Wendy stood at the kitchen counter, her hands methodically chopping vegetables for the evening's stew. The rhythmic thunk of the knife against the cutting board usually soothed her, but tonight her mind buzzed with anxious thoughts. Who would make sure Michael ate more than crisps and soda, or that John emerged from his room for more than sullen trips to the fridge?

  The door banged open and Michael careened into the kitchen, his mop of brown hair all wild, eyes shining with excitement. "Wendy, I did it! I finally beat the frost giant!" He puffed out his small chest with pride. "Took me five tries but I got him with the magic sword! Swoosh, stab!"

  Wendy turned, forcing a smile. "Well done, Mikey! Sounds like you're a proper knight now."

  "I am! Sir Michael the Brave!" He plucked an apple from the bowl and crunched into it with gusto. "When's dinner? I'm starved."

  "Soon," Wendy promised, her eyes flicking back to the pot on the stove. A sudden lump formed in her throat. How many more dinners would she cook for him? Come fall, would anyone notice what he ate?

  She swallowed hard. No, she couldn't think like that. She had to believe it would be alright. Maybe her absence would force Mum and Dad to step up.

  Michael tugged at her sleeve, apple juice dribbling down his chin. "After dinner, want to watch me fight the zombies in the next level? I might need help with the puzzle bit."

  Wendy reached out to ruffle his hair, but he ducked away with a grin. "We'll see. Don't you have some reading to finish for school?"

  "Aww, Wendy, reading's boring! I'd rather fight monsters!"

  "Tell you what," she said, mind racing. "If you do your reading, I'll help you with the puzzle and we can play together for a bit. Deal?"

  "Deal!" He turned to race back to the living room, but paused. "Wendy? You'll still help me with puzzles and stuff next year, right? Even if it's through the headset?"

  "Of course," she said, the words ash on her tongue. "Whenever you need." How many lies could one sister tell?

  In the living room, the flickering light of John's portable game console mixed with a patchwork of dim lamplight, creating odd shadows on his angular features. His eyes remained fixed on the screen, fingers dancing across the controller with practiced precision. Wendy paused at the threshold, studying her brother's profile. When had he grown so tall, so distant?

  "John, dinner's ready," she called, her voice seeming to echo in the space between them.

  He responded with a distracted nod, barely acknowledging her presence. "Be there in a minute," he muttered, his attention never wavering from the virtual world before him.

  Wendy lingered for a moment, searching for a flicker of the boy she once knew. The boy who would eagerly await her return from school, who would beg her to join his imaginary quests. But that boy had vanished, replaced by a stranger in a familiar form.

  Later, the soft glow of the television cast flickering shapes across the walls as some mindless late-night show murmured in the background. John had returned to hunch on the couch, his expression barely visible in the neon haze of his game screen. Empty plates and half-drunk glasses of soda littered the coffee table, remnants of a dinner neither of their parents had been home to share.

  Michael lay curled up at one end of the couch, his blanket cocooned around him, limbs tangled in a way that only children could find comfortable. He had insisted he wasn’t tired, that he was going to stay up and play until he beat John at something, but his grip on the controller had loosened, his blinking had slowed, and now his head had begun to tilt against the cushions, the weight of sleep pressing down.

  Wendy watched him for a moment, smiling faintly at his stubborn attempt to fight the inevitable, before pushing herself up from the armchair and carefully prying the controller from his slack fingers. He mumbled something incoherent but didn’t stir as she nudged his shoulder. "Come on, bed time," she murmured.

  Michael grumbled, barely opening his eyes. "Not tired."

  "You’re asleep right now," Wendy pointed out, shifting his weight as she scooped him into her arms. He was getting heavier, all long limbs and bony knees, but he still let his head drop onto her shoulder, still let her carry him down the hallway to his room without much of a fight.

  The apartment felt different here. The living room had been filled with the quiet hum of electronics, the occasional snarky remark from John, the warmth of their little corner of the world. But as Wendy stepped into the hallway, the air thickened, pressing against her like the weight of a storm. It was probably just the heat, trapped in the narrow space between rooms, the kind that always clung to the apartment no matter how many fans they set up.

