Volume 2 – Chapter 9: A Thread of Fate

[April 27 – 2:10 AM]

The quiet was maddening.

We bunched together in the alley, the air frigid, thick, clammy against our faces, each breath feeling heavier, deeper, labored. It seemed to be resisting us: every part of the city pushed in closer, every shadow harbored a secret, every flicker of motion in the corner of my eye made my heart race. It was one big labyrinth in a never-ending series of turns. And no way to envision the road ahead. And, worse, the disquieting feeling of being watched, hunted, hadn’t abated for a minute.

Rika tightened her hold on my arm, her fingers cold against my skin. “I felt her heart race as if to the rhythm of my own pulse. We hadn’t talked since we hid, but the air between us felt suffocating. She didn’t need to say a thing; I saw the fear in her eyes, in her breath, coming up in short, shallow bursts.

“Are we safe here?” she said, her voice barely rising.

I didn’t answer immediately. I couldn’t. Safe? In this city? Could we ever be safe again?

“I don’t know,” I said at last, my voice hoarse, betraying the fear I was trying to conceal. “But we also can’t be here for a long time. We need to keep moving.”

A sound muffled the quiet — a hum, a distant whirr, like the whir of machinery, the kind you don’t notice until it’s too late. I froze, and, like a deer, my senses went into overload. Something wasn’t right. And the quiet, the darkness, the eerie stillness — all of that seemed to lead to something. But what?

We had to move. If we stayed here, we were sitting ducks — exposed, vulnerable.” “I pulled Rika up to her feet, urgency in my tone.

“Oh come on” I said, looking out on the street outside the alley, my eyes darting from side to side. “We have to get to the safe zone. Now.”

We backed away from the alley, as quickly and quietly as we could. It still had a long road through darkness ahead, but there was a glimmer of light in the distance — faint enough that it felt like something to hold on to, maybe even a hope. We moved in that direction, our footsteps quiet but quick.

As we progressed the air was thick, if not choking, stifling. Every gesture felt too loud, too obvious. I’d never listened so closely to the smallest sounds — the quiet rub of our shoes on the asphalt, the shimmer of our clothes brushing each other, the thumping of our hearts. And the hum. Now it was getting louder, closer.

“What’s that noise?” And her eyes were wide with fear, so she asked her voice not quite above a whisper.

“I don’t know,” I said, my throat dry, every muscle in my body tense. “But we need to keep moving.”

The hum turned blaring as we rounded a bend, and engulfed us, closing in on us from all sides. It was as if the air itself was vibrating with it. And then it was over as abruptly as it started.

We froze.

And that’s when I saw it. Someone cast in the peering orb of a far-off streetlight and standing in the center of a street. It was not the shade we had witnessed before. This was different — something larger. Bigger, meanerlooking, features hidden in the dim light, but the feeling of danger remained.

I reached for the small knife at my side, fingertips brushing cold steel, Rika’s heart pounding in my palm, frantic, desperate. I couldn’t blame her; she was scared. I was, too.

The figure didn’t move. It merely stood there, waiting, watching us. Its presence was chilling, something mechanical. It was not alive, not the way we understood it. It was a shadow, a machine, some thing in between.

“We can’t outrun it,” I muttered quietly, a hundred thoughts racing through my head, trying to devise some sort of plan. “We need to fight.”

Rika didn’t answer, gasping a little in fear, but she nodded her head, squeezing in closer to me like she wanted me to offer her some comfort.

Now, we stood frozen in our place like statues, seemingly for an eternity while the gravity of the moment pressed heavily upon us. And finally — finally — the figure spoke, its voice mechanical, hollow, as if it were composed of metal and echoes.

“You don’t belong here.”

The words gave me goosebumps along my spine. Moving forward hand knotted tighter around the blade heart beating in my chest. “Who are you?” My voice trembled, but I was defiant.”

The figure turned its head, and for a moment I thought I caught humanity—something familiar—lurking behind the cold, unfeeling eyes. That disappeared in an instant though and behind it a cold-blooded, calculating stare emerged.

“I am the end of everything,” it said, and its voice was slow, deliberate. “You’re just one part of the equation.”

Its words sank like lead in my bones, and my stomach curled along with their weight. The end of all things. Was this some kind of omen? A warning? Or was it a promise?

I took a step closer, my grip tightening around the knife. “We’re not afraid of you,” I said, the words burning in my mouth like a lie. We were afraid. We were terrified.

But we had no choice. We had to fight.

The shape stepped forwards again and the shadows started to curl in around it, dancing around its form. The energy in the air hummed the wrong way, like the approach of a storm. And, like before, it spoke once more, but this time, colder than it had ever spoken.

“You cannot win,” it said. “You will never escape.”

And with that, it moved.

My heart raced as the figure drew near, with excruciating calmness. My knife felt small and useless in my shaking hand, but it was the only weapon to hand.

“Rika, stay behind me,” I said. My voice sharpened with urgency.

Without stopping, she moved on, the shape already upon her. I could feel her pulse through my back, her fear radiating beyond the distance between us. The figure adjusted itself again, its motions fluid and precise. So much so that it felt like it was playing with us, and analyzing us, and waiting

“Who sent you?” I forced myself to say, keeping my voice calm even as my mind screamed at me to run, to get somehow out.

But there was no escape. The figure was a wall, bearing down on us from all sides. Its eyes sparkled with cold, mechanical calculus, and I’d never, since the flood, felt so powerless.

“It doesn’t matter who sent me,” it said, its tone cold and finaler. What you need to hear is, you’re already too far down. But they see not; their path forward leads to nothing but destruction.”

Rika’s grip on my arm tightened. I could feel her breath quickening, panic rising in her chest. But we had no choice. If we failed to hold our position, we were both toast.

“Don’t listen to it,” I whispered to Rika, constraining the panic swelling in my throat. “We can still make it. We can get

The shape moved forward again, its profile ever longer across the space between us. I gripped the knife firmly, my heart racing in my chest. There was no going back now.

“Your fate has been sealed already,” the figure said, with a soft, almost hissing tone. “And you will find there is no return from it,” the figure said, its voice dark as an omen, cutting deep to my marrow.

The words hung over us, bursting with the gravity of certainty. The coldness of its voice, the steadiness of its eyes, pierced my bones. It wasn’t so much a threat as a warning, another handout that I felt came from a place beyond my ken, a place I wasn’t sure I wanted to go.

My grip on the knife tightened, the knuckles going white with the strain, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it would not be enough. This was a battle not to be fought with a blade. This was not a fight we were meant to live through.

“Get away from us,” I growled, trying to make my voice sound fierce, to combat the creeping trepidation that threatened to freeze me in place. But in my heart of hearts I knew better. There was no place else to go. It was the correct number — we had crossed a tipping point.

It took another step closer, and the air in my lungs was dense and my heart beat fast, but I didn’t budge. I couldn’t. Rika’s hand clutched mine; her heat a slight solace against the gathering storm all around us. It had the same fear that I did, but there was something there that was different — something like resolve.

“We’re going to face it,” she said, in a whisper, strong and flat, almost defiance. “Together.”

I smiled at her, and for that one second, I could see this shine in her eyes, the same shine that had brought us up-to this moment. Whatever this number was, whatever fate this held for us, I knew one thing for certain: We wouldn’t go down without a fight.