I grabbed Sofía and we launched onto the main avenue, ignoring the red light and the horns of cars slamming their brakes.
I didn't look up. I didn't need to to feel the weight of that gaze. It was a physical pressure at the base of my skull, like a giant magnifying glass focusing sunlight on us to burn us like ants.
The image on my phone kept replaying in my head: that perfect, impossible aerial shot. It wasn't a drone. A drone makes noise. A satellite doesn't have that resolution in real time.
It was magic. Or something worse.
"Eduur, you're hurting me," Sofía complained.
I loosened my grip on her wrist but didn't stop. We pushed into a crowded shopping arcade. The smells of frying oil, cheap perfume and human sweat hit me full force.
For anyone normal, the crush of a crowd is suffocating. For me, in my state, it was like walking into a bakery after a month of fasting.
The "Hunger" woke with a violence that made me stagger.
Every person I bumped into was a charged battery. I felt pulses. I felt the heat of their lives. An accidental brush against the arm of a man in a suit sent an electric jolt of desire through me.
"I could touch him," my darkness whispered. "I could grab him, use the Transfer, and in two seconds I'd be full again. He'd just pass out. No one would know."
"No," I muttered, biting my lip until I tasted blood.
I looked at Sofía. She walked pressed to my leg, her backpack a shield. She was the only person in this damn building safe from my appetite. My instinct to protect her was the last barrier between me and monstrosity.
"We need to change," I told her, my voice hoarse. "We can't go to the station dressed like this."
We ducked into a cheap clothing store. I used the money from Lena's bag. My hands trembled so badly I dropped coins onto the counter.
The cashier, a pierced young woman, watched me suspiciously.
"You okay, man? You look sick."
She reached out to hand me my change. Her fingers brushed mine.
It felt like touching a live high-voltage cable. Her vitality was bright, warm, tempting. My hand closed reflexively around hers, wanting to drain, to heal my hollow.
The girl screamed, terrified, pulling her arm back.
"Let go!"
I let go instantly, stumbling back as if burned.
"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry. I've a fever."
I grabbed the bag of clothes and Sofía and bolted out of the shop before she could call security. I leaned against a column, breathing like I'd run a marathon.
"You're getting worse," Sofía said, putting on a too-big baseball cap.
"I'm fine. I just… need to get out of here."
I put on cheap sunglasses and a gray jacket that hung off me. We hid the backpacks. Now we looked like a young dad and his kid, or maybe two siblings lost in the city. But I knew the truth. We were prey in disguise.
---
The bus ride to the Old South Train Station was a silent torture. I sat by the window, hands buried deep in my pockets so I wouldn't accidentally touch anyone.
Sofía scanned the outside, searching for patterns only she seemed to understand.
"Why the South Station?" I asked quietly. "It's been abandoned for years."
"Mom said forgotten places are best," she replied. "'Where no one watches, we see.' That was her motto."
We arrived at dusk. The station was a skeleton of iron and broken glass, a dead industrial cathedral. Tracks walled in by weeds and trash. Homeless people camped on the old platforms, warming themselves with fires in rusted barrels.
The perfect place to disappear. Or to die unnoticed.
"Look for the clock," Sofía said.
She pointed at the big central clock, stopped at 11:15 for decades. Beneath it, on a rotten wooden bench, sat a figure. Not Lena.
An old man. A long patched coat, feeding pigeons with stale crumbs. A carved wooden cane by his side.
Disappointment hit me physically. I'd expected Lena. Vargas. Anything but being alone in charge.
"Stay behind me," I ordered Sofía.
We approached. The old man didn't lift his head.
"You're late," he rasped. His voice was like sandpaper on stone. "The 11:15 train passed thirty years ago."
"We're looking for a friend," I said, keeping my distance. My Hunger told me this old man had little life—like a candle about to gutter. Not a threat. Not food.
He raised his head. One eye milky with cataract, the other blue and sharp.
"Lena won't come, kid."
Sofía made a small sound behind me.
"Where is she?" I demanded, stepping forward.
