Abby's blood - thick with liquid gold and swirling shadow - hit the sacred pool, and the world screamed.
The cavern walls pulsed like a living heart as Mike's vision split—hospital fluorescents bleeding into torchlight, the beep of machines merging with tribal drums. His golden veins burned as the System glitched:
» REALITY SYNCHRONIZATION: 89.9%
» WARNING: ASSIMILATION IMMINENT
Hospital Side:
Lina's scream tore through the ICU as Mike's body levitated, his hospital gown disintegrating into golden threads. The heart monitor flatlined, but his eyes—fully gold now—locked onto the ceiling where shadows coiled like smoke. A nurse lunged with a syringe, only for her own shadow to twist and plunge the needle into her neck. She collapsed, convulsing as her veins turned black.
Tribe Side:
The sacred pool boiled, its surface reflecting not stars, but memories:
~ A tribeswoman from millennia ago, her skull splitting as the shadow forced sync too fast.
~ Riggs in his hospital bed, his mouth stretching impossibly wide as his tribal corpse grew too many teeth.
~ And Lily - Mike's daughter - her crayon drawing depicting a hole in the world, edges fraying like burnt paper.
Abby grabbed Mike's face, her fingers digging into his jaw.
"It's not in you," she hissed. "It's around you. Like a noose."
The tunnel behind them breathed.
Marpe stepped from the darkness, but he was wrong now - his jaguar cloak fused to his skin, the teeth along its hem chattering like insects. His eyes were gone, replaced by pits of swirling void.
"You misunderstand,"
he said, voice layered with whispers.
"I didn't run from you. I went to feed."
Behind him, the tunnel convulsed. Figures emerged - not warriors, but shapes wearing their skins like ill-fitting robes. Their spears weren't wood and obsidian but shadows given edge, dripping liquid that burned holes in the stone.
Abby didn't hesitate.
She moved like a striking viper, her bone dagger carving through the first shadow-warrior's throat. Black mist poured from the wound - and in the hospital, a surgeon choked on the same mist erupting from his mouth.
Mike tried to stand, but his limbs were lead. The System flickered:
» SKILL OVERRIDE: DUAL-WORLD GRASP (FORCED ACTIVATION)
His hand phased through reality - in the jungle, he grabbed a warrior's spear; in the hospital, his fingers closed around an IV stand. With a roar, he yanked.
The warrior's arm detached at the shoulder - and in the hospital, an orderly's arm shattered like glass.
Marpe laughed, his cloak unfurling like wings.
"You fight the tide with a cup,"
he mocked, stepping into the sacred pool. The water hissed where he touched it.
Abby lunged, but Marpe was faster - his shadow-spear morphed mid-thrust, becoming a dozen needle-thin points. Three pierced Abby's shoulder, and she screamed - not from pain, but from the voices the shadows carried.
Mike saw his chance.
As Marpe turned toward Abby, Mike tackled him into the pool. The water exploded upward, not in a geyser but in shapes - a thousand screaming faces, each a bridge the shadow had consumed.
One face stood out: Riggs, his mouth moving in silent warning.
Then -
Silence.
The pool was still. Marpe was gone.
Abby gasped, clutching her shoulder where the shadows still wriggled beneath her skin.
"Not a wound," she panted.
"A message."
The System updated:
» REALITY SYNCHRONIZATION: 70%
» NEW DATA: SHADOWFRAGMENTS DETECTED IN HOST "ABBY"
The cavern darkened, the torchlight bending away from the center of the pool.
Something watched from the void there.
Not a shape at all - just hunger given presence, the idea of a maw.
"You named me failure," it whispered, voice scraping from every shadow in the cavern.
"But you are the one who made me."
Mike's scar burned with the truth.
10,000 Years Ago:
He stood over a dying god, his hands carving System runes into its flesh—not to heal, but to steal. The god's last breath curdled, becoming the first shadow.
Its name wasn't a word.
It was the sound of a bridge snapping.
Mike screamed it now, and the void recoiled.
The System shrieked:
» REALITY SYNCHRONIZATION RESET: 55%
» WARNING: SHADOWFRAGMENTS DETECTED IN WORLD LOCATION "HOSPITAL"
Back in the hospital, Lily picked up her crayon.
The drawing wasn't of a hole anymore.
It was a door.
And something on the other side was knocking.
» HIDDEN STATUS REVEALED:
Name: Lily Carter
Title: "The Unlocked"
Threat Level: ???