The water welcomed Kari like a wolf’s maw—not hostile, but patient…like her mother.

  The unearthly pressure should have crushed her lungs, but her fenris nature adapted, silver aura bleeding outward to form a protective shell that tasted of her grandfather’s legacy.

  I will not fail you like Eric failed me, Tiri!

  Above, her brother’s muffled shout cut off as the surface sealed behind her like a closing eye.

  Did he make it through?

  It didn’t matter.

  Down.

  Down, she swam.

  Through layers of liquid shadow where light forgot its purpose.

  The drowned city rose to meet her—not ruins, but a perfectly preserved necropolis. Spires twisted upward like frozen screams, their surfaces etched with symbols that hurt to perceive directly. Her mother’s lullaby thrummed through every stone, every current, a resonance that pulled at her bones with fingers made of memory and loss.

  It took three years and the kindness of a damn fox—a girl who should have kicked her to the curb—but she had healed.

  She was a wolf.

  A granddaughter of Fenrir himself.

  Mom, Grandpa, help me…

  Movement in her peripheral vision—not fish, not debris. Shadows with substance, sliding between buildings like oil given thought. They didn’t approach. They watched. Waiting for something she couldn’t name but felt crawling up her spine.

  The lullaby crescendoed, and suddenly Kari understood. It wasn’t coming from the city.

  It was holding something back.

  A membrane stretched across the city’s heart, translucent and pulsing like a living thing. Through it, she could see a small figure suspended in crystalline chains that hummed with each tiny movement—

  Tiri.

  Her baby sister floated there, eyes closed, lips moving in time with the lullaby their mother used to sing. An eight-year-old pup, frozen in time, her pure fenris nature the only thing keeping the membrane intact—feeding off it. The only thing keeping whatever lurked beyond from pouring through.

  Kari’s claws extended as she swam forward, but the moment she touched the barrier, agony lanced through her skull. Not pain—understanding. Knowledge that shouldn’t exist forcing itself into her consciousness.

  The seal. Tiri is the seal. Remove her and—

  The thought shattered as something vast turned its attention toward her. Not The Darkness. Something else. Something that made The Darkness feel like armor rather than infection… An armor coating the multiverse itself.

  “Fascinating.”

  The voice came from her sister’s own soft breath, resonating through the water in frequencies that made her silver aura flicker.

  “Another daughter of Fenrir… Of Alva, swimming through borrowed time. You are more familiar…like an open wound. Do I know you?”

  Kari's hackles rose, even in human form. The water around her began to darken, not with shadow but with something that made shadow seem bright by comparison.

  Yet, her lips rose in defiance. “Did you get that from peeking through my little sister’s memories, pervert? Tiri…”

  Her whisper and pivot rose past the strange, crimson bubbles that popped out of her mouth—not air, something else. Her sister’s silver hair was flecked with black stripes that shouldn’t be there, and she wore that cute smile she had when chasing prey in her dreams.

  “Kari? That tickles!” She giggled at her touch as she did the big sister thing and checked every inch of her little sister’s fur. “No, I missed you. Don’t sneak away again… I want to play.”

  Guilt stung Kari’s aching heart as she remembered all the times she’d ditched her hyperactive little sister. I’m sorry, Tiri.

  “Raw emotion… A flavor I have never sampled. Strong… No, at last. You are who I have been waiting for. Do you know what your grandfather did to earn his chains, little wolf?”

  “Did you say something, smoke stack?” she dully responded, fighting the probing fingers that didn’t even dent her defenses. “I don’t listen to worthless conversations. “Hold on just a little more, Tiri. I’m here…”

  “More resilient than your sister. More powerful… Naturally. Your grandfather refused to be filed away,” the voice continued, almost conversational. “You are such a messy Existence, your bloodline. All those contradictions, those paradoxes of power and vulnerability, mixed with endless information… My gemstone.”

