Liri fished an ice cube out of her glass, crunched it loudly between her teeth, and then looked at him, startled by the noise, looking almost guilty for enjoying the cold.
"There we go," Marcus said softly, wiping his mouth. "That's more like it."
Now, they looked at him. They didn't look through him, or past him at the door. They looked at him. The barrier of pure terror had lowered just enough to let curiosity in.
He tapped his chest again, firmly. "Marcus."
The older one mirrored the gesture. She placed her long fingers against her sternum, pressing lightly.
"Eira," she said.
Her accent did something to the vowels, stretching them, softening the consonants. It turned the name into something musical, like wind moving through hollow wood.
He nodded, committing it to memory. "Eira."
The younger one pointed to herself, a little bolder now that her stomach was full. "Liri."
"Liri," he repeated.
Their eyes warmed at the sound of their names coming from his voice. It wasn't a transaction anymore; it was an acknowledgement. It lit up a small, unexpected section of his chest—a feeling of connection he hadn't felt since his squad was alive.
He decided to push the perimeter. He pointed around the room, sweeping his arm. "Restaurant."
He pointed at the window, at the dusty parking lot. "Texas."
He thumbed toward the sign on the door, reversed in the glass. "Slipgate."
Eira followed his gestures, her eyes sharp, filing away the sounds and meanings with a terrifying intelligence. She wasn't just listening; she was learning the tactical layout of his language.
Then she touched the empty plates. She looked at him, her expression softening into something solemn. She spoke a phrase in her own language—quiet, melodic, with a cadence that sounded like running water.
He didn't know the words. He didn't need to. The tone—grateful, reverent, heavy with obligation—sounded exactly like a blessing.
He almost said grace back. The moment felt that strange, that fragile, suspended in the dust motes dancing in the sunbeams.
Then the air changed.
The World on the Hinge
He felt it first—not in his eyes, but in his inner ear. A sudden, crushing pressure, like driving uphill too fast or diving too deep underwater. The hair on his arms stood up.
The fluorescent lights overhead flickered—bzzzt-click—strobe-lighting the booth.
"Not today," he muttered, glancing up. "Come on. I just fixed you."
Eira's head snapped toward the front window. The movement was so fast it blurred.
Liri gasped and shrank into the corner of the booth, pulling her knees up.
Marcus followed their gaze.
For a heartbeat, Weedfield vanished.
The barber shop across the street, the gas station with the peeling paint, the cracked two-lane road—all of it smeared. It slid sideways, pixelating and blurring like someone had dragged a wet finger across an oil painting.
In its place: forest.
But not a Texas forest. These trees were titanic, their trunks as wide as the diner itself, stretching up so high they swallowed the sky. The bark was black as obsidian, slick and wet. A thick mist curled low along the ground, suffocating the roots. And suspended in that mist was a faint gold glitter, drifting in lazy, hypnotic spirals.
The light was wrong. It was twilight-dark, cold and blue.
For a dizzy, nauseating second, Marcus had the physical sensation that the diner itself wasn't in Texas anymore. He felt weightless, as if the building was hanging on a hinge, swinging wildly between here and there.
He blinked hard, shaking his head.
Snap.
The street returned. The gas station. The barber. An old pickup truck rolled past, muffler rattling, kicking up dust like nothing had happened. The sun was yellow and hot again.
Marcus rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, pressing until he saw stars. The pressure in his ears popped and equalized.
"Okay," he breathed, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. "That's new."
Eira whispered something to Liri. It sounded like half prayer, half curse. Her fingers clamped onto her sister's hand, gripping so hard her knuckles turned white.
Marcus looked at them. "You saw that too, right?" he asked, his voice rough. "Please tell me you saw that."
They stared at him.
No nod. No shake.
But the answer lived in their eyes. The fear was back, sharp and fresh.
Yes.
The silence that descended on the diner wasn't peaceful; it was heavy, pressurized, and deeply wrong. It thickened in the air like setting concrete, damping the sound of the world outside until the passing cars on the highway faded into a dull, sub-sonic thrum. Even the mechanical hum of the industrial refrigerator in the kitchen shifted pitch, dropping from a steady drone to a strained, rhythmic grinding sound, as if the electricity feeding it had suddenly changed flavor.
Marcus leaned forward across the table, his forearms resting on the Formica. The hair on his arms stood up, prickling against his sleeves.
"Where are you from?" he asked, his voice low but demanding.
Eira hesitated. She looked at him, then at the window where the world had just glitched into a dark forest. She seemed to be picking through the English language like it was a deck of strange, unmarked cards, searching for a suit that matched her reality.
"Not here," she said at last, the words careful and precise. "Other side… of the Gate."
Slipgate.
The word hung between them. Of course.
"Slipgate?" he echoed, the name of his own failing business tasting like iron in his mouth.
She nodded, and for a moment, her youthful, flawless face looked ancient. "Yes. You stand on the lip… and it slips. Both ways."
He didn't understand the physics or the metaphysics, but he understood the tactical reality of the danger radiating off her.
"So this place," he said, gesturing around the empty diner, at the red vinyl booths and the checkered floor, "is what… a doorway?"
Eira shook her head slowly. "Not a door. A Bridge. A piece in both worlds."
