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[code]The Steel Mill.[/code][/right][hr][hr]
The sound came from somewhere past the fence.

Kari stopped so hard that gravel scraped under her shoes. For one second, she thought it was the mill itself. Another groan of metal. Another pipe shifting in a building too old to keep pretending it was stable. But then it came again, thinner this time.

[i]A voice.[/i]

Far away. Small. Strangled by distance and concrete.

Kari’s fingers tightened around the phone.

[color=#046904]“Kari, where are you?”[/color]

She barely heard Zakira. Her attention had already gone ahead of her, pulled through the service road, through the leaning chain-link, through the open dark of the east entrance.

[color=#eac6ae]“I heard them.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“No shit, we heard something too, mami,”[/color] Lupe snapped through the speaker. [color=E14BC5]“Do not run toward it.”[/color]

Kari was already moving.

The fence gate was supposed to be locked. She knew that because everyone knew that. The mill had been closed for years, and adults liked to say “closed” like a padlock could make a place safe. But the gate hung loose now, chain snapped or cut or pulled apart, the metal links swinging gently in the wind. Kari pushed through, and the whole thing rattled so loud it made her teeth hurt.

[color=#eac6ae]“Camille!”[/color]

Her voice broke against the mill yard and came back wrong.

[i]Camille.

Mille.

Ill.[/i]

She ran harder.

The ground changed under her feet. Gravel first, then cracked concrete, then something wet that made her almost slip. She looked down long enough to see dark water running in a line along the ground, except it was not flowing downhill. It crawled sideways toward the building, collecting in the seams between slabs like it was being pulled by a mouth.

Warning hit so hard her vision narrowed.

The mill was not just wrong. It was open.

Not a door. Not a hole. A place where the world had thinned until something on the other side had leaned its weight through. The air tasted like rust and flooded basements and old blood. The windows above her were broken black squares. The pipes along the outer wall trembled softly without steam moving through them.

[color=E14BC5]“Kari, stop!”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“I can see the east entrance.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“Stay outside!”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“The door’s open.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“Of course the door’s open,”[/color] Lupe said, voice going pale with anger.

The entrance was a wide service door rolled halfway up, bent at one side like something had forced it from underneath. Beyond it was darkness, not complete, but layered. A few emergency lights still glowed inside, weak red bulbs throwing long strips over the floor. Water clung to the wall to her left in a vertical smear, climbing through cracks in the concrete. Camille’s picture had not been a trick of angle.

It looked worse in person. The water pulsed and Kari slowed at the threshold. Everything in her told her not to cross it.

Warning stayed uselessly quiet, because this was not danger approaching. This was danger already happening. Boundary Disturbance screamed about the mill itself, about the place being open, thin, rubbed raw between Cornell and somewhere else. But Emotional Thread was the thing that made her step inside.

Kersten and Camille were in there.

Their fear dragged at her so hard it hurt. It was not clean anymore. Not two separate threads she could follow easily. The mill distorted them, stretched them, bent them through walls and corridors until their panic smeared ahead of their bodies. Camille felt closer. Kersten felt lower. Or farther. Or fading.

Kari’s throat tightened.

[color=#eac6ae]”I'm at the door.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“Mami?”[/color]

Kari stepped inside.

The mill swallowed her immediately.

Sound changed first. Outside, the wind had space to move. Inside, everything came back bent. Her breathing climbed the walls. Her shoes clicked under her and then answered from too many directions. Somewhere high overhead, a chain knocked once against metal. The red lights made the puddles look black. Old catwalks crossed above her in layers, their railings warped and rusted. The place smelled like iron, mold, hot dust, and something sour underneath.

Kari lifted the phone closer to her mouth as she muted her end for a second.

[color=#eac6ae]“Camille?!”[/color]

No answer.

She took another step.

Then another- 

She turned mute off.

The concrete floor sloped where it should not have sloped. Not enough to see from outside, but enough to feel in her ankles. It pulled toward the right, toward a maintenance corridor marked EAST RUNOFF ACCESS. The sign hung crooked, one bolt missing, swinging slightly though there was no wind inside.

A wet click sounded from somewhere in that corridor.

Kari froze.

[color=#046904]“Kari, leave.”[/color]

Kari could not answer.

The click came again. Slow. Heavy. Not a machine. Not water. Something thick moving against something hard.

Then a faint scrape.

A shoe dragging over concrete.

Kari’s throat closed.

The corridor narrowed around her, walls stained with rust and black water. Pipes ran along the ceiling low enough that she had to duck once. Her phone shook in her hand. The flashlight on it caught pieces of the hallway in jerks: peeling paint, wet footprints, a smear on the wall, a backpack ripped open near a drain.

[i]Kersten’s backpack.[/i]

Kari stopped.

A sound came from farther in.

A deep breath.

Not Kari’s.

The corridor opened into a larger chamber.

Kari stepped into it, and the world dropped out from under her.

The room had been some kind of pump station once. Old equipment filled the space in dead rows: tanks, valves, hanging chains, wide pipes disappearing into the floor. Red emergency lights blinked overhead, too slow and uneven. Water crawled up the far wall in dark veins, defying gravity, pooling around broken gauges before sinking into cracks that should have led nowhere.

And in the center of the room was some [url=https://i.imgur.com/aFdMTRa.jpg]type of creature.[/url]

Kari did not have a name for it.

At first, she only understood size.

It was enormous. Not tall in a clean way, not built like something meant to stand upright, but swollen into height by sheer mass. Pale flesh hung over slabs of muscle and hardened fat. Its shoulders were thick enough to block half the chamber. Its stomach sagged forward, slick with grime and dark stains, rising and falling with slow, greedy breaths. Its skin looked wrong in the red light, waxy in some places, bruised in others, yellow-green under the surface like old infection. Its mouth was too small for the size of its body until it opened.

Then it was not small at all.

Then Kari saw what it was doing.

Camille was in both of its hands.

Not held.

Pinned.

The creature had him lifted close to its chest, one massive hand clamped around his lower body while the other dug into him with slow, possessive force, dragging him closer every time he twitched. Its mouth was pressed into him, working wetly, feeding in heavy, pulls like it was its last meal. Blood ran down Gorge’s chin and disappeared into the folds of its neck. Every few seconds, its shoulders flexed, and Camille’s body jerked weakly in its grip.

Kari’s mind blanked.

[i]Camille was alive.[/i]

That was the first thing her brain grabbed onto because anything else would have shattered her.

He was alive. Barely. His hand moved once against Gorge’s wrist, fingers opening and closing without strength. One arm hung at a bad angle. His face was turned toward the floor, eyes open but unfocused, mouth moving around words that did not reach her. He looked smaller than he should have. Not because he was small, but because Gorge made everything human look temporary.

Kersten was closer to the creature’s feet.

Or what was left in the red light looked like Kersten.

Emotional Thread screamed through Kari so violently she almost lost her balance.

Camille’s fear was still there. Raw. Choking. Alive. His thread thrashed in Gorge’s grip like a live wire. Kersten’s was weaker, fraying at the edges, collapsing into pain and numbness and then something Kari’s mind refused to name.

Kari made a sound that did not become speech.

The phone crackled near her cheek.

[color=#046904]“Kari, what do you see?”[/color] Zakira asked.

It's head lifted.

Slowly.

It had been focused on Camille, devouring him like nothing else mattered in the world. Now its small, sunken eyes found Kari through the dark. The room seemed to bend around its attention.

Kari’s knees nearly gave.

[color=#eac6ae]“Camille...”[/color]

[color=#046904]“Kari, get out.”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“It...”[/color] Kari’s voice cracked. [color=#eac6ae]“It has him.”[/color]

Kari had no plan. No weapon. No spell that could move something that size. Warning did nothing. Boundary Disturbance only screamed about the room itself. Emotional Thread gave her the horrifying certainty that if she froze, Camille would disappear into that mouth while she watched. Kari backed up one step.

The creature followed with its eyes.

Camille stayed in its grip.

Then Kari saw Kersten again.

The truth arrived all at once.

Gone in the way Isabelle had not been gone. Gone with an ending. Gone so clearly that Emotional Thread found the frayed edge and cut her on it.

Kari’s voice broke.

[color=#eac6ae]“It ate Kersten too.”[/color]

Lupe’s side of the call went silent.

For half a second, even the mill seemed to stop.

Then Gorge moved.

It was not fast at first. One huge foot dragged forward. Concrete complained under the weight. Its belly shifted. Its shoulders scraped a pipe, bending it with a shriek. Camille dangled from one hand, and the other hand reached toward Kari with slow, certain hunger.

Kari backed away.

[color=#eac6ae]“It’s eating them!”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“BITCH IF YOU DON’T RUN!”[/color] Lupe screamed through the phone.

That snapped something in Kari.

She screamed.

Gorge lunged.

She ran.

Her phone slipped from her hand. 

It hit the concrete with a sharp crack, bounced once, then skidded under a rusted worktable. Zakira and Lupe’s voices spilled from the speaker, distant and tinny.

For all its weight, it moved suddenly, violently, like a wall deciding to fall forward. Its charge slammed through a row of old equipment instead of cleanly around it. Metal folded. A pipe burst from the ceiling, spilling dark water upward for one impossible second before it splashed sideways across the chamber. The floor shook so hard Kari stumbled, shoulder clipping the wall. She threw herself behind a pump housing as Gorge crashed into the wall where she had been. 
Camille was still in its hand.

Kari pressed both palms over her mouth before she could make another sound.

Her whole body shook.

Gorge turned slowly.

Too slowly. That was the only reason she was still alive.

Its mouth opened.

A voice came out, low and ruined and thick with something that had never needed language until something tried to take from it.