  The membrane rippled, and Tiri’s sleeping face became visible in heartbreaking detail. She looked exactly as Kari remembered—her wild hair floating like seaweed, and that stubborn set to her jaw, even in sleep, at the thought of her big sister sneaking off without her.

  “Cut the bullshit and just let me take her place,” Kari snarled, stroking the side of her sister’s snout. “I’m that shiny thing you’ve been looking for, right, pervert?”

  “Such a temper…hiding a soft core, like your mother,” the entity continued through Tiri’s lips, though her eyes remained closed. “It appears to be a family trait. Such delightful stubbornness in this one. She truly believes this is all a game, a test from your mother. That belief alone has kept me from properly organizing this section of Existence… It has provided a curious reflux that takes back—a first. Quite intriguing…”

  Kari’s claws scraped against the membrane, each touch sending spikes of alien knowledge through her skull. “You know you can’t touch me so long as you hold her… Let go.”

  “Patience, little wolf. You must be studied. And do you mean this child who has been holding back entropy itself?” Tiri’s mouth moved with a smile not her own. “She came to me, barren. I gave her fruit. Look at you.”

  A chill ran through Kari’s spine, ears flicking back—no, it was just a trick.

  A lie to get into her head!

  “Shut up. You don’t know my mother!”

  It continued as if not hearing her.

  “Remarkable, really. The power hidden within your bloodline… Her pure belief has been my prison and my window both.”

  Eric crashed into the water above, his weakened form struggling against currents that shouldn’t exist. Blood leaked from wounds that wouldn’t heal, their mother’s essence eating through him like acid. His eyes found hers, wide with a fear she’d never seen in them before.

  “Kari, don’t—”

  She was done talking, though.

  An idea popped into her head, as if from nowhere.

  Not its.

  Hers, pure and true.

  “Get ready to catch her,” she snarled back, not looking away from Tiri’s face.

  “What are you—no. Kari, no! I think I know what this is—”

  But she was already pressing both palms against the membrane, silver light flaring from her skin while pouring her own coat into her little sister’s soul.

  The chains around Tiri began to crack, one by one, each break sending shockwaves through the water that tasted of iron and regret.

  “Interesting,” the entity observed through her sister’s voice. “Where did you pull this knowledge from within me? Yes, you are mine… Come, take your place within me.”

  Yeah, this guy is totally a pervert. Not some cosmic force… I’m not a kid to be fed a dream, though. You want a bite? I’ve got teeth!

  The membrane shuddered, and suddenly Kari wasn’t just touching it—she was passing through it, into a space that existed between heartbeats. The entity’s presence pressed against her mind, curious and calculating.

  And then it recoiled as she opened her teeth, transformed, and bit—hard.

  “What—no. That is not possible… I am free of the fae chains?”

  The chains holding Tiri shattered completely. Kari caught her sister’s limp form, feeling how light she’d become, how fragile three years of stillness had made her. With all the strength she had left, she tossed Tiri back through the dissolving membrane toward Eric.

  “Get her something to eat, now! She looks starved, dammit!”

  He caught her, barely, his arms shaking but sure.

  “Kari!” Tiri’s eyes flew open, confused and frightened, no longer speaking with that surreal voice. “Kari, what’s happening? The game—Eric? Mom said if I was good, if I held really still—”

  “You won, baby wolf,” Kari called back, even as new chains began forming around her own limbs as she settled in her place—thicker, darker, humming with intent; it had free rein to take her next. “Eric’s taking you home. Give him a bite for me…”

  “No!” Tiri tried to struggle, but she was too weak; her muscles atrophied from years of constant drain from the entity. “Kari, don’t leave me! You promised—you promised you’d play with me when I woke! You promised!”

  But I didn’t… That was the dream, Kari thought, keeping her eyes open to burn her little sister’s desperate face in her mind. Sorry, but this is what a big sister should do…

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Eric was already swimming upward, tears streaming down his face that could have been from pain as he carried their sobbing sister away. Each of Tiri’s desperate cries echoed through the water like breaking glass.