The words landed on him like a bucket of ice water. He'd named the place The Slipgate as a dark joke, a nod to an old video game and a squad in-joke about disappearing. The universe, it seemed, had a perverse sense of humor and had taken him literally.
Before he could decide whether to swear, laugh, or check his own sanity, a sound rolled in from outside.
Thump.
It wasn't a knock. It was an impact.
Thump.
Heavier this time. It vibrated through the floorboards, traveling up through the soles of Marcus's boots. It sounded like a heavy boot, or a hoof, or something terrible in between, striking the concrete step.
The plate glass windowpanes trembled in their frames.
Liri flinched so hard her hand jerked, tipping her water glass. She caught it just in time, her reflexes sharp with panic, the ice clinking loudly against the rim.
Eira's green eyes locked onto the front door. Her pupils dilated until her eyes were almost entirely black.
"Stay here," Marcus said automatically. The soldier in him took the wheel. He pushed himself out of the booth, his movements fluid and aggressive.
Eira grabbed his wrist.
Her hand was small, her fingers pale and slender, but her grip was shockingly strong. It wasn't the grip of a girl; it was the grip of something that could climb trees and strangle prey. She dug her fingers into his tendons, anchoring him.
"No," she whispered. "Marcus…"
He looked back at her.
Fear burned in her eyes, hot and bright. But under the fear was something fiercer. Protective. Desperate. She wasn't holding him back to save herself; she was holding him back to save him.
"Please," she said. The word scraped out of her throat, guttural and raw, like she'd dragged it from the wrong language and forced it into his.
He hesitated, caught between his instinct to confront the threat and the sheer weight of her warning.
Then the door rattled.
It wasn't someone jiggling the handle to see if they were open. Something hit it. A testing blow. Measuring the strength of the wood and the resistance of the deadbolt.
Creeeeak.
The wood groaned under the pressure.
Under the adjacent table, the Glimmucks reacted instantly. With a synchronized scramble of claws on tile, Nix and Pearl abandoned their scavenged crumbs and dove deeper into the shadows, curling into tight balls behind the heavy metal pedestal of the table. They knew what was coming.
The brass bell above the door, usually a cheerful chime for customers, jangled violently, the spring warping under the force of the impact.
WHAM.
Another impact, significantly harder. The top hinge of the door groaned, a high-pitched whine of metal being torqued beyond its limits. Dust sifted down from the doorframe.
Liri pressed herself into the corner of the booth, pulling her knees to her chest and clamping her hands over her pointed ears, screwing her eyes shut.
Eira stood up slowly, never taking her eyes off the door. She kept one hand on her sister's shoulder, grounding her, while her breathing went shallow and controlled. She looked like a cornered animal preparing to bite the throat of a wolf.
Marcus felt his heart rate spike—a sudden, sharp acceleration that pumped adrenaline into his extremities. His vision sharpened. The diner ceased to be a place of business and became a tactical environment. Cover. Concealment. Entry points. Weapons.
He drifted back from the door, putting the heavy oak bar between him and the entrance. His mind flipped through worst-case scenarios like a rolodex of disasters. Looters. Cartel.
"Marcus…" Eira whispered, her voice barely audible over the humming of the appliances. "They found us."
His hand froze an inch from the handle of a beer tap he didn't mean to touch.
"Who?" he asked, his voice low.
Outside, close to the wood, something grunted. It was a wet, ugly sound—a snort of fluid and mucus clearing a snout. A shadow, massive and wide, slid across the front windows, blocking out the harsh Texas sun.
"Hunters," Eira said, the word tasting like ash. "Pig men."
The words hung in the air like smoke. Pig men. It sounded ridiculous. It sounded like a fairy tale. But the fear radiating off the two women was real enough to choke on.
CRACK.
The next hit splintered the doorframe. A jagged fissure raced up the painted wood near the lock plate. Dried paint cracked and rained onto the entryway tiles.
The bell twisted sideways on its mount, silenced.
Marcus's options narrowed down to zero.
He looked at the sisters. Eira had pulled Liri close, shielding the younger girl's body with her own. Her eyes were fixed on him, filled with terror, yes, but also a flicker of trust that made his chest ache. She was waiting for him to do something. Anything.
He was a guy with a failing restaurant, a discharge paper, and instincts he pretended he'd retired.
He was also the only thing standing between them and whatever monstrosity was snorting and battering at his front step.
He reached behind the bar. He didn't go for the phone. He didn't go for the register. He grabbed the heaviest thing within arm's reach—a twelve-inch cast iron skillet hanging from a hook.
The cold, rough metal handle settled into his palm. It felt solid. It felt like a weapon of last resort.
The next impact drove the latch halfway out of the splintering frame. The door bowed inward, revealing a sliver of daylight and gray, bristly skin.
Marcus set his feet, widening his stance, grounding himself on the rubber mats. He gripped the skillet with both hands, raising it like a baseball bat.
If the pan wasn't enough—and looking at the damage to the door, he knew it wouldn't be—the "just in case" cabinet under the bar was waiting. The false panel. The cold steel inside. The life he'd sworn he was done with.
The Slipgate hummed in the walls, a low-frequency vibration that rattled the glasses on the shelves. The air felt charged with static electricity, heavy and metallic, like the split second before an artillery strike lands.
The door began to give. The wood screamed, the metal shrieked, and the nightmare tried to come inside.