Beyond the veil

For centuries, humanity had believed in a cosmic balance—three realms forming a divine trinity: heaven, hell, and the corporeal plane. Each obeyed unbreakable laws, locked in an eternal struggle for souls. But when the Vatican uncovered evidence of a forbidden fourth realm—the antispace—the very foundation of faith and reality trembled. This was no celestial body or hellish pit, but a space between spaces, where nothing followed the rules. Unlike angels, who descended only to claim the souls of the good, and demons, who seized the wicked, the fey who resided in the antispace existed outside the established order. Slipping between worlds at will, they moved through the cracks of mythology and urban legend, their presence a whisper in the shadows.

As scholars and exorcists scrambled to understand this eldritch anomaly, one terrifying truth emerged: the fey had never been bound by heaven’s decree or hell’s dominion—they had their own agenda.

At least, that’s what my grandmother told me.

She had always believed that one day, we—she and I—would stand together, a duo of exorcists, protecting the delicate balance. But that vision was shattered when she returned home from a mission severely wounded. The injuries were unlike anything a demon or angel could inflict, the marks not just physical, but deeply unnatural.

“What attacked you?” I asked, panic rising in my chest.

Her breath came ragged, her once-steady hands now trembling. She reached weakly for the edge of the table, but her strength failed her. “I... I couldn’t see it. It was too fast—agile, and... dangerous.”

I watched in horror as she lifted her side, revealing jagged slash marks, blackened and swollen. The blood clung to her skin like tar, dark and thick, unlike any wound I’d ever seen. The smell of it was wrong, metallic, a scent too old to be of this world.

“Grandma, sit down,” I begged, my voice faltering as I scrambled for anything to help. “We need a doctor. We can say it was a bear or something—”

“No.” Her voice was weak, but her gaze sharp as ever. She forced a half-smile, her breath rattling. “This... this is part of the job. I’ve already seen the agency. This isn’t something they can heal. They tried.”

Tears welled up in my eyes, but I fought to hold myself together. “I’ll fix you up. I can do something.”

I rushed to the bathroom, my hands shaking violently as I grabbed bandages and antiseptic, my heart pounding in my chest. But when I returned to her side, the scent of burning sage and old parchment filled the air, choking the room in an ancient, unsettling presence.

Grandma’s breathing grew even more labored, the warmth draining from her body, and I felt a chill unlike any I’d ever known—an unnatural cold that twisted the very air around us.

Suddenly, the curtains flared, a cold breeze stirring, but no windows were open. The wind carried a sound, faint at first, like the rustling of dry leaves. Then I realized—it was laughter. Sweet and cruel, like the echoes of a distant nightmare. And then it appeared.

It wasn’t a demon. It wasn’t an angel. It wasn’t anything I knew.

A creature, its form shifting unnaturally, slithered into the room. It resembled a fox, but everything about it felt wrong. Its black eyes gleamed like voids, hollow and cold, while a green jewel glowed faintly in the center of its forehead. It wasn’t just a beast—it was a being from somewhere beyond comprehension, something older than time itself.

The creature shifted between forms, from something humanoid, tall and wiry, to a monstrous shape, its claws clicking against the floor like the tapping of a clock counting down the seconds.

I froze, my heart leaping into my throat.

Its voice was a low, melodic whisper, rich with the weight of ages. “You still don’t understand, do you?”

I could barely speak, my voice barely more than a whisper. “I... I don’t understand.”

The creature’s smile widened, revealing rows of sharp, glistening fangs. “You were never meant to stop us. You were always meant to help us.”

My blood ran cold, my mind struggling to grasp the magnitude of its words. The world tilted, as if the very air had shifted, and I stumbled backward.

The fey’s form flickered, its edges warping like it was made of shadows themselves. Its eyes—dark as voids—held me captive with an almost predatory curiosity. The weight of its presence pressed down on me, the room growing smaller, suffocating.

“You don’t need to understand,” it purred, its voice like velvet sliding across a blade. “But perhaps it’s time you knew the truth.”

The room warped, stretching and twisting, as if reality itself was being unraveled. For one fleeting second, the fey’s fox-like face melted away, revealing something... familiar. A face I knew all too well.

My father.

I blinked, and the illusion was gone. The fox returned.

“You think this is a battle of good versus evil,” the fey continued, its voice laced with contempt. “You think you’ve been fighting demons and angels to maintain some sacred balance. But it was all a lie, Luca. All of it.”

I clenched my fists, my knuckles turning white as my heart thundered in my chest. “No. No, this is wrong. My grandmother... she fought for the balance. For the light.”

The fey let out a soft, hollow laugh—like dead leaves scraping across the forest floor. “Your grandmother wasn’t fighting for the light, Luca. She was fighting to keep you out of it. She knew what you were. She knew what you would become. But even she didn’t know the full extent of what had been done to you.”

“What do you mean?” My voice trembled, the words thick in my throat.

The creature’s form flickered again, its body shifting like a liquid, until it seemed almost human, though twisted, unnatural. The black eyes gleamed with ancient wisdom, tinged with a predator’s hunger.

“You’ve been marked,” it whispered, the words sending a chill through my spine.

Marked.

The word rang out, reverberating through my mind like a bell tolling in the distance. It meant something. It meant everything.

“Marked by whom?” I whispered, the breath choking in my chest.

“By them,” the fey purred. “The ones who created heaven, hell, and the mortal world. The ones who created this lie—the balance.”

Then, the world fractured.

The fey’s face twisted again, the form dissolving like smoke, before materializing into the face of my father.

“I believe you would listen more if I appeared like this, wouldn’t you, son?” The fey’s voice was mockingly tender, and yet there was an undeniable malice beneath it.

The impact hit me like a hammer to the chest. My knees buckled, and my vision swam with nausea.

“No... this isn’t possible,” I gasped. “You’re—”

The fey—my father—smiled coldly, his eyes glinting with unholy triumph. “You were never just a mortal, Luca. Heaven, hell—they created the realms to control humanity. But they made one fatal mistake. They created you. A being beyond their control.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“The balance, Luca,” my father—the fey—continued. “It was never meant to work. Heaven, hell, the mortal realm—they were never meant to coexist. But you—you were created to traverse them all.”

The weight of those words crushed me. I wasn’t human. I wasn’t a victim of fate. I was a tool. A weapon. An experiment.

“You were meant to be the bridge between the realms,” it said, its voice no longer affectionate, but dripping with cold calculation. “They used your mother to create you. You’re not just a part of the balance. You are the key.”

My world shattered.

“You were always meant to join us, Luca,” it said, its voice dripping with cruel glee. “Your grandmother tried to protect you, but she was too late. She kept you from learning the truth, but now... now it’s time. You will become part of our plan.”

I shook my head, the air thick with disbelief. “No. No, I won’t... I can’t—”

“You already have, son,” it mocked. “The moment you cried your first tears, you were sealed. It was my doing. I killed your real father, so I could become him. To ensure the plan went perfectly. Your fate has been sealed since the beginning.”

The room grew dark, the air humming with an ominous energy.

“You’ll join us, Luca,” the fey whispered. “You are the instrument of a new world. The force that will shatter the balance.”

It wasn’t just a monster.

It wasn’t fate.

I was the key.

And now, there was no escaping it.