[i][h1][b]“MY FOOD!”[/b][/h1][/i]

It dragged one foot, then the other, head shifting as it listened. Its nostrils flared. It could smell her. Or feel her. Kari tried to make herself small, unreadable, quiet. But her fear was everywhere.

Kari’s eyes widened.

[color=#eac6ae]“No...”[/color] she mouthed.

Each step shook the floor. Its toes spread against the concrete, pale and dark-stained, too heavy to lift cleanly. It bent with a grunt, bulk folding over itself, and for the first time Kari saw how its face changed when it was close to food. Empty and sharp at once. Stupid with hunger, but not stupid enough to ignore a sound. 

Gorge’s head lowered toward the floor.

Kari stayed behind the pump housing with both hands clamped over her mouth, trying to breathe through her nose without making any sound. It did not work. Every breath felt too loud. Every tremor in her chest felt like it moved the whole room. Her shoulder burned where she had hit the wall. Her sleeve was torn open. Cold water soaked through one side of her jeans. Somewhere under the rusted worktable, her phone lay silent. No Zakira. No Lupe. No one telling her what not to do.

Just Gorge.

The creature dragged one foot forward, then the other. Slow. Heavy. Patient in a way that made Kari’s stomach twist. It had stopped roaring. That was worse. The anger had gone quiet, buried under something more focused. Its nostrils opened and closed, sucking in the air. Its head shifted slightly from side to side.

It was smelling for her. It was not reading spells or threads for information. It was hunting the simple things her body could not hide.

Breath.

Heat.

Sweat.

[i]Fear.[/i]

Kari squeezed her eyes shut and tried to make herself smaller. She pressed her back into the rusted metal, forced her breathing shallow, and tried not to shake. That only made her chest hurt worse. White Lux did not help. It wanted to notice everything: the warped pressure in the room, the wrong water on the walls, the damaged boundary around the mill, Camille’s terror, Kersten’s fading thread, Gorge’s huge body shifting somewhere too close. Her magic was making her afraid enough to give herself away.

Gorge made a low sound in its throat.

Camille was still in its hands. That was the worst part. Gorge had not forgotten him. One massive hand clamped Camille close, pinning him against its bulk, while the other held him like food it had not finished deciding how to eat. Camille’s body twitched weakly whenever Gorge shifted. Blood and water ran together beneath him, spreading slowly across the concrete. Gorge lifted Camille closer to its mouth.

Kari’s hand found the broken metal rod beside her before she realized she had moved. Her fingers closed around rust and old grease. The rod was heavy, useless, stupid. She lifted it anyway-then something clicked above her.

Kari froze.

Not Gorge.

The sound came from the ceiling.
[i]
Click.

Click-click.[/i]

A shape unfolded from the catwalk above the chamber.

At first, Kari thought it was a sheet of metal peeling away. Then it moved wrong. Too many joints. Too much thinness. A narrow body slid between the railings, long arms hooked around rusted beams, its back covered in bent metal scraps and wet gray hide. Its head hung upside down from the catwalk, face split by a vertical mouth lined with needle teeth. Thin cables or tendons dangled from its jaw, twitching like feelers.

It had been there the whole time.

Watching.

Kari stopped breathing. The thing’s head turned toward her. Then toward Gorge. Then toward Camille. It clicked again, louder. Gorge stopped. The enormous creature’s head lifted. For the first time since Kari had hidden, its attention left her. The smaller monster hit the floor lightly, too lightly for something that size, folding on all fours before rising halfway upright. It was thin where Gorge was massive, all stretched limbs and sharp angles, its ribs showing under slick skin. One arm ended in too many fingers. The other dragged a strip of rusted chain that had somehow grown through the flesh of its wrist.

It opened its mouth and shrieked.

The sound stabbed through the chamber.

Kari flinched behind the pump housing, nearly crying out. The shriek was not just loud. It was bright, piercing, full of panic and challenge and hunger. It bounced off the pipes and woke every dead machine in the room. Gorge turned fully toward it.

For one second, Kari understood what had happened.

The smaller thing had made itself louder. A moving body full of noise and panic, right in front of Gorge. It had put itself between Gorge and the rest of his meal. Gorge hated that.

The thin monster rushed first.

It was fast. Faster than anything that broken-looking should have been. It crossed half the chamber in a blur of clicking joints and wet feet, leaping over a broken pipe and throwing itself at Gorge’s side. Its teeth sank into the folds near Gorge’s shoulder. Its fingers clawed for purchase.

Gorge barely moved.

The smaller monster tore at him, ripping dark strips from skin and fat. Gorge’s body absorbed most of it. The wounds opened shallowly, then squeezed around the damage like the flesh itself was trying to swallow the injury. The thin monster shrieked again, angrier this time.

Gorge’s hand opened.

Camille hit the floor with a wet, broken sound.

Camille moved.

[i]Barely.[/i]

Gorge did not look down at him.

The thin monster tried to leap away.

Gorge caught one of its legs and the thin monster thrashed, chain-arm scraping sparks across the concrete. It clawed at the floor, at Gorge’s wrist, at anything. Gorge lifted it off the ground with one hand. Its joints clicked wildly. Its mouth opened and closed around shrieks that broke into frantic chattering.

Gorge looked at it.

Then he bit down.

The sound was immediate and terrible.

Kari shoved her fist against her mouth so hard her teeth cut her knuckle. Tears streaked down her face. The thin monster convulsed in Gorge’s grip. Its limbs kicked against his chest. Its chain-arm whipped once, striking Gorge across the face with a crack that would have dropped anything human. He fed with both hands now, dragging the creature into his mouth, tearing into it with thick, possessive force. Pieces of metal and bone and wet gray flesh cracked between his teeth. The smaller monster shrieked until it could not. Its body folded in places bodies were not supposed to fold. Gorge pulled it apart like he was opening something wrapped too tightly.

Gorge ate faster.

That was when Kari saw the change.

His shoulders rose.

His back thickened under the skin, muscles swelling in slow, pulsing shifts. The torn places near his shoulder pressed closed. The bruised yellow-green color under his flesh deepened, then spread. His breathing changed from slow and heavy to wet and eager. He shoved more of the creature into his mouth, not chewing properly now, just crushing, tearing, forcing it down.

The chamber shook with every swallow.

Camille lay on the floor behind him.

Alive.

Somehow [i]still[/i] alive.

Kari’s whole body leaned toward him before she could stop herself.

Gorge’s nostrils flared.

Kari froze.

Toward her breath.

Toward the tiny sound she had made when she moved.

Toward the heat of her body pressed behind rusted metal.

Kari went cold.

For one second, the smaller monster still hung from Gorge’s hands, half-eaten, twitching once. Gorge stared across the chamber, chewing slowly. Blood and black fluid ran from his mouth down his chest.

He remembered there was [i]more.[/i]

Warning finally sparked, late and brutal.

[b]Move.[/b]

Kari moved.

She lunged out from behind the pump housing and grabbed Camille under one arm.

He made a broken sound.

[color=#eac6ae]“I’m sorry,”[/color] she gasped. [color=#eac6ae]“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”[/color]

She pulled.

Camille barely moved.

He was heavier than he looked. Or she was weaker than she needed to be. His shoes dragged through the water. His hand slipped against the floor. Kari’s shoulder screamed with pain as she hauled him behind the valve assembly, trying to get him farther from the center of the room, farther from Gorge, farther from the thing that had already eaten Kersten.

Gorge took one step.

The floor complained.

Kari looked up.

He was still eating the smaller monster while moving.

That was the worst part. He did not choose between meals. He shoved the last of the thin creature into his mouth with one hand and reached for them with the other. His body had become more urgent, less careful. Feeding had made him stronger, but it had also stripped away the patience.  Kari dragged Camille behind a rusted tank as Gorge’s hand slammed down where they had been.

The concrete cracked.

The shock knocked Kari off her feet. She hit the ground beside Camille, breath punching out of her lungs. For a second, she saw nothing but red light and black water.

Then a pipe burst behind Gorge.

Dark water exploded upward instead of down, spraying the ceiling and raining sideways. Gorge turned his head toward the motion, confused for half a second by the impossible flow.

Kari used it.

She grabbed Camille again, but his fingers weakly closed around her wrist. His mouth moved.

No sound came out.

Kari leaned closer despite every instinct telling her not to.

[color=#eac6ae]“What?”[/color]

Camille’s eyes shifted past her.

Behind.

Kari turned.

Gorge was coming around the tank.

Faster now.

[i]Too fast.
[/i]
Kari let go of Camille and threw herself backward as Gorge’s arm swept through the space where her head had been. The blow hit the tank instead. Metal caved inward with a shriek, and the whole thing tipped, tearing free from old bolts. Kari scrambled away on her hands and knees as the tank crashed between her and Camille.

[color=#eac6ae]“[b][i]No![/i][/b]”[/color]

Gorge roared.

The fallen tank had cut off the direct path. Not by much. Not for long. Gorge slammed both hands against it, denting it deeper with each hit. The sound punched through Kari’s chest. One hit. Two. Three.

Camille was on the other side.

Kari pushed herself up, looking for a way around, but the chamber had changed. Or maybe panic made it feel changed. Pipes crossed where they had not been. The red lights blinked slower. The corridor she had entered through looked farther away than before. The mill was stretching again, folding distance around fear.

Gorge hit the tank again.

It moved.

Kari backed away.

[color=#eac6ae]“[i][b]Camille![/b][/i]”[/color]

No answer.

Emotional Thread gave her a flicker.

Alive.

[i]Still[/i] alive.

But barely at this point.

Gorge shoved the tank aside.

It screamed across the floor.

Kari ran.

This time she did not run deeper on purpose. She ran because every direction became the same when Gorge moved. Behind her, the monster charged, no longer slow, no longer patient. Each step landed like machinery dropping from a crane. He smashed through a row of pipes rather than turn around them. Kari reached the corridor and for half a second, she thought she was going to make it.