  Michael’s room was the smallest in the flat, tucked away at the end of the narrow hallway like an afterthought. The doorframe was scuffed and slightly crooked, a mark of both time and the countless times Michael had barreled through it at full speed, usually mid-battle with an imaginary foe. The door itself was covered in stickers, layered chaotically—cartoon heroes, glowing stars, remnants of past obsessions, some peeling at the edges but stubbornly clinging on.

  Inside, the space felt cramped but lived-in, every surface claiming a piece of Michael’s world. The walls were painted a deep blue, once meant to be calming but now plastered with posters of superheroes, starships, and mythical creatures, some hung neatly, others curled at the corners, secured with tape instead of care. Tiny glow-in-the-dark stars were still stuck to the ceiling—a relic from when he was younger, back when he still needed a nightlight and believed that if he reached high enough, he could touch the sky.

  The bed took up most of the room, shoved against the far wall beneath a window that was almost always left slightly open, letting in the sounds of the city at night. The bedding was a riot of mismatched sheets and blankets, some themed with whatever show or game Michael was obsessed with that year. A stuffed animal—a well-worn dragon with one loose wing and missing eyes—sat at the foot of the bed, long forgotten but never thrown away.

  Directly beneath the bed, a trundle was tucked away, its presence easy to miss when not in use. It was John’s summer bed, pulled out when he came home from boarding school, forcing the already tight space into something even more claustrophobic. The mattress was thin, the sheets plain, a stark contrast to Michael’s chaotic nest above. A few of John’s things were crammed under the frame—a schoolbag, a half-unpacked suitcase, a pair of neatly placed shoes that Michael occasionally tripped over in the dark.

  The bookshelves were overflowing, a precarious mix of fantasy novels, adventure comics, and half-finished LEGO builds wedged between them. A dusty telescope sat forgotten in the corner, a past birthday gift from their father, rarely used now that Michael had decided he preferred galaxies of his own imagination.

  The desk by the door was a battleground of unfinished homework, tangled game controller cords, and scattered action figures standing mid-battle. A small, flickering nightlight in the shape of the moon sat near the edge, casting long, gentle shadows across the room—a comfort Michael never admitted to needing.

  Despite the mess, despite the clutter, the room was his.

  A fortress, a starship, a pirate’s cove—whatever he needed it to be.

  But in the summer, with John home, it felt smaller. The air felt thicker, the trundle bed felt too permanent, and the realization that soon Wendy wouldn’t be here either lingered like an unspoken truth. She tucked him in, smoothing his hair back as his breathing evened out, then lingered for just a moment longer, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest.

  In two months, she wouldn't be here to do this.

  She pushed the thought away, closing the door quietly behind her before heading back to the living room.

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  John was right where she had left him, slouched against the couch, one leg tucked beneath him, the other stretched out, his face bathed in the flickering glow of the screen. His expression was one of total concentration, eyes unblinking, fingers moving in steady, practiced rhythm against the buttons of his controller.

  He barely acknowledged Wendy’s return.

  Not that she expected him to.

  She sank into the armchair, pulling her book onto her lap, her fingers brushing absently over its worn edges. The familiar weight of it should have been comforting, grounding, something to focus on, something steady.

  But the words blurred.

  They slipped past her, refusing to settle, like water through cupped hands.

  She blinked hard, willing herself to shake off the exhaustion curling at the edges of her mind, but it was a losing battle.

  Outside, the city still hummed.

  A car horn in the distance. The occasional laughter of people walking beneath their window. The muffled bass of music spilling from a nearby bar, vibrating through the floor in faint, rhythmic pulses.

  The lights flickered.

  A quick stutter, barely enough to be noticed.

  John didn’t react.

  Maybe it had been her eyes, not the lights at all. A trick of exhaustion.

  She exhaled, sinking deeper into the chair, her limbs growing heavier by the second.

  The glow of John’s game still pulsed, throwing shifting colors across the walls.

  Her eyes drifted closed.

  Her book slipped from her fingers, landing against the floor with a dull thump.

  Sleep was pulling her under.

  The light dimmed again.

  Not a flicker. Not a surge.

  This time, it didn’t return to normal.

