumping off a bridge. From falling through a crack in the sky that appeared because I screamed at a lightning storm like a crazy person.
Mom always said my temper would get me in trouble.
The thought of my mother makes something crack inside my chest. When was the last time I called her? Three months ago? Four? She kept inviting me to family dinners and I kept saying I was too busy with research. Too busy to see my little brother graduate high school. Too busy for Dad's birthday. Too busy living my own life to be part of theirs.
And for what?
For Marcus to steal everything while sleeping with my best friend?
The swirling light suddenly changes. It's not just colors anymore—I see images flashing past like a broken movie. A younger version of myself, age seven, telling my parents I'm going to be a doctor and save people. Age fifteen, studying until 3 AM because being the best isn't good enough—I have to be perfect. Age twenty-two, choosing lab work over my college boyfriend because relationships are distractions.
Age twenty-eight, alone in a lab at midnight, realizing I sacrificed everything for people who never cared about me at all.
No. I think fiercely, even as the light burns brighter. I didn't sacrifice it for them. I sacrificed it for the research. For the cure. For people I've never met who need help.
That's what I tell myself. But watching my life flash by in this impossible light, I see the truth: I was scared. Scared of getting hurt, so I buried myself in work. Scared of being ordinary, so I pushed away everyone who loved me. Scared of needing people, so I convinced myself I was better off alone.
And now I'm actually alone, falling through space toward nothing.
The light suddenly shatters like glass.
I'm in darkness—real darkness, cold and empty. But I'm not falling anymore. I'm floating, suspended in black nothing. The silence is so complete it presses against my eardrums.
"Hello?" My voice sounds small and swallowed by the void.
Something moves in the darkness.
I can't see it, but I feel it—a presence so huge and ancient that my human brain can't understand it. Like trying to picture infinity or imagine colors that don't exist.
Child of two worlds, a voice speaks directly into my mind, so loud I want to cover my ears even though there's no sound. You have been called.
"Called?" I manage to choke out. "Called by who? For what?"
The old debt must be paid. The curse must be broken. You are the key.
"I don't understand! I'm just a scientist! I don't know anything about curses or debts or—"
The presence grows closer. Warmer. And with the warmth comes pain—searing, burning agony that lights up every nerve. I scream as something brands itself into my chest, right over my heart. It feels like I'm being written on, marked, claimed by something I can't see or fight.
You will understand, the voice says, and now it sounds almost sad. Or you will die trying. Either way, the worlds will balance.
"Wait! I didn't agree to this! Send me back!"
There is no back. Only forward.
The darkness explodes into light again, but this time it's different—it's real light, sunlight, and I'm falling again but in a normal way, gravity pulling me down through—
Tree branches.
They whip past my face, tearing my clothes, scratching my arms. I try to grab one but I'm moving too fast. The ground rushes up and I brace for impact—
Something roars.
It's the most terrifying sound I've ever heard. Deeper than any animal at the zoo, more primal than anything that should exist. It vibrates in my bones and freezes my blood and makes every survival instinct I have scream PREDATOR.
I crash through the last layer of leaves and suddenly I can see what's making that sound.
A massive creature—like a tiger but wrong, all wrong. Too big. Too many teeth. Eyes that glow red with pure madness. Foam drips from its jaws and where the foam hits the ground, the grass dies.
It's staring right at me.
I hit the ground hard, my ankle twisting under me with a crack that sends white-hot pain shooting up my leg. I try to stand and fall immediately. The creature takes a step closer. Another. Its muscles bunch under its striped fur, preparing to pounce.
This is really how I die.
Not from the fall. Not from the magic crack in the sky. From being eaten by an impossible monster in a forest that shouldn't exist.
I close my eyes. At least it'll be quick.
The creature roars again and leaps—
Something slams into me from the side.
I'm flying through the air, wrapped in arms made of pure steel. We hit the ground rolling and suddenly I'm pressed against a chest that's burning hot, held by someone who smells like smoke and lightning and wild things.
A man's voice growls in my ear, speaking words I don't understand but that make my whole body tingle with strange recognition.
I look up.
Into eyes that aren't human.
Golden eyes with vertical slits for pupils, staring down at me with an intensity that stops my heart. His face is beautiful in a sharp, dangerous way—high cheekbones, strong jaw, lips pulled back to show teeth that are slightly too pointed to be normal.
And he's covered in scars. Thick, black scars that look like someone drew lightning across half his face and down his neck, disappearing under his clothes.
He says something else in that strange language, his voice urgent.
"I don't understand," I whisper.
His eyes widen. He touches my face with one hand—and his hand is wrong too, tipped with claws that should terrify me but somehow don't.
He speaks again, slower this time, and even though I still don't know the words, I understand the meaning in his desperate tone:
What are you?
Behind us, the monster roars again.
The man with golden eyes pushes me behind him, placing himself between me and the creature. He growls something that sounds like a challenge.
Then his body starts to change.
I watch in frozen horror as he grows larger, his muscles expanding, fur rippling across his skin. His face elongates into something between human and wolf. His hands—now fully clawed—flex as he faces down the monster.
This isn't real, my scientist brain tries to insist. This violates every law of biology—
The wolf-man launches himself at the monster with a roar that shakes the trees.
And I realize with crystal clarity: I'm not on Earth anymore.