Then the floor dipped.

The concrete under her feet softened into the wrong angle, sloping sharply toward a drainage channel that had not been open before. Kari slid, caught herself on a pipe, and felt old metal tear into her palm. Pain flashed white.

Gorge slammed into the corridor mouth behind her and for one blessed second, his shoulders caught against the frame. Kari stared back at him. Gorge stared at her. His mouth opened, full of the remains of the smaller thing and his own endless hunger.

Then he pushed.

Concrete split.

The frame widened by force.

Kari turned and ran.

The corridor ahead was low and narrow. Her flashlight was gone with her phone, so she moved by red emergency light leaking from behind and the faint shine of water climbing the walls. Her breath came ragged. Her shoes slipped. Her torn sleeve slapped wetly against her arm. Behind her, Gorge tore through the opening with a sound like the mill being unmade piece by piece. He was too big for the corridor.

He came anyway.

His shoulders scraped both walls. Pipes burst against his body. Chunks of concrete fell around him. He did not slow. Feeding had made him reckless. Stronger. Hungrier. Dumber in the exact way that made him impossible to reason around. Kari ducked under a pipe and nearly fell.

Emotional Thread pulled back toward Camille.

It hurt.

It felt like leaving someone underwater.

[sup][color=#eac6ae]“[i]I’m sorry![/i]”[/color][/sup] she choked.

The words disappeared under Gorge’s roar.

A side door appeared on her left, rusted open just enough for a person to fit through. Kari threw herself at it. The gap scraped her ribs as she squeezed through, backpack catching for one awful second. She yanked hard, straps cutting into her shoulders, and tumbled into a narrower service passage.

Behind her, Gorge hit the doorframe.

The wall shook.

The opening was too small.

Kari crawled backward, coughing, one hand leaving bloody prints on the floor. Gorge’s arm punched through the gap, his fingers scraped inches from her shoe. Kari kicked away and hit a rack of old tools. Something fell with a clatter.

Gorge shoved harder.

The wall cracked.

Kari stumbled to her feet and ran down the service passage. It smelled worse here. Damp concrete. Burnt metal. Rot. The ceiling was low enough that she had to hunch. Every few feet, the wall pulsed with climbing water. The mill did not feel like a building anymore. It felt like a throat. Behind her, Gorge screamed.

The wall behind her cracked again.

Then again.

...

...

...

[i]He was coming through.[/i]

Kari reached a fork in the passage and stopped for half a breath.

Left led down.

Right led toward a strip of gray light.

Emotional Thread pulled left.

Camille.

Still somewhere behind.

Still alive.

[i]Barely.[/i]

The gray light pulled right.

Outside, maybe.

Escape, [i][b]maybe.[/b][/i]

Kari stood there shaking, blood running down her palm, Gorge breaking through the wall behind her, and for one horrible second, she understood-

Then Warning flared so hard the world skipped.

Right.

Now.

Kari went right.

The wall behind her gave way.

Gorge burst into the passage with a roar that shook rust from the ceiling.

Kari ran toward the gray light as the mill screamed around them, and behind her Gorge came faster, fed enough to be monstrous, hungry enough to keep chasing, dragging the whole building’s wrongness after him.

The gray light was not outside.

Kari realized that too late.

She reached the end of the right passage and skidded to a stop so hard her injured palm slapped against the wall. Pain shot up her arm. For one second, all she could do was stare.

[i]The tunnel was collapsed.[/i]

Concrete, old brick, twisted rebar, and rusted pipe filled the passage from floor to ceiling. The strip of gray light came from somewhere beyond the debris, leaking through cracks too narrow for her hand, let alone her body. Dust drifted through the beam. Cold air breathed out from the other side.

Behind her, Gorge tore through the corridor.

The sound was getting closer.

Kari spun around, heart hammering. The passage behind her was too narrow, too straight, too stupid. No side doors. No ladder. No window. No miracle. Just broken walls, climbing water, and something too big to fit coming anyway.

[color=#eac6ae]“No, no, no, no—”[/color]

Gorge’s shape filled the far end of the passage.

He was wedged sideways for half a second, shoulders scraping both walls, head lowered, mouth wet with black fluid and gray meat. He pushed once. Concrete screamed. The walls gave him another inch.

Kari looked at the collapse behind her.

Then at Gorge.

Then back.

Her breath caught as she grit her teeth.

[color=#eac6ae]“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”[/color] She hissed.

Warning sparked again, brutal and immediate.

Kari understood.

She backed toward the collapsed wall, one step at a time, keeping her eyes on Gorge. Her body wanted to freeze. Emotional Thread still pulled back toward Camille, thin and fading behind walls and distance. Boundary Disturbance screamed from every surface around her. The mill felt less like a place now and more like a wound trying to close around them.

Gorge shoved forward again.

The corridor widened by force.

Kari swallowed hard and lifted both hands, as if that meant anything.

[color=#eac6ae]“Hey!”[/color]

Gorge stopped.

For one second, he only breathed.

Kari’s voice shook, but she forced it louder.

[color=#eac6ae]“Hey! [i]Over here[/i] you fucking... you fucking stupid thing!”[/color]

His head tilted.

The motion was almost curious.

Then his nostrils flared.

Kari saw the exact moment he found her fear again.

His mouth opened.

No word came out this time. Just a low, starving sound that made the loose pipes tremble overhead.

Kari stepped sideways, pressing her back near the collapsed wall, close enough that dust coated her hair and shoulders. She could feel cold air leaking through the cracks behind her. Something green and damp touched the back of her neck. She flinched but did not look.

Gorge charged.

There was no build-up. No warning beyond the one already tearing through Kari’s skull. One second he was wedged in the passage. The next, he launched forward with all his weight, shoulders scraping sparks from the walls, hands dragging, mouth open. Kari threw herself sideways and hit the floor hard, rolling into the drainage channel as Gorge smashed into the collapse.

The impact erased sound.

For a second, everything became [i]pressure[/i].

The wall exploded inward. Pipes snapped with sharp metallic cracks. Dust and gray light burst over Kari as the whole passage shook. Something heavy struck her back. A chunk of brick bounced off her shoulder hard enough to leave a nasty bruise later. She curled into herself, arms over her head, screaming without hearing it.

Gorge crashed through the blockage. The collapsed wall gave under him like a rotten tooth knocked loose. The gray light widened into a broken gap. Air rushed through, wet and warm and full of green smell.

Not river smell.

Not[i] mill[/i] smell.

Leaves.

Rot.

[i]Rain.[/i]

Kari coughed, spat dust, and pushed herself up on shaking arms. Gorge was stuck halfway through the broken passage, his bulk buried in shattered concrete and twisted pipe. He thrashed once, roaring, and the remaining debris shifted around him. Kari saw the opening beside his left shoulder.

No time to think.

She crawled for it.

The gap tore at her satchel. A broken pipe scraped across her ribs. Rebar snagged her jeans and held for one awful second before she yanked herself free. Gorge’s arm swung blindly through the dust behind her, fingers smashing into the wall inches from her ankle. Kari pulled herself through-

Then she fell.

Not down far. Maybe three feet. [i]Maybe[/i] ten. Her stomach flipped like the floor had forgotten where it was supposed to be. She hit something soft, rolled, and came up gasping with wet leaves stuck to her face. For a moment, she did not understand where she was.

The steel mill was [i]gone.[/i]

No.

Not gone.

[i]Changed.[/i]

Kari was in a room too large to belong underground. A massive industrial chamber stretched around her, wide enough to hold half the pump station and taller than the library. The walls were still steel and concrete, but they were split open by roots. Vines hung from catwalks in thick curtains. Ferns grew out of broken control panels. Moss covered the old machinery in soft green sheets. Trees had forced themselves up through the floor, their trunks wrapped around pipes and ladders like the mill had been dead long enough for a forest to claim the body.

Somewhere above, light filtered through a ceiling that should not have existed. Not sunlight exactly. Pale green, thick and sour, like the sky beyond the roof had been replaced by something under glass. Insects clicked in the leaves. Something small moved through the branches overhead and stopped when Kari looked up.

There was no doorway behind her.

Kari turned too fast and nearly fell.

The broken passage she had crawled through was not there.

Only a wall of vines and rusted metal, sealed tight as if it had always been that way.

[color=#eac6ae]“[i]No.[/i]”[/color]

Her voice sounded wrong in the room. Too small. Too clean. The jungle swallowed the echo.

Kari stumbled to the nearest wall and shoved aside vines with both hands. They were real. Wet leaves slapped against her wrists. Roots had grown through the concrete in thick knots. She clawed at them anyway, searching for a seam, a gap, anything. No entrance. No exit. Just the room. Boundary Disturbance did not scream here.

[i]That scared her more.[/i]

It did not feel safe. It felt distant. Disconnected. Like she had stepped into another version of the mill where Cornell’s rules had been replaced by something older and greener and even less interested in her survival. The wrongness was not tearing open. It had already settled.

This place had accepted itself.

Kari backed away from the wall, breathing too fast.

[color=#eac6ae]“Okay. Okay, think, Kari. [i]Think.[/i].”[/color]

Her voice shook.

A low groan came from the wall behind the vines.

Kari froze.

Concrete cracked.

The wall bulged inward.

[h3]"... [i]Food.[/i]"[/h3]

Gorge hit from the other side.

The impact shook leaves from the trees. Birds, or things shaped enough like birds to upset her, burst from the rafters in a panic. Kari stumbled backward as the vines trembled. Roots tightened around the wall like muscles trying to hold it shut.

Gorge hit again.

The vines split.

A massive hand punched through the greenery and concrete, fingers flexing in humid air.

Kari ran.

