Night in hospitals isn't real night. It's a dimmer version of day—lamps humming, machines breathing, nurses walking past like ghosts in colored scrubs.
After Ardan's visit, I barely breathe at all.
I expect him to still be standing in the corner, or sitting on the chair, or leaning against the window with that pale red word—DEBT—floating over his shadow like a verdict. But he's gone. No sound of footsteps, no door opening, no sign that anything in this world acknowledges him.
The doctor checks on me again. This time his shadow carries the same word—BETRAYAL—but I don't look at it. If I look at it too long, I feel something tugging inside my chest, like a thread being pulled from a sweater.
I try to sleep. Every time I close my eyes, headlights flash behind my eyelids.
Somewhere in the hallway, a metal cart squeaks. A TV murmurs in another room. Lights flicker.
The world keeps going. But something in it feels tilted.
Around two in the morning, the machines beside my bed hiccup—just a tiny blip. It's so small that the nurse passing by doesn't notice. But I do.
Because the shadows in the room freeze.
Not like they stop moving. Like they stop *being shadows*. They flatten. They lose their edges. They cling to the floor the way spilled oil clings to water.
Something inside me clenches.
I push myself slightly upright, ignoring the pain in my ribs.
"...Ardan?"
My voice is paper-dry and small.
He doesn't appear.
But the shadows do something else.
They lean.
Not toward the doctor's station. Not toward the machines. Toward *me*.
My heart punches my ribs like it's trying to escape.
A low vibration hums in the air, so deep I feel it more in my teeth than my ears. The shadows stretch farther. Their shapes thin, their tips reaching the leg of my bed.
And above them—letters start to form.
Not words I know. Not English. Not anything.
Symbols. Sharp. Angular. Like something carved into stone long before alphabets existed.
My breath snags.
"I don't like this," I whisper to the empty air.
The lights dim. The humming grows louder. One of the shadows climbs the metal frame of my IV pole—like a hand, like a limb.
Then the door clicks.
Just a soft mechanical click.
But the handle turns.
Very slowly.
Too slowly.
I push myself back against the pillow. Pain shoots down my side but adrenaline devours it.
The door opens just a crack. Enough for a sliver of hallway light to cut across the room.
No footsteps follow.
No nurse.
No doctor.
Just the door, half-open, waiting.
The shadows freeze again—caught in the motion they were making.
Then, behind the door's edge, I see it.
A hand.
Human, but wrong. The fingers are a little too long. The nails a little too dark. The palm held flat against the wall as if it's anchoring itself before entering.
My mouth goes dry.
The hand pulls back—
—and the thing attached to it steps into view.
It looks like a person. Like a man. Like someone tired, dressed in a visitor's coat, head slightly bowed. But the shadow it casts touches the floor like it weighs a hundred kilograms—dense, thick, almost liquid.
And the word above that shadow glows with the same red tone as Ardan's, but brighter:
**COLLECTOR.**
I feel the scream rise in my chest, but nothing comes out.
The Collector lifts its head. Eyes pale. Lips unmoving. It studies me like a butcher studies meat before deciding which part to cut first.
My hand shakes as I reach for the call button.
The machine beside me flickers.
The button dies.
The Collector steps closer.
One step.
Another.
Its shadow crawls forward faster than its feet.
I can't breathe.
Then—
Something grabs my wrist.
Warm fingers.
Human.
I whirl my head.
A girl stands at the side of my bed. Maybe my age. Maybe younger. Messy hair, hoodie too big for her. Eyes wide with panic.
Where did she come from? How did she enter? There's no sound of a door, no shadow approaching—
But she squeezes my wrist hard.
"Stay awake," she whispers. "If you fall asleep now, it takes you."
Her shadow lies under her feet. A normal shadow. Dark. Human-shaped.
Except—
Except above it floats a word:
**BOUND.**
I stare at it. She notices.
"You can see it too." Her voice shivers. "That's bad. That's really, really bad."
The Collector stretches out a hand toward me.
The girl moves faster than I expect. She slams her palm onto my chest, right over my heart. Pain bursts through me like fire.
"Don't you dare drift," she hisses. "Do you hear me? You drift, you're gone."
The Collector's shadow reaches the foot of my bed.
"I don't— I don't understand—" I gasp.
"You don't need to." Her voice cracks. "Just—stay. Awake."
The Collector moves again—
And the lights explode white.
A pressure wave blasts across the room. The Collector recoils, its shadow shredding around the edges. The girl stumbles but doesn't fall.
A shape appears in the doorway.
A familiar tired voice sighs.
"Really, Mark? One hour. I leave you for one hour."
Ardan.
He raises a hand, and the white light condenses into a razor-thin arc across his palm.
"Step away from my apprentice," he tells the Collector calmly.
The Collector hisses—not with its mouth, with its shadow. Jagged letters flare over it, rewriting, rearranging.
**CLAIM
RIGHT
OWED**
"Not yet," Ardan says, almost kindly. "Contracts don't ripen the same night."
He flicks his hand.
The white arc slices across the floor.
The Collector's shadow jerks back like something cut its tendons. The creature staggers, its form distorting, cracking. Then it collapses in on itself like a folding tent, vanishing in a burst of dark static.
The room trembles. The shadows flatten back into place.
Silence drops.
Ardan lowers his hand and looks at the girl.
"You," he says. "You should not be here."
She lifts her chin, trembling. "He called me."
"I did not," I croak.
She doesn't look at me. "His name did."
Ardan's face tightens.
"That," he says, "is significantly worse."
He turns to me.
"Mark. Do not ever open your door at night. Especially if something knocks."
"I didn't—"
"You opened it with your *resonance*," he snaps. "You peeled your seal like wet paint. You practically invited the Collector in with tea."
He pinches the bridge of his nose.
The girl is still gripping my wrist.
"Let him go," Ardan says.
"No," she whispers.
Ardan's eyes narrow. "Your thread is tied to him."
"I know."
"That's not possible."
"I know that too."
They stare at each other.
Then Ardan sighs—exhausted, resigned.
"Fine," he mutters. "Then we do this the complicated way."
He gestures to the door.
"Both of you. We're leaving the hospital. Now."
The girl helps me sit up. My ribs feel like broken glass. My vision swims. But for the first time since waking, I don't feel alone.
I look at her.
"Your name?" I ask.
She swallows.
"I… don't have one."
Above her shadow, **BOUND** flickers uncertainly, like it's lying.
Ardan groans.
"Perfect," he says dryly. "The one thing I needed. A nameless tether."
He grabs the curtain, yanks it aside.
"Come on, Mark. Lesson two. If you want to stay alive long enough to renegotiate your Contract…"
He glances at my flickering shadow.
"…we start running before sunrise."