  “Kari! Kari! Where’s Mom? Eric, where’s Mom?!”

  I’m sorry, baby girl. I’m so sorry. Eric, you’d better tell Sora…because I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this. No. I’ll do it. I have to, to see her again…

  When they were gone, when the last echo of her sister's voice faded into the dark water above, Kari turned back to face the entity. It no longer needed Tiri’s mouth to speak—it was everywhere now, in every shadow, every current.

  “You recoiled, Mr. Pervert,” she said quietly, giving him the official name and feeling the chains tighten around her wrists. “It’s not my fenris resilience… I scare you.”

  A laugh like shuffling papers in an empty office building rolled through her. “I do not have emotions such as you. They are nice trinkets to utilize in the right light. No, what I feel is deeper than such a word…but clever girl. There’s something else in you, something your mother hid away… I must extract it for The Answer.”

  Kari’s snicker was bitter, tasting of three years of self-hatred finally given purpose. “You’re not taking anything from me, bud.”

  “Fools, you think yourself triumphant? Just like your mother… The End, is upon you. All that there is will perish; it is only a matter of time… You will never leave this place.”

  The chains pulled her deeper into that space between reality and void, and she could feel it now—something inside her chest, something that had always been there but never belonged. It pulsed in time with the entity’s attention, responding to its call.

  Then—a flash, brighter than a supernova.

  “Wait… What is this?”

  White flames erupted in the darkness, moving toward them with purpose that made reality itself cringe backward. Kari felt only one thing as they approached: annihilation.

  Pure, absolute, inevitable ending with the shimmering smile behind nine tails.

  Not death—something worse. Something final.

  Sora?

  There was no escaping her voice—not Sora’s voice, someone new—someone seductive, threaded with the scent of burning frost.

  “Hehe. Enjoying yourselves? You seem a little tense.”

  The entity laughed, but now there was something else in it—anticipation? Pride?

  “No matter how many holes they seal, how many barriers they build… You will be my way back inside, child.”

  All that answered him were neon blue eyes, peering through the approaching tide of endless flame. “As the star before the frost, light fragments into eternity to deliver a blissful sunset… Why wait for time? What was it you said? The End, is upon you,” she repeated, voice lilting like silk over razors.

  The holy effulgence engulfed them both, and in its all-encompassing intensity, Kari understood with the clarity of a wolf recognizing its own howl in the wind.

  “Rejoice if you wish.… Your victory is a hollow one. It has all led to this… You have no idea what horrors lie ahead. Who knows what secrets hide in the dark…”

  ?????

  The Heart of Honeydew pulsed beneath Sela’s fingers like a living maggot, each beat sending waves of unsettling light through the chamber. The moment she grasped it fully, the world exploded into memory—not the constructed lies of the past three years, but truth.

  She stood in a garden that couldn’t exist, where three women moved as one yet separate. The Morrigan—mother, mothers, aspects of creation itself woven into maternal form. Their faces blurred together, apart, together again, like looking at light through a prism.

  “My daughter,” they said in harmonious discord. “Our greatest creation and deepest sorrow.”

  Beside them stood a figure robed in starlight, his face kind but ancient beyond measure. The Moon Wizard—not just keeper of Earth’s satellite, but guardian of the spaces between spaces, the pause between heartbeats where possibility lived.

  “Father,” she whispered, and the memory solidified.

  She was seven—no, ageless—no, both—standing in his tower while gears ticked overhead in patterns that described the movement of realities. And there, adjusting something on the impossible clock, was—

  “Frankie?” The name tasted strange on her tongue.

  Real. More real than anything else.

  Her father placed a finger to his lips, star-sparkled eyes twinkling with mischief as the man worked. “Our secret, little honey-drop. Mother doesn’t need to know about all my friends, does she?”

  The human—because that’s what Frank was, impossibly, just human—winked at her. “Every reality needs its constant, kiddo. I’m just helping your dad keep time for when the clock strikes true.”