The room was huge, but open in the worst way. No corridors. No clean exits. Machinery rose in islands: rusted tanks covered in moss, conveyor frames buried under vines, old platforms swallowed by branches. Kari ducked behind a tree growing through the center of a cracked furnace and pressed herself against the bark.

Bark.

Inside the steel mill.

She almost laughed.

It came out as a [i]sob.[/i]

Gorge forced himself through the wall.

The jungle room resisted him at first. Roots wrapped around his shoulders. Vines caught on his arms. Concrete clung to his bulk. Then he pushed, and the whole wall gave with a wet, grinding tear. He crashed into the room on hands and knees, dragging pieces of the previous passage with him.

For a second, he looked confused.

The air was different. The smells were different. Heat. Leaves. Wet soil. Living things everywhere.

His head lifted.

He breathed in.

Kari clamped both hands over her mouth.

Gorge’s nostrils flared.

The jungle had too many scents. Rot, insects, sap, wet bark, fungus, old metal, standing water. It bought her a second. Maybe two. Gorge turned his head slowly, searching, listening.

Kari sank lower behind the tree.

Her injured palm left blood on the bark.

She stared at it.

Too late.

A drop slid down the trunk.

Gorge’s head snapped toward her side of the room.

Kari stopped breathing.

He took one step.

Then another.

Each foot sank slightly into the moss-covered floor. Roots cracked under him. Vines dragged across his skin. The jungle seemed to dislike him, but not enough to stop him. Leaves trembled around his passing. Small things scattered through the undergrowth.

Kari looked around.

There [i]had[/i] to be another way out.

There had to be.

She moved from the tree to a moss-covered tank, crouching low, keeping machinery between herself and Gorge. Her shoes sank into wet soil that had no reason to be there. The air was so humid her lungs felt coated. Sweat ran down her neck. She wiped it with her sleeve and immediately hated that she had moved. Gorge stopped and Kari froze behind the tank. His head tilted.

[i]Listening.[/i]

Her breath was the loudest thing in the world right now. She pressed herself tighter against the tank and tried to breathe slower. In through her nose. [i][b]Hold.[/b][/i] Out through her nose.[i][b] Too fast.[/b][/i] Gorge turned.

One step.

[i]Two.[/i]

The tank hid her from sight, but not from heat. Not from breath. Not from [i]fear.[/i]

Kari looked over her shoulder.

The far wall was solid. No door. No window. Just rusted steel swallowed by roots and a curtain of vines so thick it looked like a forest wall. A catwalk ran above it, broken halfway across, leading nowhere.

Nowhere.

The room had no exit.

[color=#eac6ae]“No,”[/color] she whispered.

Gorge heard.

His hand came over the top of the tank.

Kari dropped flat as the metal caved inward above her. The impact rang through the room. She scrambled backward on her elbows, mud and leaves sticking to her clothes. Gorge’s fingers dragged down the tank’s side, peeling moss and rust with a horrible squeal.

Kari crawled under a fallen conveyor belt.

For half a second, she was hidden.

Then Gorge shoved the tank aside.

It toppled into a tree, crushing branches under its weight. The whole room shuddered. Kari crawled faster. Her bag snagged on a piece of metal. She yanked. It held.

Gorge’s feet hit the ground behind her.

She twisted, tearing at the strap.

[color=#eac6ae]“Come on, come on-”[/color]

The strap snapped.

Kari lurched forward, leaving part of the bag caught behind her. Not the notebook. Please, not the notebook. She did not have time to check. She scrambled out from under the conveyor and pushed herself up.

Gorge was there.

Directly in front of her.

His shadow covered her before his hand did.

Kari turned to run.

Gorge grabbed her.

His fingers closed around her middle and one arm, huge and hot and slick with blood and water. The pressure stole the air from her lungs. Kari’s feet left the ground.

For a second, there was no pain.

Just disbelief.

Then his grip tightened.

Kari choked, both hands clawing uselessly at his fingers. His skin was thick and damp and impossible to move. Her injured palm smeared blood across his knuckles. Her ribs compressed. Her shoulder screamed.

[color=#eac6ae]“No!”[/color]

Gorge lifted her closer.

His mouth opened.

The smell hit her first.

Rot. Meat. Metal. The smaller monster. [i]Camille’s[/i] blood. Something old and bottomless.

Kari kicked once, weakly, her shoe striking his stomach and doing nothing.

White Lux flared in pure panic.

Not a spell.

[i]A flood.[/i]

The jungle room snapped into unbearable clarity: every vine, every root, every pulse of moisture in the walls, every line where this version of the mill did not match the one she had entered. No exit. No door. No safe path. Only one thing mattered.

Gorge’s grip.

His breath.

His mouth.

Warning screamed.

Too late again.

Gorge pulled her toward his teeth.

Kari’s body locked.

Not because she wanted to freeze. Not because she had accepted it. Because there was nowhere left for her fear to go. Her legs kicked once, weak and useless. Her hands clawed at Gorge’s fingers until her nails bent. His grip did not loosen. His breath rolled over her face, hot and wet, thick with meat and rot and the sour stink of something that had eaten too much and still wanted more. His mouth opened wider. The inside was dark red and slick, lined with teeth that did not match each other. Some were flat and grinding. Some were long and jagged. Some looked broken and grown back wrong. Strands of black fluid stretched between them as his jaw lowered.

Kari tried to scream.

Nothing came out.

Warning screamed without words.

Too late.

[i]Too late.

[b]Too late.[/i][/b]

Then something hissed through the jungle room.

Fast.

Sharp.

Almost delicate.

An arrow struck Gorge in the mouth.

Not the cheek.

Not the jaw.

[i]The mouth.[/i]

It punched past the lower teeth and buried itself deep into the wet dark behind them. Gorge’s head jerked back. His grip tightened hard enough that Kari saw white at the edges of her vision...[hr][hider=Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance OST - Ebony Wings][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HioQ_JYOrYY[/youtube][/hider][hr]A second arrow followed.

Then a third.

Then a fourth.

Each one came from the far side of the room in a tight, controlled rhythm, cutting through vines and humid air with a sound like angry insects. They vanished into Gorge’s open mouth one after another. Small pouches tied beneath the arrowheads burst on impact, spilling dark seeds, powder, and damp packed soil across his tongue and throat.

For half a second, Kari did not understand.

Then green light moved inside his mouth. Deep green. Root green. The color of things pushing up through graves and sidewalks and old foundations because nobody had told them they were allowed to stop. Wood erupted between Gorge’s teeth, forcing itself into being. Thin roots snapped outward first, threading through gums, wrapping around teeth, lashing over the inside of his mouth. Then thicker growth followed, pale wood swelling from the arrow shafts in violent knots. Branches split and multiplied, stabbing across his tongue, wedging his jaw wider. Splinters drove upward into the roof of his mouth. Vines coiled around broken teeth and pulled tight.

Gorge choked.

Muffled by the sudden tangle filling his mouth.

Kari dropped half an inch in his grip as he convulsed.

Across the chamber, standing in the broken green light near a wall that had not had a door until something had made one, Zakira lowered one bow and already had another arrow drawn.

Her face was [i]pale[/i] with terror.

Her hands were steady anyway.

[color=#046904]“Kari!”[/color] She tried.

Kari could not answer.

Gorge twisted toward the sound.

Zakira fired again.

The arrow struck the wooden mass already choking his mouth. The seed pouch burst against the growth, and the wood thickened instantly, crawling deeper, branching through itself, becoming a plug. Gorge’s jaw strained against it. The wood cracked. Then grew over the crack. For one impossible second, Kari thought that might be enough.

Then Gorge bit down.

The wooden mass cracked.

Zakira’s face changed.

[color=#046904]“[i]No...[/i]”[/color]

Gorge chewed.

Not well. Not cleanly. Branches snapped between his teeth. Roots tore out of his gums with wet popping sounds. Splinters drove deeper into his mouth, but he did not stop. He crushed the living wood against his tongue, grinding it down with the same slow, horrible certainty he brought to meat. Sap and black saliva spilled over his chin. A branch punched through his cheek from the inside.

He ate that too.

Lupe stared.

[color=E14BC5]“Oh, [b][i]that[/i][/b] is some bullshit.”[/color]

Gorge swallowed.

The motion traveled down his throat in a thick, visible pulse.

The wood was not stopping him, it was feeding him. His shoulders hitched wider. The burns along his hand tightened and split. The torn places in his mouth pressed around the splinters, swallowing them into meat. His jaw opened again, not all the way, not cleanly, but enough.

Enough to keep eating.

Enough to keep bringing Kari closer.

[color=#046904]“Lupe, keep burning the hand!”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“[b][i]BITCH[/i][/b], what does it look like I'm doing?!”[/color]

Neon-pink fire crawled over Gorge’s fingers, but his grip stayed locked around Kari’s ribs and arm. The surface blackened. Blisters rose and burst. Underneath, his flesh shifted, wet and dense, smothering the damage before it could go deep enough.

Kari choked.

[color=#eac6ae]“Can’t-”[/color]

Zakira drew another arrow - this one had no pouch beneath the head. Her fingers shook when she set it against the string. For one second, she could not see the whole monster. That was too much. Too big. Too alive in ways she did not understand. She forced her focus smaller.

Hand.

Green Lux ran down the arrow shaft, darker than before. Not leaf green. Not garden green. Something bitter. Wet. Venomous. It gathered around the arrowhead in a thin, trembling film.

Zakira breathed in.

Her fear narrowed.

[color=#046904]“[i]Rot[/i],”[/color] she whispered.

She fired.

The arrow struck Gorge’s hand between two thick knuckles, right where Lupe’s fire had already blistered the skin.

The impact was small.

The effect was not.

