Dance of Shadows

The shadows pressed in, thick and suffocating, whispering Elias’s name over and over.

Clara stood frozen, her breath shallow, watching as his shape flickered in the darkness. His body was caught in a constant state of distortion, as though he were being pulled apart and stitched back together in real-time. His eyes—pale and hollow—locked onto hers.

“Clara… it’s me.”

Her heart pounded. The sound of his voice sent chills down her spine. It was him. Or at least, it felt like him.

“Elias?” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

“You have to remember,” he said, his figure glitching, warping at the edges. “You don’t have much time.”

Something inside Clara twisted. She took a hesitant step forward.

Kael’s voice rang out behind her. “Clara, stop.”

She turned sharply, blinking as Kael appeared in the mist, their wings flickering between light and shadow. Their expression was unreadable, but their violet eyes burned with warning.

“That’s not him,” Kael said. “It’s what’s left of him.”

A Warning Ignored

Clara shook her head, turning back to Elias. “He’s here. I can feel him.”

Kael’s voice was firm. “No, you feel what The Collector wants you to feel.”

Clara clenched her fists. “You don’t know that.”

Kael exhaled sharply, stepping forward. “I do know. Because I’ve watched this happen before. The Collector keeps pieces of the ones it’s taken, reshaping them, twisting them into something it can use. That’s not the Elias you remember.”

But Elias—whatever remained of him—looked at her with such desperation, such agony, that she couldn’t pull herself away.

“Please,” he whispered. “Don’t leave me here.”

The words shattered something inside her.

She couldn’t lose him again.

Ignoring Kael’s warnings, Clara reached out.

The Rift Opens

The moment her fingers grazed Elias’s, the world ripped apart.

A violent force tore through the air, sending a shockwave outward. The ground cracked beneath her feet, and the sky above split, as if something massive had been forced open.

Kael shouted something, but the roar of energy drowned them out.

Clara stumbled backward as black tendrils erupted from the widening rift, twisting and lashing like living things. The Collector’s presence swelled, thick and suffocating.

And then, it laughed.

“You were warned, little one,” The Collector’s voice slithered through the chaos. “Now look what you’ve done.”

A New Horror Emerges

The rift pulsed like a living wound, spreading outward. From within its depths, something began to crawl through.

It was not Elias.

It was something older. Something The Collector had kept locked away.

The shape was wrong—jagged, shifting, its limbs bending at unnatural angles. The sound it made was not human.

Kael was at Clara’s side in an instant, their hands glowing with crackling energy. “We have to close it—NOW!”

But Clara couldn’t move.

Because Elias was still there, trapped between worlds.

And he was screaming.

The Collector’s Wrath

The Collector’s voice came again, calm and mocking. “You wanted to bring him back? You should’ve asked first.”

Clara’s head snapped up, her eyes blazing with defiance. “You think I’ll let you take him again?”

The Collector’s laughter rumbled through the air. “Oh, Clara. You never took him back. You only let something else out.”

The tendrils shot forward.

Clara braced herself.

The Cliffhanger Ending

Kael grabbed her wrist at the last second, yanking her away as the rift expanded even further. The ground beneath them crumbled, and the last thing Clara saw before the darkness swallowed them whole was Elias reaching for her, his form disintegrating into the void.

And then—

Everything went black.

The End of Chapter 6