  “But Mother says humans can’t—”

  “Your mother says a lot of things,” the Moon Wizard interrupted gently. “Most of them true, some of them necessary, a few of them both. But Frank here? He’s a special human. He sees through the cracks in Reality itself. Like Nilly can. You like Nilly!”

  “Nilly can be scary…”

  “Haha. Yes, sweetie, Nilly…can be scary,” he mumbled, looking up at the human with a frown that said it was his fault. “But she’s a good kitty… Too good a kitty.”

  The memory shattered as the Heart dissolved into her chest, its light spreading through her veins like liquid starfire. With it came understanding that made her stagger.

  She wasn’t just a vessel for The Darkness. She was a bridge—designed to connect what couldn’t naturally touch, to be a living translation between order and chaos.

  “Sela!”

  Eyia’s voice cut through the golden haze. The valkyrie stood ready for battle, that impossible ship still manifesting around her edges, but it was Elder Rosewood who held Sela’s attention.

  The Elder’s face had gone pale as if memories had returned to her. “The Grand Chancellor… She said you had to die twice. But…”

  “Death is just another transition,” the Black Queen said—Sela’s old royal caretaker—stepping through reality’s seams like they were curtains, looking absolutely horrid. “And our dear Sela was built for transitions.”

  “Queenie,” Sela choked, tears gathering in her eyes as Raven, the untrustworthy magician of the Foundation, who stole her treats, stepped through beside her. “What happened to you?”

  “Duty I am happy to fulfill,” she whispered, twisting her finger to create a spatial rip to the wall where seven doors waited below; her void-touched fingers reached through to trace a pattern that made them sing. “The real question, little one, is whether you’re brave enough to walk through the right one.”

  “They all lead to the same place,” Sela realized, the knowledge coming from her reclaimed heart. “The center. Where the dream’s source waits.”

  “Where your father waits,” her caretaker corrected with the tone of a tutor. “Where the real game ends… Where your mothers lie restless.”

  Sela looked at her unlikely companions Jin had maneuvered to her side—Eyia ready to fight impossible battles, Rosewood questioning everything she’d believed, the Black Queen wearing truth and lies like jewelry. Aiden had a look on his face, wondering why he was still here; something Sela’s part brother—Aelion—had in common.

  “Let’s stop wasting time, then. All of us are needed for what is to come.”

  She walked toward the seventh door, feeling her father’s presence beyond it like warmth from a distant star. Behind it lay answers, terrible and necessary.

  Behind it lay the choice she was born to make.

  Behind it…was the tower of her father.

  The Moon Wizard.

  ?????

  The thorns of Null-Void parted for Jarlath like old lovers, familiar and strange all at once. Rose waited in their spreading embrace, her seven-piece eyes reflecting depths that normal geometry couldn't contain.

  “So nice of you to finally visit, Little Brother.”

  Jarlath felt this Irish temper rising at her warm tone and golden eyes, flaked with such depth that it made him feel as if she knew every piece of him better than himself…or his wife.

  “Rose. I take it you haven’t been causing trouble for my girls?”

  “Oh, on the contrary…”

  A quake ran through the ceiling above, a small crack running down it, and making him tense. “What’s going on?! Why are your chains changing color?!”

  “Mmm. I am running short on time… The Red Sea shifts with the next seal broken. Scarlet’s tempest rages, the storm set free… Listen, Jarlath!”

  He snapped his mouth shut as the thorns all around him twisted and shifted into each other in loops.

  “You’re not like your daughters,” she said without preamble. "They're bridges, combinations, sweet paradoxes that shouldn’t breathe but do, and ones the Three Pillars of your Existence would erase without hesitation. You are pure, Little Brother. Not Null-Void. Pure Nihility wearing flesh like an ill-fitting costume of impossibility.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “Because you chose not to.”

  Jarlath’s stomach cramped as he was abruptly drawn closer to her, so he could see now that her form was fighting itself—trying to be human-shaped for his comfort but failing at the edges. The black hole-like rose above vibrated.

