The first thing Mike registered was the smell - antiseptic and burnt copper. Then the pain. His hands screamed where shadowfire had licked his skin, the blackened flesh cracking like dried mud with every flex of his fingers.
He blinked against the fluorescent assault. The heart monitor beeped a steady rhythm beside him, its wires snaking under his gown to stick to his chest - where the Mark of the Bridge now lay dormant, its golden veins faded to faint scars.
"Mr. Carter?" A doctor leaned over him, penlight flashing in his eyes. "Can you tell me what year it is?"
Mike's throat was sandpaper. "2025," he croaked.
The doctor nodded, jotting notes. "Good. And do you remember how you got these burns?"
I held a door shut between worlds while my daughter tried to end reality.
"Electrical fire," Mike lied.
Across the room, Lina stood stiff-armed against the wall, her fingers digging into her elbows. The scar on her thigh - Abby's scar - pulsed angry red beneath her sweatpants.
"Good. You've been unconscious for eighteen hours." She flipped through his chart, frowning. "Your bloodwork is... unusual. We'd like to run more tests."
Behind her, Lina stood rigid, her fingers digging into the railing of his bed. The scar on her thigh - Abby's scar - twitched beneath her sweatpants.
They don't remember,
her eyes screamed at him.
But I do.
The doctor prattled on about tests and observations, but Mike barely heard. His focus locked on the blood pressure cuff inflating around his bicep - and the gold shimmering just beneath his skin before vanishing again.
The System flickered in his periphery:
» HOST STATUS: STABILIZED
» BLOOD CAMOUFLAGE ACTIVE (87% EFFECTIVE)
» WARNING: CAMOUFLAGE WILL FAIL DURING STRESS EVENTS
The blood in the vial shivered, the gold dissolving into normal crimson. The phlebotomist didn't notice.
But Lina did.
As the door closed behind the technician, she was on him in an instant. "How?" she whispered.
Mike flexed his burned hands. "The System's still there. Just..."
"Then why can't you fix this?" She yanked up her pant leg, revealing the tribal mark - now spreading, ink-black tendrils creeping toward her knee.
Mike had no answer.
He went to sleep and was woken up by Lina, her facial expression, grave.
"They want to transfer you to the research wing." Lina's whisper was blade sharp as she helped him into a wheelchair later that evening. "Your bloodwork came back... anomalous."
Mike gripped the armrest. "How anomalous?"
"Your bloodwork." She spat the word. "They think you've been exposed to some... industrial toxin."
Lina's eyes darted to where Lily slept curled in a visitor's chair, crayons clutched in her small hands. "They think you might be patient zero for some new pathogen. They plan on calling the CDC."
Fuck.
A nurse approached, her smile plastic. "Mr. Carter, the Chief of Medicine, would like to - "
"Run more tests, yeah." Mike forced a chuckle. "Listen, I get it. But my kid's been through enough. How about this - you take your samples, I'll sign whatever waivers you want, but we do it here. No transfers."
The nurse hesitated.
Lina stepped in; her voice honeyed in a way that made Mike's hair stand on end. "We'd hate to involve our lawyer. But if you're insisting on treating my husband like a lab rat..."
Twenty minutes later, they were wheeling in a portable ultrasound machine.
~
~
~
Abby's breath came in ragged gasps as she dragged herself through the jungle's underbelly. The elders' spears had found their mark - three ribs cracked, her left shoulder weeping shadows where the poison-tipped blade had kissed her.
She stumbled through the jungle, one hand pressed to the weeping ruin of her left eye, the other clutching a stolen spear. The elders' verdict still rang in her ears:
"Shadow-touched. Exiled."
They hadn't even let her defend herself. Just spears at her back, driving her into the green hell.
The jungle mocked her. Birds shrieked like laughing children. Vines slithered across her path.
But it was her eye that concerned her most.
The golden orb had shattered during her trial, leaving behind a hollow socket that wept liquid darkness. She pressed a wad of moss against it, hissing as the shadows writhed under her touch.
Pathetic.
She'd been the tribe's best hunter. Now she couldn't even track her own blood trail.
The jungle whispered around her - not with the usual chorus of insects and birds, but with voices. The shadow's voices.
"Abandoned..."
"Alone..."
"She'll die before moonrise..."
Abby snarled and hurled a rock at the nearest tree. The voices laughed.
Night fell like a shroud. With the last of her strength, she hauled herself into the crook of a kapok tree, binding her wounds with vines. As sleep took her, she felt the pull - the soul-link to Lina stretching taut across worlds.
The mirror was fogged, the glass cold under Abby's bare palms. Behind her, Lina stood rigid, their backs pressed together so tightly Abby could feel the other woman's heartbeat.
Lina looked down. Tribal marks crawled up her arms, spelling words she couldn't read. "What is this?"
"The link." Abby finally faced her - one eye gone; the socket filled with swirling shadow. "It's getting stronger."
Outside the dream windows, a moon hung huge and cracked.
Lina: "They're watching us. The doctors."
Abby: "They don't matter. Only the moon does." (She reached up, tracing the crescent-shaped crack in the glass.) "It's not a timer. It's a lock. And Lily's the key."
Lina: (Grabbing Abby's wrist) "You're bleeding through." (Her own forearm now bore Abby's vine bandages, seeping black.) "How do we stop it?"
Abby: "You don't. He does. But first..." (The mirror fog cleared, revealing Mike asleep in his hospital bed.) "He needs to see."
Lina: "See what?"
Abby: (Pressing her palm to the glass) "What's coming."
The mirror shattered -
~
~
~
Mike woke up to the sounds of screams.
Not human - televisions. Every screen in the hospital blared the same emergency broadcast:
" - unprecedented solar anomaly - "
" - NASA confirms the moon is now emitting an unknown energy signature - "
" - riots in major cities as religious groups declare the end times - "
Lina stood frozen by the window; the scalpel she'd been using to carve tribal marks into her arm now dangling from limp fingers. Outside, the moon pulsed - its surface rippling like disturbed water.
The System flickered across Mike's vision:
» SYSTEM ARRIVAL IN: 6 DAYS, 14 HOURS, 22 MINUTES
» CURRENT SYNCHRONIZATION: 11%
» WARNING: CAMOUFLAGE FAILURE IMMINENT
"- Global Tech Outages: Government Investigates -"
Mike's phone buzzed with alerts:
~ All flights grounded nationwide
~ Stock market suspended
~ Military on "precautionary standby"
Lina scrolled through social media, her face pale. "Look."
The posts all showed the same thing:
~The moon photographed a thousand different ways, every image with the same hairline crack near its equator.
Mike's golden veins pulsed.
The System was coming.
And only they knew what it really meant.
Lily sat cross-legged on the floor, her crayons moving in frantic swirls. The drawing took shape - a moon cracked open like an egg, something black and many-limbed spilling out.
"Lily?" Mike called softly.
She looked up, her eyes reflecting the pulsing moonlight.
"Daddy," she whispered. "It's almost here."