  It wasn’t like a bulb burning out, there was no sharp blink, no sudden plunge into darkness.

  Just a slow, unnatural draining, as if the glow itself was being siphoned away, stretched thin, consumed.

  The warm gold of the lamps bled into something pale, then sickly, their light struggling, faltering.

  The shadows began to stretch, not flickering, but reaching.

  They pooled in the corners of the room, stretching in the wrong directions, creeping across the walls like ink bleeding through paper.

  The corners of the apartment felt impossibly far away now, as though the walls had stretched, as though space itself had been warped just beyond the reach of the light.

  And Wendy didn’t see it happen.

  Because by then, she was already asleep.

  A sharp crash of shattering glass broke the quiet.

  Then Michael screamed.

  Wendy lurched upright, her heart pounding, her body sluggish from sleep that still clung to the edges of her mind.

  Something was wrong.

  The living room was too dark. Not the familiar dimness of night but a thick, suffocating absence of light, as if the shadows had swallowed everything whole.

  Her eyes locked onto the television, and her stomach twisted.

  The screen was filled with static.

  That should not have been possible.

  The feed was digital, no antenna, no reason for the image to dissolve into flickering snow. Yet there it was, shifting and crackling, the sound reduced to a faint, whispering hiss that made the back of her neck prickle.

  Then the smell reached her.

  Thick and cloying, it oozed into the room like something spilled from an open grave, heavy with damp decay. It was the scent of wood left to rot in stagnant water, of something long dead but not at rest, of mold and damp earth, of flesh that had been forgotten too long in the dark.

  It coiled in her lungs, sour and suffocating, as if the walls themselves had begun to rot from the inside out.

  Beneath the static, beneath the whispering, something moved.

  At first, it was only a faint wet rasp, a dragging, slithering sound, like something pulling itself across the floor.

  Then John jerked backward with a strangled gasp.

  John jerked upright with a strangled gasp, his fingers clawing at his throat, something unseen, something tightening around his skin.

  His body snapped over the back of the couch, his legs kicking wildly, knocking over the coffee table in his struggle.

  "Wendy!"

  His voice was muffled, strangled, his words cut off as the thing in the dark dragged him down.

  His Switch clattered to the floor, the screen still frozen on the last frame of his game. His feet kicked wildly in the air, his fingers clawed for a moment on the backrest, before he vanished into the shadow behind the couch.

  Wendy’s body reacted before her mind caught up. Her chair toppled backward as she lunged, her pulse pounding in her ears.

  Before she could reach the couch, the floorboards split open.

  Not splintering, but peeling apart from below, as something forced its way through.

  And then the hands came.

  Not hands. Not really.

  They looked like hands, but they were too long, too thin, the joints bending in places that shouldn’t exist, their oily skin reflecting light like something wet and rotting. They curled unnaturally around the pushed up ends of the floorboards, pulling themselves up from the cracks in the floor. They moved blindly, stretching and grasping, as if feeling for her, as if drawn by the sound of her breath.

  She stumbled back, her own breath catching in her throat, watching in horror as the things that pretended to be hands writhed between the floorboards. They pressed against the wood, forcing it to bend, splitting the space wider, making room for something else, something bigger to push through.

  Then she heard it.

  A wet, rotting sound, a noise both liquid and brittle, a slithering weight that sent cold dread curling up her spine.

  She turned, chest tightening with pure terror, and saw them.

  Figures unfolded from the shadow of the doorway, pulling themselves out of the darkness, too tall and too thin, their bodies hunched, their limbs stretching wrong.

  Their skin was gray and damp, hanging in loose, peeling strips, their flesh oozing with something too dark to be blood.

  They moved slowly, deliberately, as if savoring the moment.

  Their heads tilted at unnatural angles, their empty sockets locked onto her, hollow black voids that seemed to pull in the light, as if they could see without eyes.

  Then the laughter came.

  High-pitched. Manic.

  It wasn’t coming from them.

  It was everywhere at once, flitting through the room like a living thing.

  Something was already here.

  Something faster.

  Something worse.

  The hallway window, barely cracked open, shuddered violently, rattling in its frame as if something was forcing its way through.