Green-black Lux snapped outward from the wound like a bruise blooming too fast. Gorge’s flesh puckered around the arrowhead. Then it softened. The skin sagged, splitting in wet seams. Fat and muscle darkened around the wound, breaking down in an ugly circle that spread unevenly across his hand. Gorge made a sound that was not a roar - it was almost confusion.

His fingers twitched.

Kari sucked in half a breath.

Lupe saw the gap.

[color=E14BC5]“Oh, you don’t like that, do you, fatass?”[/color]

She stepped forward and drove both hands out.

Neon-pink fire slammed into the rotting patch around the arrow. This time, the flame went deeper. The damaged flesh could not smother it cleanly. Fire licked into the split tissue, burning through softened meat and exposed channels where Gorge’s grip had begun to fail. The smell changed instantly: not just burned fat now, but spoiled meat cooking from the inside.

Gorge convulsed.

His hand spasmed open.

Kari slipped lower.

Gorge caught her again with two fingers and a thumb, crushing down reflexively.

Kari screamed.

[color=#046904]“[i]Again![/i]”[/color] Zakira shouted.

[color=E14BC5]“I’m [i][b]trying![/b][/i]”[/color]

[color=#046904]“Same spot!”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“[i][b]... I fucking see it![/b][/i]”[/color]

Lupe focused the fire into a narrower stream.

Pink flame bored into the necrotic wound.

Gorge shook his arm violently, trying to fling the pain away, but the arrow stayed lodged in his hand. The venom effect was already fading. Zakira reached for another arrow, then stopped. Venom Arrow would not stack. Not cleanly. Not this fast. If she forced another one, it might bloom wrong, too shallow, too scattered, useless.

So she did not waste it.

She grabbed a seed arrow instead and fired into Gorge’s mouth again.

Not to stop him.

To make him choose.

The pouch burst against his tongue. Roots snapped outward, filling his mouth for a second time. Gorge snarled around them, already chewing, already breaking them apart. But his mouth was busy, his hand was burning, and Kari was slipping.

[color=E14BC5]“[i]DROP HER AL-[b]FUCKING[/b]-READY![/i]”[/color] Lupe screamed.

The fire brightened until the whole jungle room flashed neon pink. Zakira fired one more seed arrow into Gorge’s jaw. The wood burst open, tangled with the half-chewed growth, and wedged his mouth wide for one more heartbeat. Which was enough for Gorge to release Kari.

She hit the moss-covered floor on her side.

The impact knocked every thought out of her.

For a second, she could not move. Could not breathe. Could not understand that she was no longer in his hand.

Then Lupe was there.

She grabbed Kari under the arms and hauled backward with a panicked strength Kari would not have believed she had. Lupe was crying and furious and still burning, one hand dragging Kari, the other flinging messy bursts of pink fire toward Gorge whenever he leaned forward.

[color=E14BC5]“... Move, mami! [i]Move, move, [b]move![/b][/i]”[/color]

Kari’s legs did not work right.

[color=#eac6ae]“[i]But Camille-[/i]”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“I know...”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“[i]He’s still-[/i]”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“...[i][b] I KNOW![/b][/i]”[/color]

Behind them, Gorge spat half-chewed wood across the moss.

Then he swallowed the rest.

The burn on his hand smoked. The venom-blackened tissue sagged around the arrow wound, but already the edges were trying to close. His mouth worked around splinters and roots, grinding them down, turning the thing meant to stop him into fuel.

Zakira stepped between him and Kari anyway.

She drew another seed arrow.

Her hands were shaking now.

Her aim stayed level.

Gorge spat another clump of half-chewed wood into the moss. It landed with a wet slap, twitching once as the roots inside it tried to keep growing even after being crushed. Gorge’s mouth worked around splinters. His jaw cracked. Sap, saliva, and black fluid ran down his chin in strings. The burned hand twitched at his side, venom-blackened flesh sagging around the arrow wound.

Then the edges began to pull together.

Lupe saw it.

[color=E14BC5]“Oh, fuck no.”[/color]

Zakira fired.

The seed arrow struck Gorge in the shoulder. The pouch burst against him, spilling dark soil and seeds across slick meat. Green Lux flashed. Roots snapped outward, trying to dig into him, trying to bind shoulder to neck, arm to chest, body to itself.

Gorge leaned into it, but the roots stretched.

Held.

For at least one second.

Then his shoulder rolled, and the roots tore out with wet popping sounds, dragging strips of flesh with them. Gorge barely reacted. The wounds pinched inward, pressure and mass forcing the damage closed before it could matter.

Zakira’s mouth tightened.

[color=#046904]“That [i]should[/i] have slowed him....”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“Hey, I don't want to hear [i]'should'[/i] right now, mami!”[/color]

Gorge took a step.

Lupe let go of Kari with one hand and shoved her backward.

[color=E14BC5]“Mami, stay behind me.”[/color]

Kari almost laughed.

Not because it was funny. Because Lupe was five-foot-one, shaking, crying through rage, and standing between her and something that could eat cars if it got bored.

[color=#eac6ae]“Lupe-”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“[i]Behind me,[/i] damn it!”[/color]

Lupe raised both hands.

The neon-pink fire around her fingers changed.

It tightened first, pulling inward from loose flame into bright, vibrating threads. Then it cracked. Sound entered it. A sharp electrical snap that made the air prickle against Kari’s skin. Pink light crawled up Lupe’s arms in jagged veins, brighter at her palms, white-hot at the center and neon at the edges.

The jungle room answered.

Leaves lifted. Fine hairs on Kari’s arms stood up. The insects in the rafters went silent all at once. Somewhere in the moss, old machinery clicked like dead switches remembering electricity.

Lupe’s eyes locked on Gorge.

She thrust both hands forward.

Neon pink Electricity hit Gorge in the chest.

The blast cracked across the room in a violent pink-white arc, splitting into branching lines as it struck him. For one beautiful second, it looked like lightning had found a body and decided to punish it. The electric brilliance wrapped over Gorge’s torso, snapped across his shoulders, jumped to the wet vines dragging against his skin, and exploded in tiny bursts where old metal fragments stuck out from the moss around him.

Gorge stopped.

Kari’s heart jumped with him.

The electricity crawled across him, snapping over fat, burned skin, saliva, blood, wet moss. Pink fire flickered underneath it, catching where the current kissed open wounds. Gorge’s muscles locked for half a breath.

Then the current died into him.

It did not travel deep. It did not seize his whole body the way it should have. It burned the surface where it touched, charring patches of skin, boiling moisture, blackening the edges of wounds. But Gorge’s body was too dense. Too thick. Too layered in fat and swollen meat and whatever impossible Pit-born mass held him together. The electricity could not find a clean path through him.

It scattered.

It sparked over him like weather over a mountain.

Gorge’s head lowered.

Smoke rose from his chest.

He moved again.

Lupe’s face fell for half a second.

[color=E14BC5]“... You gotta be fucking kidding me.”[/color]

Zakira fired another arrow before Gorge could lunge.

This one struck the side of his neck. Seeds burst. Wood grew fast and ugly, hooking around his jaw, pulling his head sideways. Gorge’s neck muscles bulged. The roots strained.

[color=#046904]“Again!”[/color]

Lupe screamed and fired again.

This time she aimed for the damaged hand.

The neon arc struck the venom wound.

That worked better.

Gorge’s burned fingers spasmed wide. Pink electricity dug into the softened tissue, snapping inside the split meat instead of sliding over it. His hand jerked open and closed, open and closed, like it belonged to something dead receiving commands from a broken wire. The arrow still lodged between his knuckles vibrated hard enough to blur.

Gorge roared.

Zakira’s head snapped toward Lupe.

[color=#046904]“There! The rotted parts!”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“Yeah, I noticed!”[/color]

[color=#046904]“Can you keep doing that?”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“For how long!?”[/color]

Zakira did not answer.

Gorge answered for her.

He ripped the wooden growth from his jaw with his good hand and shoved half of it into his mouth.

[sup][color=E14BC5]“[i]I hate him.[/i]”[/color][/sup]

He chewed.

Zakira fired again.

The arrow struck his knee. The pouch burst. Roots wrapped around the joint, crawling down into the moss-covered floor and up around his thigh. For a moment, Gorge’s leg locked. He stumbled, weight dropping heavily enough to shake leaves from the trees.

Lupe hit the same knee with electricity.

Pink-white arcs snapped around the fresh roots. The living wood conducted better than Gorge did. Light ran along the vines, through the wet seed-growth, into the places where the roots had bitten into his skin. Gorge’s leg buckled.

Kari sucked in a breath.

[color=#eac6ae]“That hurt him.”[/color]

Zakira’s eyes narrowed.

[color=#046904]“The roots carry it.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“So keep giving me roots!”[/color]

Zakira drew fast.

Too fast.

The next arrow wobbled when it left the string.

It struck Gorge’s stomach instead of his other knee. The pouch burst. Roots spread across his belly in a frantic green web. Lupe sent electricity through it anyway.

For one second, Gorge’s whole front lit up.

Pink brilliance raced through the root-web, burning it black, snapping against the slick folds of him. The smell was immediate and awful: scorched moss, burned meat, boiled sap. Gorge staggered backward a step.

Then he leaned forward.

The burned roots snapped, sank into the folds, and disappeared as he crushed them against himself.

Zakira’s breath hitched.

[color=#046904]“No...”[/color]

Gorge took another step.

The floor sank under him.

Lupe fired a third burst.

Then a fourth.

Each one hit harder than the last, bright enough to turn the green room pink-white, loud enough to crack against Kari’s teeth. The arcs jumped to hanging chains, dead panels, old conveyor frames. A rusted control box on the wall burst in a shower of sparks. Vines caught fire in short, neon-edged flashes before the wet jungle smothered them.

Gorge kept coming.

The electricity burned him.

It did not stop him.

