The safe house's steel door opened slowly, whining on its hinges.
Nobody came in. At least, not at first.
First came the cold — a frigid wave that made my breath condense into white clouds. Then the black frost I'd seen at the window crawled across the floor, draining the old carpet of color, turning everything gray and dead.
"Vargas…" I whispered, kicking the lieutenant's ankle.
His head twitched but he didn't wake. He was trapped in a deep nightmare, drooling slightly. Lena was the same, her hand over her pistol but eyes clenched shut as if fighting something inside her own mind.
I was alone.
A tall figure crossed the threshold. I had to clamp my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.
It wasn't the blurry shadow we'd seen in the alley. Up close, under the yellow kitchen light, I could see it.
It looked like a man — stretched. Its limbs were too long, joints wrong. It wore a tatters suit that floated as if underwater. But worst of all was the face.
No nose. No ears. Only a vertical mouth sewn with black thread and two red holes for eyes burning like coals.
The Dream-Eater.
It stepped inside. The floor didn't creak.
It turned its head toward Vargas, leaned over him and inhaled deeply, like a wine taster sniffing a cop's fear.
"No…" I said, voice trembling.
The creature paused. It snapped its neck with the click of dry bones and looked at me.
It smiled. Or I think it did, because the threads of its mouth tightened.
It hadn't come for Vargas. Not for Lena.
It came for me.
I stumbled back until I hit the couch where Sofía slept. The girl breathed shallowly, caught in the edge of the monster's sleep-spell.
The creature advanced. It didn't walk; it flickered into being. One second at the door, the next in the center of the room.
My heart hammered against my ribs. My body, weakened by the "withdrawal" of life-energy, felt leaden. I couldn't fight. I had no weapons. And even if I had Lena's pistol I knew bullets wouldn't faze it.
I remembered Anima's words in the dream: "Only I can stop it."
But summoning him meant losing control. It meant letting the monster out with no rules.
The Dream-Eater lifted a hand with long black claws toward me. It opened its vertical mouth. The black threads snapped with a wet sound. Inside there were no teeth, only a vortex of gray light spinning.
The static noise returned, drilling my ears. I dropped to my knees, clutching my head. I was going to die. It would eat my soul and then come for Sofía.
I had no choice. Morality is a luxury of the living.
I looked at Vargas and Lena, inert. If Anima came out, I didn't know what he'd do to them. But if I stayed in control, we would all die.
The Dream-Eater lunged. A blurred motion, a direct stab at my chest.
I closed my eyes and screamed into the abyss of my own mind, breaking the seal voluntarily for the first time.
"ANIMA! TAKE CONTROL! KILL IT!"
---
[PERSPECTIVE — ANIMA]
DARKNESS.
Then light.
I open my eyes just in time to see the pale claw a hair from my face.
"You're late, partner," I growl.
My body moves on its own, driven by the instinct to survive. I don't dodge backward; I drop flat, letting the Dream-Eater's claw swipe where my throat was.
I roll and spring to my feet.
Eduur's body is a wreck. Muscles ache, energy is low. It's like driving a car on an empty tank with flat tires. But I'm the best driver there is.
The Dream-Eater whips around. Fast. Too fast for a human. But I am not human.
It feeds on dream-energy. I am dream-energy wrapped in flesh.
"Hungry, ugly thing?" I say, raising my empty hands. "Come and eat."
The creature shrieks and lunges again.
This time I don't use weapons — I have no energy to manifest a sword. I use the environment.
I teleport two meters to the right. The Dream-Eater slams into the wall, punching through plaster and breaking pipes. I take advantage of the confusion.
I size up the room.
Vargas: useless. Asleep. Weight: 90 kg. Hard to move.
Lena: useless. Asleep. Weight: 65 kg. Too far from the exit.
Sofía: the child. Eduur's "mission." And — oddly — I sense a resonance in her. Something useful. Weight: 25 kg.
Quick calculation. If I try to save the adults, the Dream-Eater will catch us in the hallway. It will kill us all. If I take the child, I'm light. I can run.