  “We are not creatures of Existence, Jarlath. We are not even creatures. We are…implements of entropy. Tools of unmaking.”

  “Objects,” he said slowly, the word tasting right and wrong simultaneously.

  “Abstract objects to your current frame of reference,” she corrected. “I will not tell you what you are—that knowledge would pull you back before you are ready. But you need to start remembering how to be sharp. Your daughter needs you to cut through lies even if it means cutting yourself free from the life you’ve built…from your wife.”

  Jarlath’s heart ached at just the words.

  “Wendy, what happened to—”

  “Wendy is doing beautifully. She embraces her nature, dances with it for a time, before I was able to curb it. But Sora…” Rose’s expression darkened. “Sora resists subconsciously. She fears the void, fears becoming nothing. And that fear—that void—is creating cracks. Cracks the memetic entity within Kari it can exploit. There is a reason Mia is cautious of the wolf and Alva’s choices—why she did not tell Sora about Tiri.”

  Jarlath felt something stirring in his chest.

  “How…much do you really know, Rose? What are you asking me to do by ‘leaving my wife,’ or however you framed it? If I embrace what I was, I might lose them—all of them. You said it yourself; we’re dangerous.”

  “We are…very dangerous,” Rose agreed. “But you stand to lose far more in inaction. You might finally become what they need—not a father pretending to be human, but a guardian who understands both sides of their nature…because I cannot always be here for them. My seal weakens… My nature may become more…hostile.”

  The thorns around them suddenly writhed, reacting to something beyond the veil. Through the gaps, he could see his daughters—Wendy glowing with confident power, Sora flickering with desperate light.

  “The choice is coming,” Rose whispered. “The dream is ending. The old enemy of vulpes stirs in the depths of what is in plain sight. The Codex Obscura has found its key in Kari. The Moon Wizard stirs in his tower. The Morrigan’s great gambit approaches its conclusion… And your wife’s grand conspiracy hovers above all, like an executioner’s blade, severing all threads. She is coming…”

  “Aye,” Jarlath scratched his eyebrow, trying not to get wrapped up in the ominous theme and keep his cool. “Ya keep flippin’ between clear as glass and as murky fog in the dead of night. What is it ya want of me?”

  “To do what we’ve always done, little brother. We exist in the spaces between, holding the line between something and nothing.” She smiled, sad and proud. “Never would I have thought what you did possible, even in the impossibility of Nihility itself. Even if that line runs right through our hearts… You will find a way.”

  Jarlath reached out, feeling a connection, like cold lightning sparking between them, for only a moment, and his hand almost touched hers before reality reasserted itself. Between them lay not just chains but the fundamental divide between what is and what isn’t.

  “When this is over—”

  “That is a fantasy I cannot entertain…because there is no over,” Rose whispered gently. “Not for us. Not for Nihility… We are what defines the word ‘eternal’ to those in Existence, locked in our emptiness, constant in our absence. But that does not mean we cannot choose how we are absent inside it.”

  He understood then. The choice wasn’t between family and nature, humanity and Nihility.

  The choice was how to be both without losing either.

  “Teach me,” he said impulsively, accent coming on thick. “Teach me to be sharp without cutting them.”

  Rose’s smile was like dawn breaking over thorns. “It isn’t something taught… How can you teach how to be nothing while loving everything? There is the paradox. But I can unlock the gate for you to walk the many paths within the abyss…”

  As she began to speak—not in words but in concepts that existed before language—Jarlath saw it being drawn out of him. Not returning to what he was, but becoming what he needed to be.

  An ax materialized, colossal and wicked, waiting to fall.

  A father preparing to fight.

  Reaching out, he took it.

  And then…he was back on the moon base.

  In his closed, outstretched fist…nothing.

  Yet, that nothing was something, just nothing that existed.

  Okay, big sister… Maybe you aren’t so bad after all.

  One day, I’ll bring you into our family.

  I promise.

  - Growing Community =D

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