  Then it burst inward.

  A blur of motion, too fast, too fluid, folding in on itself like a living shadow, twisting unnaturally before unfurling into the center of the room.

  A flash of silver.

  A wet, sickening rip.

  The first creature shrieked; its body cleaved apart in a spray of rotting black blood.

  The shadows convulsed as more of them fell, severed limbs thudding against the floor, their forms ripped apart with impossible ease. The attack was so fast Wendy barely saw it happen—only the afterimage of movement, the blur of something deadly, merciless, and laughing as it tore through them.

  Then, silence.

  The remnants of the things twitched on the ground, the room thick with the smell of rot and spilled ichor. The walls seemed to breathe, the last flickers of fading light casting grotesque shadows against the wreckage.

  And standing among the carnage, grinning through the darkness, was not something.

  Someone.

  A boy, if he could be called that.

  Barefoot, his feet slick with black ichor, leaving sticky, wet prints against the wooden floor. His sharp teeth bared in a wolfish grin, the expression stretching a fraction too wide, as if his face barely obeyed the limits of human skin. His unnaturally large eyes gleamed, reflecting the dim light like dying stars, full of mischief and something wilder, something hungrier.

  His hair was wild and tangled, sticking up in every direction, thick curls falling over his forehead, but Wendy barely noticed that.

  Her gaze was locked on the horns.

  Small, stubby, peeking through the mess of hair, a detail that didn’t belong in the world she knew.

  His ears were pointed, his hands still dripping with the black, tar-like blood of the creatures he had just torn apart like paper.

  Wendy’s breath caught in her throat.

  The boy tilted his head, considering her. His grin widened, a little too far, a little too sharp, as he stepped toward her.

  "That was fun," he mused, his voice bright and amused, as if he hadn’t just slaughtered nightmare things like it was nothing.

  Wendy stumbled back, her heel slamming into the overturned chair, her pulse a frantic hammerbeat in her ears.

  Her skin prickled with cold, her stomach twisting into knots. Every instinct in her body screamed—run, hide, don’t let him see you.

  But he was already watching. And grinning.

  This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real.

  But the bodies on the floor, the stench of blood and rot, the echo of the creatures' dying screams—none of it faded away like a dream should.

  She was still staring at him, still frozen, when he grabbed her wrist.

  "Hold on," he said.

  And laughed.

  Like this was a game.

  Like this was nothing.

  Then he pulled up. Not a jump. Not a leap. Just... rising. The air pulled her upward like an unseen tide, her feet lifting from the floor as if gravity had changed its mind. Her arms flailed, reaching for something, anything, but there was nothing left to hold onto.

  The ceiling fractured like glass, but behind it—not beams, not floors, but sky.

  Splintering into a thousand shards, it revealed not floors, not beams, not the flat above, but sky.

  A vast, endless expanse of roiling storm clouds, shifting and curling like something alive, bruised purples and deep blues churning like an ocean turned inside out.

  Gravity lurched.

  The world twisted.

  The ground wasn’t beneath her anymore.

  She was falling.

  Wind roared in her ears, tearing at her skin, her lungs locking too tight to even scream properly.

  Above her—no, below her—the storm churned, mist rolling in thick waves, and through the fog, something emerged.

  A ship.

  An impossible monstrosity, materializing from the mist, sailing upside down on the underside of the sky.

  Its shape was wrong, bending and stretching in ways that defied reason, as if it were caught between too many dimensions at once, its massive form shifting at the edges like it was still deciding what shape it wanted to be.

  And its sails—

  Wendy’s stomach lurched violently.

  The sails were not cloth.

  They were flesh, stretched too thin, veined with something pulsing, something alive. The entire ship breathed, a slow, rhythmic shudder, like the hull itself had a heartbeat.

  The wind tore the breath from her lungs, her stomach flipping violently. They were going to die.

  The ground—**no, the sky—**rushed toward them at an impossible speed. Wendy tried to scream, struggle, and pull free, but the boy’s grip didn’t waver. He wasn’t falling. He was flying.

  The wind screamed in Wendy’s ears.

  Then she realized.

  She was screaming too.