Black patches spread across his chest, shoulders, and burned hand. His flesh blistered. His mouth leaked sap and smoke. The venom wound on his hand opened again, sagging wider with each electrical strike. But underneath every injury was more mass. More wet density. More body waiting to absorb whatever they did.

Lupe’s arms shook.

[color=E14BC5]“Why won’t you go down?!”[/color]

She threw both hands forward and poured everything into one violent burst.

The bolt hit Gorge in the face.

Pink-white light exploded across his eyes, mouth, and jaw. Electricity crawled between his teeth. Fire chased it, flaring through half-chewed wood and saliva. His head snapped back. The roar that came out of him broke into a choking, electrical bellow. For one heartbeat, Gorge stopped completely.

Zakira seized the opening.

She fired three seed arrows in a row.

One to the mouth.

One to the knee.

One to the burned hand.

The shots were not perfect, but they landed.

Green Lux burst in three places. Wood filled his jaw again. Roots lashed around his knee. Hard growth snapped over his damaged fingers, trying to force them open, trying to brace them apart before they could close around anyone else. Lupe dropped one foot back and drove electricity into all three growths. The room became pink and green [i]violence.[/i] Roots lit up like wires. Gorge’s knee buckled. His burned hand jerked uselessly. His mouth choked around wood that sparked and smoked between his teeth.

Kari, half-collapsed against a mossy support beam, stared through watering eyes.

For one impossible second, she thought maybe this was it. Maybe not kill him, but enough to give them a window to escape.

Gorge fell to one knee.

The impact shook the chamber.

Lupe gave a broken laugh.

[color=E14BC5]“Yeah! Stay down ya' bitch!”[/color]

Gorge’s hand slammed into the floor, his fingers dug into the moss and soil. Then he pulled himself forward. Zakira’s smile, barely there, died before it fully formed. Gorge chewed through the sparking wood in his mouth. His knee dragged against the roots until the growth tore apart, strips of flesh and vine coming loose together. His burned hand twitched against the wooden brace, then crushed through it by force, deadened fingers closing anyway. The electricity had scorched him. Zakira’s roots had slowed him. Venom had rotted part of his hand. His face was burned. His jaw was split at one corner. One eye had gone cloudy from the electrical flash.

And still, he stood.

Bigger than before.

[i]Hungrier.[/i]

The half-eaten wood moved down his throat in a thick swallow.

White Lux made it [i]cruelly[/i] clear.

[i]Damage did not mean defeat.[/i]

Gorge’s body accepted injury like weather. It endured it, folded around it, ate what it could, dragged the rest forward. They could hurt him. They could delay him. They could make him angry.

They could not kill him here.

Zakira knew it.

Kari saw the exact moment her face changed.

[color=#046904]“... We can’t kill him.”[/color]

Lupe’s fire flickered around her hands.

[color=E14BC5]“Don’t say that, mami.”[/color]

[color=#046904]“We just can’t.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“Then we hit him harder!”[/color]

[color=#046904]“... With [i]what?[/i]”[/color]

The question cut through the room sharper than any arrow.

Lupe looked at Gorge.

Then at her own shaking hands.

Then at Kari, barely standing.

The anger on her face cracked, and fear showed through.

Gorge took one step.

Slow.

Heavy.

The jungle floor dipped under him.

Zakira drew another arrow, but now Kari could see the truth in it. Zakira was not aiming to kill anymore. She was aiming to interrupt. To redirect. To buy movement.

[i]Seconds.[/i]

That was all they had [i]ever[/i] been buying.

[color=#eac6ae]“Don’t fight him straight,”[/color] Kari whispered.

Lupe looked back.

[color=E14BC5]“What?”[/color]

Kari swallowed, throat raw.

[color=#eac6ae]“He’s too heavy. Too slow to turn. He breaks things when he charges.”[/color]

Gorge’s nostrils flared.

His cloudy eye fixed on them.

Kari forced herself to look around the room, through the pain, through the pink afterimages, through the green light pressing against everything.

No exit.

No door.

No safe path.

But there were walls.

Roots.

Catwalks.

Old machinery.

The place where Gorge had forced himself through.

The wound in the room.

[color=#eac6ae]“We don’t kill him.”[/color]

Gorge lowered his head.

Preparing to charge.

Pink electricity dug into the softened tissue, snapping inside the split meat instead of sliding over it. Gorge screamed. Not in pain exactly. In [i]offense.[/i] His entire arm jerked sideways, the seed-grown wood around his neck snapping apart as he twisted. Zakira ducked when one splintered branch flew past her face. Gorge slammed his damaged hand against the ground once, trying to crush the feeling out of it. The jungle room shook.

Kari stared. Not at Gorge. At the floor. At the wall behind him. At the wall he had already broken through. Her thoughts were moving strangely now. They could not kill him. That much was obvious. Zakira's arrows hurt him. Lupe's fire hurt him. The electricity hurt him more when they gave it somewhere soft to go. And none of that mattered enough. Every wound closed. Everything he ate made him worse. Every second they stayed here was another chance for one of them to end up in his hands.

Kari's eyes moved across the room. Broken machinery. Collapsed conveyor. Trees growing through furnaces. The first hole in the wall, still dripping vines and cracked concrete around the edges. Gorge had made that. Not the room. Not the rift. Him. Kari's breath caught.

[color=#eac6ae]“Wait.”[/color]

Lupe looked back at her like she had lost her mind.

[color=E14BC5]“What?”[/color]

Kari pointed across the room.

[color=#eac6ae]“The wall.”[/color]

Zakira did not look away from Gorge.

[color=#046904]“What about it?”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“He got in here through one.”[/color]

Gorge pushed himself upright. His burned hand hung low at his side. Already, the blackened tissue was tightening.

Lupe's eyes widened.

[color=E14BC5]“Oh.”[/color]

Kari looked toward the far side of the jungle room. The wall there was different. She had noticed it before. Steel beneath vines. Concrete in places. Roots spreading across it in thick braided knots. But now that she was actually looking, really looking, White Lux caught along its shape. Not a vision. A relationship. The wall belonged here. And somewhere behind it, something else did too. A corridor, maybe. Another room. Something built. Something closer to the mill she remembered. Kari could not see through it. She did not know where it led. But it led somewhere.

[color=#eac6ae]“We can't beat him.”[/color]

Lupe snapped around.

[color=E14BC5]“[i]Thanks,[/i] mami, who would have [i]thought?![/i]”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“No, listen to me!”[/color]

Kari's own voice surprised her. Lupe stopped. So did Zakira. For half a second. Gorge did not. He started toward them. Kari pointed at the far wall.

[color=#eac6ae]“We make him open it.”[/color]

Zakira finally looked, then back at Kari.

[color=#046904]“How?”[/color]

The answer came immediately. Kari hated it.

[color=#eac6ae]“We piss him off.”[/color]

Lupe stared at her. Then Gorge. Then Kari again.

[color=E14BC5]“... Oh, that's easy.”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“[i]Lupe.[/i]”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“What? He already pissed me off first.”[/color]

Gorge charged.

[h3][color=#eac6ae]“[i][b]MOVE![/b][/i]”[/color][/h3]

The three scattered. Gorge hit the rusted frame where they had been standing. Metal folded inward with a scream. The impact threw moss and wet soil into the air. Kari ran left. Her ribs hurt. Her shoulder hurt. Her head hurt. Her whole body felt like something someone had dropped down a staircase. She kept running. Behind her, Gorge tore himself free from the machinery and roared.

[i][b][h1]“FOOD!”[/h1][/b][/i]

His voice shook leaves loose from the branches overhead. Kari reached the far wall and slapped one bloody palm against it. She pointed toward a section half-hidden behind a curtain of vines. Zakira ran toward her.

[color=#046904]“You sure?”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“[i]No.[/i]”[/color]

Zakira's face tightened. Kari grabbed her wrist.

[color=#eac6ae]“But it's thinner.”[/color]

[color=#046904]“That is not the same thing!”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“I know!”[/color]

Lupe screamed from across the room.

[h1][color=E14BC5]“CAN YOU TWO [i][b]BITCHES[/b][/i] CONFESS YOUR LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER SOME [b][i]OTHER[/i][/b] TIME?!”[/color][/h1]

Gorge was after her. Lupe ran backward, both hands raised, throwing bursts of neon-pink fire into his face. The flames splashed across his forehead and cheeks. Gorge barely slowed.

[color=E14BC5]“Yeah, come get me! I'm the most tasty [i]snack[/i] here, fatass!”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“[u][b]LUPE![/b][/u]”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“What?! You said piss him off!”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“[b]I DIDN'T SAY GET [i]EATEN![/i][/b]”[/color]

Gorge swung. Lupe ducked so hard she fell onto one knee. His hand passed over her head and demolished the trunk of a young tree behind her. Wood exploded. Lupe scrambled up.

[color=E14BC5]“Okay! Okay! He's mad!”[/color]

Kari looked between Gorge and the wall. Distance. Direction. The path between them. Her mind wanted more information. She forced herself to stop. She did not need more. That was the mistake. Always one more detail. One more confirmation. One more piece before she committed. There was no time.

[color=#eac6ae]“[i]'Kira![/i]”[/color]

Zakira looked at her. Kari pointed toward Gorge's injured hand.

[color=#eac6ae]“Can you make him turn?”[/color]

Zakira's eyes moved. Hand. Wall. Gorge. A plan formed between them without needing the whole sentence.

[color=#046904]“I can make him react.”[/color]

Zakira pulled an arrow. Lupe finally reached them, breathing hard enough to choke.

[color=E14BC5]“... Please tell me we're leaving, mami.”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“We're going to stand in front of the wall.”[/color]

Lupe blinked.

[color=E14BC5]“... [i]Girl, what.[/i]”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“[i]Then[/i] we're going to move.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“[i]Girl.[/i]”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“He's going to hit it.... [i]Ideally.[/i]”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“[b]Mami.[/b]”[/color]

Kari grabbed both of Lupe's shoulders.

