The afternoon glow had curdled into violet dusk as Marcus, Lila, and Elias followed the winding road that sloped away from Father Ilyas's retreat. The priest's words still echoed in Marcus's mind — "Follow the light that bends, not the one that blinds."
The pendant now in Lila's hand pulsed faintly, its glow no longer golden but tinted with a strange amethyst hue, guiding them through a countryside that seemed to have forgotten itself.
The air was colder here. Trees leaned unnaturally toward the road, their branches whispering against one another like nervous sentinels. Elias, seated in the back with the folded map spread across his knees, cleared his throat.
"According to Father Ilyas's marks, the next turn should take us toward Shinshigan's lower quarter. But…" He hesitated, tracing a line that looped back on itself. "This path — it wasn't here before."
Marcus frowned. "Road shifts don't happen in real life, Elias."
"Then explain why the signs we passed an hour ago are repeating themselves," Elias muttered.
Marcus tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He didn't want to admit it, but the clerk was right — twice they'd passed the same roadside sign, the same cracked billboard of a smiling child advertising Shomon Springs Water. Only the colors kept changing: first blue, then grey, now an unsettling shade of mauve.
Lila looked out the window. "It's spreading."
They all turned toward her. She was staring at the grass that lined the road — it was blackening, withering in slow ripples that crawled toward them. A breeze moved through the valley, and with it came a faint metallic hum, like distant bells submerged underwater.
The Host was waking.
They drove in silence for miles. The landscape blurred — houses stood hollow with their doors ajar, laundry frozen mid-sway, birds perched in eerie stillness. The mist thickened until the horizon vanished, and only the pendant's rhythmic glow gave direction.
When the city lights finally reappeared, they were wrong. Shinshigan had always shimmered gold against the evening sea, but now its skyline flickered as though swallowed by a dream. Every tower leaned at an angle, shadows crawling up instead of down.
Elias shuddered. "It's like the city's breathing wrong."
Marcus pulled to the side of the road. The air was heavy with ozone.
"I need to see someone," he said finally. "An old friend who might still have access to the precinct's surveillance grid."
Lila frowned. "A police friend?"
"David Grant. We worked together years ago — back before…" He paused. "Before I started chasing what people called ghosts."
They found David Grant in the old municipal station near Riverlane. The station's neon sign buzzed weakly, half the letters missing. Inside, the air smelled of burnt coffee and static. David sat behind a desk cluttered with half-open files, his face drawn and tired.
He looked up as they entered.
"Marcus Hale," he said flatly. "You've got some nerve showing up here. I heard you quit the force to chase visions."
Marcus managed a faint grin. "Turns out the visions were real."
David's jaw tightened. He gestured toward the flickering monitors on the wall. They showed distorted feeds — streets bending into spirals, lights blinking in impossible rhythms, and in one frame, a shape that shimmered before vanishing.
"You see that?" David said. "You call it visions. I call it interference. Whatever's happening, it's infecting our tech. Power grids, communications, everything's failing. And your hotel case…" He shook his head. "No one's going near that cursed place. Not without evidence."
"I need a warrant," Marcus pressed. "Just one sweep through Shomon Hotel. You know it started there."
David laughed dryly. "You're working on faith, Marcus. Not facts."
Lila stepped forward, her voice low but steady. "Faith sometimes moves before facts catch up."
David's gaze flicked toward her, something in her calmness unsettling him. For a moment, the monitors behind him glitched — and an image of the Shomon Hotel flashed, its windows glowing red like eyes.
Marcus stepped closer. "You saw it too, didn't you? The Host. It's not just an infection — it's an invasion."
David looked away. "Even if I believed you, there's nothing I can do. The city's under lockdown orders. No patrols past the eastern bridge."
Marcus's shoulders slumped. "Then I'll go without your permission."
David sighed. "You always were stubborn." He slid a crumpled paper across the desk. "You didn't get this from me."
Marcus opened it. A hand-drawn sketch — coordinates and a time. 03:00 — Riverlane access.
"An old subway route beneath the city," David murmured. "It's off-grid. You can get close to the hotel from there, unseen. But Marcus —" he met his eyes — "whatever's under that place isn't human anymore."
By the time they left the station, night had folded fully over Shinshigan. The mist was no longer distant — it seeped between alleyways, coating the streets with a faint shimmer like oil. They passed abandoned cars, windows shattered, vines crawling through the doors.
Elias leaned forward nervously. "Are we sure this is a good idea? The city's falling apart, and we're walking straight into its heart."
Marcus didn't answer. He was staring at the pendant. It had stopped pulsing — now it simply burned, unwavering, as if it had made up its mind.
Lila whispered, "The light's leading us where it began."
They reached Riverlane by midnight. The old subway entrance gaped open like a wound. The air smelled of rust and earth. As they descended, the ground trembled faintly — not from machinery, but from something deeper, like a heartbeat echoing through stone.
The tunnels stretched endlessly, their walls covered in faint veins of luminous moss. It looked almost beautiful, until Marcus realized the moss was growing in rhythmic pulses — alive, responding to their steps.
"Don't touch the walls," he warned.
Elias clutched the map tighter. "It's like the whole city's veins are bleeding light."
As they walked deeper, the whispers began — faint, indistinct, like voices just out of earshot. Sometimes they sounded like laughter. Sometimes like prayer.
Then, suddenly, a new sound cut through — faint static, followed by a voice echoing through the tunnel speakers.
It was Jonathan.
"—anyone there? This is Jonathan Joeys — if you can hear this, I'm at the city's station — trying to get to my family—"
Lila froze. "Jonathan?"
But the voice distorted, breaking into crackles and whispers. One phrase bled through clearly before it cut out entirely:
"—the sky isn't real anymore—"
The light in the pendant flickered violently. The tunnel around them began to hum, and the moss glowed blood-red.
Marcus reached for his gun. Lila's eyes filled with fear and something else — recognition.
"The Host knows we're here," she whispered.
And far above them, beyond the broken city streets, the first bolt of violet lightning struck the heart of Shinshigan.