Chapter 5: The Door That Wasn't There
Her legs were going numb.
Aria ran until she couldn't feel the weight of her body anymore. Until the screams behind her became static. Her school bag slammed against her back with each step, but she didn't let it go. It held the last normal things she owned.
The alley was empty—almost too narrow to squeeze into, damp and shadowed by overgrown ivy. She ducked in and crouched low.
Silence fell.
For a heartbeat, she thought she might be safe.
Until she heard it.
Wet, uneven footsteps.
Something was following.
⸻
Aria's breath caught. She reached for something—anything—inside herself. She didn't know what she was doing. She just knew if she stayed here, she'd die.
Or worse—become like them.
She clutched her chest. Not out of pain—out of instinct.
A pulse echoed inside her bones.
Something opened.
⸻
The alley vanished.
The world fell away, like a curtain ripped from a stage.
Suddenly, she was standing in a place that didn't exist—a soft, endless field under a twilight sky. A void shaped like comfort. The air was still, untouched by time.
Around her: silence.
No city. No screams. No monsters.
Just… space.
Safe.
Empty.
Hers.
She didn't understand. She didn't care.
Her knees gave out, and she curled into herself and cried.
⸻
When she opened her eyes again, the field was gone.
The alley returned.
So did the stench of blood.
And standing at the mouth of the alley, holding a bloodied iron rod and wearing a leather jacket with cold eyes like forged silver—
Was Selene.
⸻
"You almost died," Selene said flatly.
Aria blinked. Her voice wouldn't come out.
Selene didn't seem fazed by the gore on her sleeves or the twitching, inhuman corpse beside her boots. She looked down at Aria like she was a fragile artifact—interesting, but inconvenient.
"You're the girl they're whispering about," Selene said, more to herself than anyone else. "The pretty one with the flower aura."
Aria's voice cracked. "Who are you?"
Selene's lips curled into the ghost of a smile.
"No one important. Not yet."
She reached out a hand.
"You should come with me if you want to live. They're going to come looking for you."
"…Why?"
Selene leaned closer.
"Because you opened something that shouldn't exist."