[color=#eac6ae]“I know!”[/color]

Her voice cracked. All three of them went still. Kari's hands were shaking. Her eyes burned.

[color=#eac6ae]“I know, okay? I know this is stupid. I know.”[/color]

Gorge ripped the broken tree from the floor behind them. Roots came free with wet snaps. Kari looked at the wall, then at her friends.

[color=#eac6ae]“But I don't have any better ideas!”[/color]

That was the truth. No dramatic revelation. No secret answer. Just the best thing she had. Zakira nodded first.

[color=#046904]“Okay.”[/color]

Lupe looked at her.

[color=E14BC5]“Seriously?”[/color]

[color=#046904]“Do you have something else?”[/color]

Lupe's mouth opened. Closed. Gorge threw the tree.

[color=#046904]“[b]GET DOWN![/b]”[/color]

They dropped. The trunk crashed against the wall above them. Concrete cracked. Kari stared at the fracture spreading through the surface. A smile almost happened.

[color=#eac6ae]“Oh my God...”[/color]

Lupe looked up.

[color=E14BC5]“What?”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“He already started.”[/color]

Gorge came toward them. Not running yet. Walking. One huge step after another. The room moved around his weight. Kari backed against the wall. Zakira stood to her right. Lupe to her left.

[color=E14BC5]“... This is a terrible idea.”[/color]

[color=#046904]“[i]You're[/i] one to talk,”[/color] Zakira rolled her eyes.

[color=E14BC5]“Hey, that was [i]one[/i] time.”[/color]

[color=#046904]“If it wasn't for me, that monster would be eating your yams.”[/color]

Lupe coughed, tried to force sarcasm when she replied, [color=E14BC5]“Oh no. Not my yam-”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“... Can you two focus? This isn't the time.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“I'm focusing.”[/color]

Gorge stopped thirty feet away. His nostrils opened. Closed. Blood. Sweat. Burned flesh. Three terrified girls pressed against the same wall. His mouth opened.

[h1][i][b]“... FOOD.”[/b][/i][/h1]

Kari's stomach dropped. Warning hovered at the edge of her mind. Not yet. Gorge leaned forward. Kari's heart hammered.

[color=#eac6ae]“Wait.”[/color]

Lupe looked at her.

[color=E14BC5]“[i]Bitch?[/i]”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“Wait.”[/color]

Gorge took one step. Then another. Zakira raised her bow. Kari grabbed it and pushed the tip down.

[color=#eac6ae]“Not yet.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“[i]Kaaaaaaaaaaaari—[/i]”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“He has to [i]commit.[/i]”[/color]

Gorge moved faster. The distance narrowed. Twenty feet. The floor shook. Fifteen. Lupe's electricity started crackling around her fingers.

[color=E14BC5]“[i]Mami—[/i]”[/color]

[color=#046904]“Will you just [i]fucking[/i] wait?!”[/color] Zakira snapped.

Ten. Gorge's mouth opened. His body lowered. Kari felt reality stutter. There. Warning ripped through her.

[h3][color=#eac6ae]“[i][b]...NOW![/b][/i]”[/color][/h3]

Zakira fired. The arrow struck Gorge directly in the burned hand. Green Lux bloomed through the damaged flesh. Gorge jerked. Lupe screamed and drove both hands forward. Pink electricity struck the arrow. The current buried itself into the rotting wound. Gorge's whole arm spasmed. His body twisted. But he did not stop. He charged harder. Exactly what Kari had been hoping for. Exactly what every terrified part of her body now deeply regretted.

[h1][i][b][color=#eac6ae]“MOVE!”[/color][/b][/i][/h1]

Zakira went right. Lupe went left. Kari tried to move. Her leg gave. For half a second, she stayed exactly where she was. Gorge filled the room in front of her. Too big. Too close. Again. Not again. Lupe caught the back of Kari's shirt. The fabric tightened against her throat. Then Kari was yanked sideways so violently she hit the ground and rolled. Gorge missed them by inches.

He hit the wall.

The sound was enormous. Concrete detonated outward. Steel screamed. Roots tore apart. The entire section of wall folded around Gorge's body and then disappeared with him into the space beyond. A cloud of dust swallowed the room. For a second, nobody moved. Then came another crash from the other side. Then another. Gorge had not stopped at the wall. He had gone through whatever was behind it too.

Kari coughed.

[color=#eac6ae]“... Did it work?”[/color]

Lupe stared through the dust.

[color=E14BC5]“Mami, if it didn't, I'm going to shove my foot [i]so[/i] [b][i]far[/i][/b] up your-”[/color]

Zakira was already moving.

[color=#046904]“[i]Get up.[/i]”[/color]

Kari pushed herself onto one knee. Her legs shook. Zakira grabbed one arm. Lupe grabbed the other. Together they hauled her upright.

The hole in the wall was ugly. Not a doorway. Not even close. A human-sized gap existed mostly because Gorge had taken the rest of the wall with him. Broken rebar curled inward. Roots hung torn and dripping. Beyond it was a dark industrial corridor, unmistakably part of the mill. Real concrete. Real pipes. Real rust. Kari had never been so happy to see ugly fucking concrete in her life.

[color=#046904]“[i]Let's go.[/i]”[/color]

They went. Lupe climbed through first, kicking loose concrete out of the way. Kari followed. Zakira came last, bow held tight against her chest. The second Kari crossed the broken wall, Boundary Disturbance slammed back into her skull. She nearly fell. The mill. Cornell. Wrongness. [i]Everything[/i] returned at once.

[color=#eac6ae]“Oh, fuck—”[/color]

Zakira caught her.

[color=#046904]“What?”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“Nothing. Nothing, we're [i]back.[/i]”[/color]

[color=#046904]“Back where?”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“I don't know. Hopefully home!”[/color]

Lupe threw her hands up.

[color=E14BC5]“Great!”[/color]

A crash sounded somewhere ahead. All three froze. Gorge. Not behind them. Ahead. Somewhere beyond the pipes and intersecting corridors, he was moving. Then came another impact. Metal folded. A machine screamed across the floor. Gorge roared.

[i][b][h3]“FOOD!”[/h3][/b][/i]

Lupe whispered.

[color=E14BC5]“Oh, I am sick of looking at this ugly mother-”[/color]

Kari grabbed her hand.

[color=#eac6ae]“[i]Run.[/i]”[/color]

They ran. The corridor split almost immediately. Left. Right. Straight ahead into darkness. Kari stopped.

[color=#eac6ae]“No, no, no—”[/color]

Zakira grabbed her shoulder.

[color=#046904]“Which way?”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“I don't know.”[/color]

A roar echoed through the pipes. Closer. Lupe looked over her shoulder.

[color=E14BC5]“Bitch, you're the magical information girl-[i]bitch![/i]”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“Shut up! I'm trying!”[/color]

Left felt wrong. Straight felt nothing. Right—her thoughts skipped. For half a second she saw Lupe moving before Lupe moved.

[color=#eac6ae]“[i]Right![/i]”[/color]

They turned. Their shoes hammered against the concrete. Behind them, Gorge hit something. The whole corridor shook. A pipe burst overhead. Steam exploded into the intersection they had just left.

Lupe looked back once.

[color=E14BC5]“I think we lost him.”[/color]

[color=#046904]“[i]Bitch,[/i] shut up before he hears us!”[/color]

Another crash. Then another. Gorge was tearing through the mill instead of following its corridors. Kari realized that was both good and extremely bad.

[color=#eac6ae]“No, I mean he doesn't know where we went!”[/color] Kari said quietly.

Zakira understood first.

[color=#046904]“The room must have confused his scent. Shuuuuuuuut up!”[/color]

Gorge groaned somewhere behind the walls.

[i][h3]“FOOOOOOD...”[/h3][/i]

[color=E14BC5]“[i][b]I AM NOT THE LOUDEST THING IN THIS BUILDING RIGHT NOW![/b][/i]”[/color]

Lupe threw a middle finger up behind her.

[color=E14BC5]“[i][b]SEE?![/b][/i]”[/color]

They reached another intersection. Kari grabbed the wall. Her head was spinning. Everything inside the mill felt wrong. Too many directions. Too many disturbances. Camille's thread—

Kari stopped.

She almost reached for it. Almost. Zakira grabbed her.

[color=#046904]“[i]Kari.[/i] We have to go.”[/color]

Camille. Somewhere behind them. Maybe alive. Maybe not. Kari's throat closed.

[color=#eac6ae]“... [i]I know.[/i]”[/color]

Zakira did not let go. A sudden silence followed. Then, somewhere deep inside the mill, Gorge stopped thrashing. Kari's blood went cold.

Lupe whispered.

[color=E14BC5]“... Aw shit.”[/color]

A low sound rolled through the corridors. Breathing. Listening. Kari covered her mouth. All three stood completely still. The mill creaked around them. Water dripped somewhere. One drop. Two. Three. Gorge's breathing stopped. 

[color=#eac6ae]“[i]Go.[/i]”[/color]

They moved. Not running yet. Fast. Quiet. Shoes placed carefully against broken concrete. Lupe's fire disappeared completely. Zakira held her arrows against the bow so they would not rattle. Kari led now. Not because she knew the way. Because every few seconds, she waited for the tiny wrong feeling and chose another direction. Left. Down a stairwell. Across a service platform. Through a door hanging off one hinge. The mill unfolded around them in broken pieces.

And behind them—

[i][b]BOOM.[/b][/i]

Gorge had started again.

Lupe jumped.