"She turned herself in," the old man said calmly, tossing another crumb. "The Syndicate's dogs cornered her three streets after you jumped through the window. She made noise so you could run. She's a good mother. A bad killer, but a good mother."
Guilt stabbed my chest. Lena had sacrificed herself. Again.
"Who are you?"
"I'm the eyes and ears of the sewers," he said. "Lena pays me to keep things and to deliver messages."
He reached into his coat. I tensed to fight, though I had nothing.
He flicked a small, rusty key into the air. I caught it.
"Locker 404. In the basement. There's money, fake passports, and an address on the coast. Go. Disappear."
"Why help us?"
The old man looked at me, his good eye boring into my forehead as if he could see the Gate inside my skull.
"Because you're the problem, kid. The Dream-Eater isn't hunting the girl. It's hunting you. You're a crack in the wall of the world. If you don't close or leave… you'll let the cold in for all of us."
"How do you know about the Dream-Eater?"
"I've lived in the streets long enough to know which shadows bite and which only bark," he said. "That thing… it's old. And it's hungry."
He rose with difficulty, leaning on his cane.
"Take what's in the locker and go. If you stay, you'll bring misfortune to my station. We've enough misery already."
He turned to leave. Sofía ran and grabbed his coat sleeve.
"Sir… is my mom alive?"
For a moment the old man's hard face softened.
"The Syndicate doesn't break their valuable toys, girl. They'll use her to get to him."
He pointed at me.
"That's why you must go. If they catch you," he said, "Lena dies."
The old man limped into the darkness of the tunnels. I stood there holding the rusty key, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. Lena was alive, but a hostage. I was the bargaining chip.
"Let's get the locker," I said, taking Sofía's cold hand.
We went down to the basement level. The air smelled of piss and damp. Fluorescents flickered, buzzing.
We found the bank of lockers. Most were dented or missing doors. 404 was at the end, plastered with old stickers. I slid the key in. It turned with effort.
I opened it.
It was empty.
My heart stopped.
"No…" I whispered, forcing my hand into the cold metal cavity. "The old man said—"
"It's a trap," Sofía said, voice shaking.
CRACK.
The sound of glass breaking came from the stairwell entrance.
I turned.
The temperature plunged. My breath came out in white. Black frost crept across the tiles, devouring grime. The hum of the lights turned into that painful static screech.
"It found us," I said, pushing Sofía behind me.
The Dream-Eater descended the steps. It didn't walk. It floated inches above the floor, its long limbs brushing the hallway walls. Red eyes gleamed in the dim.
We were trapped. A corridor with no exit.
"Back!" I shouted, knowing it was useless.
The Dream-Eater smiled with its stitched mouth. It raised a claw.
Then I heard another sound. Behind me. From the far end of the corridor, where an emergency exit was chained. The metallic rasp of cutters.
The emergency door burst open with a kick. Two men stormed in. Grey tactical suits, gas masks, assault rifles. On their chests, an emblem: a snake eating its own tail. The Syndicate.
And behind them, a third man shuffled in, leaning on the wall. Pale, skin clinging to bone like a corpse refusing to rest. His police uniform hung huge on him as if he'd shrunk inside it.
"Hello, thief," Sergeant Méndez rasped, voice full of hate. His eyes were sunken, ringed in black. "You owe me some life."
I froze.
To my left: the Dream-Eater, an entity that wanted to eat my soul and open the Gate.
To my right: the Syndicate and a zombified Méndez who wanted to capture me for experiments—or to kill me.
We were the sandwich. I had no energy. No weapons. No escape.
Méndez raised his gun with a trembling hand. The Dream-Eater extended its claws; the static rose until my nose bled.
If the Syndicate fired, Sofía would die in the crossfire.
If the Dream-Eater attacked, it would consume us all.
There was only one card left. The suicide card. The chaos card.
I didn't need to call Anima. He was already clawing at the door, smelling blood and fear.
I squeezed Sofía's hand once more and let go.
"Get down," I whispered.
I closed my eyes, breathed the basement's rotten, frozen air, and screamed with the last of the breath in my lungs, throwing my will into the abyss.
"ANIMA! I SUMMON YOU!"