Choice made in a microsecond. No guilt. Just logic.
Eduur would cry. I survive.
I run to the couch. I grab Sofía like a sack of potatoes and sling her over my shoulder. She whimpers but doesn't wake.
The Dream-Eater tears free of the wall, shaking dust from its body. Its red eyes lock on me — or rather, on the "Gate" in my head.
I know Eduur would be screaming inside his mental cage if he could see me, begging me to save his friends. But luckily, he's unconscious.
It's them or us.
I race for the closed window. I don't open it. I protect my face with my free arm and jump.
CRASH!
The glass shatters. We fall three stories. Night air slaps my face. Below, a dumpster and black bags. In midair I use the last of my energy for a Cushion. The air thickens under my feet for a fraction of a second, slowing the fall.
I land, rolling across the trash. Everything hurts. It feels like the scar in my hand split open.
I look up.
In the broken third-floor window, the Dream-Eater pokes its malformed head out. It looks down at me.
It doesn't jump. It doesn't chase. It knows I'm exhausted. It knows I can't run forever. It's a patient hunter.
"Screw you," I whisper, flipping the bird at the window.
I turn and bolt down the dark alley, child on my shoulder, putting distance between me and the allies Eduur wanted to protect so badly.
Sorry, kid. In the jungle, you leave the wounded behind.
"...wake up... hey... wake up..."
[PERSPECTIVE — EDUUR]
I open my eyes.
The sky is gray. Dawn.
I feel cold, damp concrete against my back. It smells of river and piss.
I'm under a bridge.
I sit up with a jolt, panic hammering my chest like a sledge.
"Lena! Vargas!"
My voice echoes in the empty tunnel. I look around. No one. Only trash, graffiti, and the distant sound of the city waking.
And Sofía.
The girl sits in front of me, hugging her knees, staring at me with big dark eyes. Her unicorn backpack is on, smudged with soot.
"Where are they?" I ask, crawling to her. I grab her shoulders. "Sofía, where are your mom and the policeman?"
She shakes her head slowly.
"The man in black didn't bring them."
"The man in black...?" I freeze.
Anima.
I look at my hands. They're dirty, crisscrossed with scratches. I remember the broken window. The invasion. That I gave him control to save us. And he saved us. Only us.
"No…" I sob, burying my hands in my hair. "He abandoned them. He left them with that thing."
Guilt floods me. Worse than blood in the woods. Worse than the wound in my hand.
Vargas risked his career to help me. Lena is the mother of the girl I swore to protect. And I left them at the mercy of a soul-eating monster.
I'm a coward. I'm a monster.
I stand, staggering. I have to go back. I have to see if they're still alive. But I don't know where we are. I don't have weapons. I'm so weak I can barely stand.
I pull my phone from my pocket. The screen is cracked, but it turns on. No signal. We're in the drainage channels under the city.
"We have to go," Sofía says, standing. Her voice is oddly calm for a child who just lost her mother a second time.
"Go? Sofía, your mom—"
"My mom is strong," she says with a certainty that terrifies me. "But you're not. You smell like fear."
I stare at her. There's something different about her. She's no longer the terrified child from the freezer. She looks years older overnight.
"Sofía…" I begin, not knowing what to ask.
She steps closer. She lifts her small hand and points at my chest — no, she points inside my chest.
"That man... the ugly one who came into the house..." she whispers.
"The Dream-Eater?"
"Yes. He didn't want to eat me. Or my mom."
She stands on tiptoe and whispers in my ear, and the words ice my blood.
"He came for the Shadow that lives in you. He came because you are the Gate. And he said he has the key to open you."
I recoil, horrified.
The Dream-Eater isn't just a wild animal. It speaks. It thinks.
And it wants me — to enter the Spiritual World.
I'm alone, with a child who knows too much, wanted by the police, hunted by the Syndicate, and tracked by a living nightmare.
And my only allies lie behind, asleep in the wolf's den.
"Anima… what have you done?"