[color=E14BC5]“Jesus fucking Christ!”[/color]

Another crash. Then a roar. Then metal ripping apart. He was moving in the wrong direction. Something might have caught his attention. Kari knew it was either going to get away... or not. Long as he was going away from them that was all that mattered. Eventually, they reached the pump chamber. Kari recognized it immediately. The red emergency lights. The vertical water. The blood. Her stomach folded inward. Kersten. Camille. She stopped. Lupe ran into her back.

[color=E14BC5]“Mami, why did we stop?”[/color]

Kari stared toward the center of the room. The place where Gorge had been feeding. Empty. Blood everywhere. No Gorge. No Camille. Her chest tightened until it hurt. Zakira stepped in front of her.

[color=#046904]“[i]Don't.[/i]”[/color]

Kari looked at her.

[color=#eac6ae]“We don't know.”[/color]

[color=#046904]“[i][b]No.[/b][/i]”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“I can check.”[/color]

[color=#046904]“Kari.”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“I can—”[/color]

A crash echoed from somewhere below them. Closer than before. Zakira grabbed her hand.

[color=#046904]“We came here for you.”[/color]

Kari's face twisted.

[color=#eac6ae]“[i][b]I[/b][/i] came here for them.”[/color]

[color=#046904]“I know.”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“I can't just—”[/color]

Lupe grabbed Kari's other hand. Her voice was quieter now.

[color=E14BC5]“Mami.”[/color]

Kari looked at her. Lupe was still crying. She had probably never stopped.

[color=E14BC5]“[i]We gotta go.[/i]”[/color]

Kari looked back once. At the blood. At the impossible water crawling upward. At the phone still somewhere under the rusted worktable. At everything she was leaving. Then she let them pull her.

They ran through the narrow maintenance corridor, past Kersten's torn backpack, up the sloping concrete that had felt wrong on the way in. The steel mill shook behind them. Gorge hit another wall. Then another. He was not following their path. He was making his own. That was worse somehow.

The east entrance appeared ahead. Dark blue night beyond it. Real sky. Kari almost cried at the sight of it. Lupe did.

[color=E14BC5]“Oh my God.”[/color]

[color=#046904]“Don't stop.”[/color]

Nobody stopped.

They burst through the service door and into the mill yard. Cold air hit Kari's face. The difference was violent. No jungle heat. No mold-thick corridor. No blood smell except what they had brought out with them. Just night. Grass. Rust. The river somewhere beyond the property.

They ran across cracked concrete, past dead machinery, past a loading platform collapsing under weeds. Behind them, the mill groaned. Not naturally. Something hit the inside wall hard enough to send dust from the broken windows.

Lupe screamed, flipping off the monster.

[color=E14BC5]“[b]HE'S [i]STILL[/i] FUCKING LOOKING![/b]”[/color]

[color=#046904]“KEEP GOING!”[/color]

They reached the fence. The gate hung open. Kari's foot caught on the broken chain. She went down hard. Zakira stopped immediately. Lupe doubled back.

[color=E14BC5]“No, no, no, get up, mami!”[/color]

Kari tried. Her legs finally refused.

[color=#eac6ae]“I can't-”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“Yes, you can.”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“I actually [i]can't![/i]”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“You absolutely [b][i]fucking can![/i][/b]”[/color]

Lupe grabbed under one arm. Zakira took the other. They lifted her between them. Kari screamed when her injured shoulder pulled.

[color=#046904]“[i]Sorry.[/i]”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“Don't apologize, just go!”[/color]

They half-ran, half-dragged her through the gate. The service road stretched ahead. Too long. Kari stared at it.

[color=#eac6ae]“No.”[/color]

Lupe looked at her.

[color=E14BC5]“What?”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“The road.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“What about it?”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“It's doing that thing again.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“What thing?!”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“[i][b]THE LONG THING![/b][/i]”[/color]

Lupe looked at the road. Then at Kari.

[color=E14BC5]“Mami, I don't know what that means!”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“It means don't look at it!”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“Oh, perfect!”[/color]

They ran anyway.

Behind them-

[i][b]BOOM.[/b][/i]

Every bird in the nearby trees exploded into the sky. The mill's upper windows rattled. Something huge moved behind them in the dark. Not outside. Still inside. Gorge roared again. Distant. Furious. Hungry.

[b][h1]“FOOD! FOOD! FOOD! MORE! MORE! MORE! EAT! EAT! EAT!”[/h1][/b]

The words rolled through the dead mill and out across the yard. Kari's legs found strength they did not have. She ran. All three of them did. Nobody spoke. Nobody looked back. The service road bent toward Main. The mill disappeared behind warehouses and trees, but the sounds followed. Crash. Metal screaming. Silence. Then another crash somewhere else. Gorge tearing apart rooms. Checking corridors. Breaking through walls. Looking for three smells that had already escaped him.

Kari could still hear him when they reached the first streetlight. Lupe bent forward with both hands on her knees. Zakira grabbed the back of her shirt.

[color=#046904]“[i]No.[/i]”[/color]

Lupe wheezed.

[color=E14BC5]“Giiiiiirl—”[/color]

[color=#046904]“Keep moving.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“I am about to fucking throw up.”[/color]

[color=#046904]“Throw up while walking.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“[i]Fuck you.[/i]”[/color]

[color=#046904]“Walk.”[/color]

Kari laughed. She did not mean to. The sound escaped her in one broken, exhausted burst. Lupe stared at her. Kari laughed again, then covered her mouth, then started crying. Her whole face just folded.

Lupe immediately straightened.

[color=E14BC5]“Oh, mami...”[/color]

Kari shook her head.

[color=#eac6ae]“[i]No.[/i]”[/color]

She wiped her face too hard.

[color=#eac6ae]“No, no, we have to keep moving.”[/color]

Zakira watched her carefully. Kari turned toward the road. Her hands were shaking. Her clothes were soaked. Her shoulder screamed. Her ribs hurt every time she breathed. Kersten was dead. Camille was still in there. Maybe. Kari didn't have the strength to check his thread right now. Isabelle was somewhere she could not reach. The town was breaking. The mill had opened into a jungle that should not exist. And somewhere behind them, Gorge was still tearing rooms apart because he could not understand where his food had gone.

Kari started walking. Lupe came beside her. Then Zakira. Behind them, far inside the steel mill, something enormous slammed into another wall. The sound reached them several seconds later. None of them turned around. Kari listened anyway. She could not help it.

They could faintly hear him scream about food. Kari's fingers closed around the friendship bracelet on her wrist. She kept walking.

[color=E14BC5]“Next time, don't go into the fucking mill! Dumbass ho.”[/color]

Kari laughed through her tears. Zakira shook her head.

[color=#046904]“What in the hell were you thinking?!”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“You have to understand,”[/color] Kari laughed. [color=#eac6ae]”I [b][i]can't[/i][/b] lose anyone else.”[/color]

The laugh cracked halfway through.

Lupe stopped walking.

[color=E14BC5]“Don't say that shit like it's funny.”[/color]

Kari's smile disappeared.

[color=#eac6ae]“I'm not.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“You almost died.”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“I know.”[/color]

Kari looked between them, exhausted.

[color=#eac6ae]“I could feel Kersten and Camille in there. They were terrified. What was I supposed to do?”[/color]

[color=#046904]“Wait for us. Call for backup. Literally [i][b]anything,[/b][/i] bitch!”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“And if waiting got them killed?”[/color]

[color=#046904]“And if going in got [i]you[/i] killed?”[/color]

Kari went quiet.

Lupe wiped angrily at her face.

[color=E14BC5]“You think you're the only one who can't lose people?”[/color]

That hit harder than anything else.

Kari looked down.

[color=#eac6ae]“No.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“Then stop acting like everyone else can take it.”[/color]

For a few seconds, the only sound was Gorge crashing through something far behind them.

Kari nodded.

[color=#eac6ae]“I'm sorry.”[/color]

Lupe sighed and stepped closer.

[color=E14BC5]“Yeah. You should be, dumbass.”[/color] Lupe rolled her eyes.

Then she pulled Kari into a careful hug.

Kari winced immediately.

[color=#eac6ae]“Ow-[/color]

Lupe loosened her grip.

[color=E14BC5]“Shit. Sorry.”[/color]

[color=#eac6ae]“It's okay.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“No, it ain't. You look like Jeremy's mom after she got that train ran on her.”[/color]

Kari laughed weakly.

[color=#eac6ae]“That's... so mean. I mean he deserves it, but it's still awful.”[/color]

[color=E14BC5]“Shut up.”[/color]

They started walking again.

After a few steps, Kari slowed.

Her fingers tightened around the bracelet.

Zakira noticed.

[color=#046904]“[i]Don't.[/i]”[/color]

Kari looked toward the mill.

[color=#eac6ae]“... I just need to know.”[/color]

[color=#046904]“[i][b]Kari.[/b][/i]”[/color]

Lupe moved closer beside her.

[color=E14BC5]“Mami... Just leave it alone. I know you got that stupid know-it-all magic, but not [i]every[/i] question needs an answer.”[/color]

Kari tried.

She really did.

But uncertainty had already gotten inside her.

She reached.

Emotional Thread stretched back toward the steel mill, faint and exhausted. Past the roads. Past the broken gate. Past concrete, blood, impossible water, and rooms that should not exist.

Kari searched for Camille.

[i]Nothing.[/i]

She tried again.

Not the tangled interruption she felt when she searched for Isabelle.

An [b]ending.[/b]

The thread was there only in the way a cut string was still a string.

Kari stopped walking.

Lupe and Zakira stopped with her.

Neither asked.

They saw her face.

Kari's hand closed tightly around the bracelet.

She sighed.

Far behind them, Gorge screamed again.

This time, none of them said anything.

They kept walking.[hr][hr][hr][hr][hr][hr][hr][hr][center]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/ZMkv419.png[/img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/DxEICfP.png[/img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/3aTc7Ee.png[/img]

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