I used to think imagination was just a place you go when real life gets boring.
Turns out, it's a place that watches you even when you leave.
Kristina and I were sitting on the floor of Grandma's living room, the old carpet rough under my legs, the smell of tea and dust and something ancient hanging in the air. Grandma always said this house remembered things. I never knew if she meant memories… or people.
Kristina was drawing again.
She always drew when something felt wrong.
"Don't you feel it?" she asked, not looking up from the paper.
I frowned. "Feel what?"
She finally looked at me, and for a second, her eyes didn't feel like my sister's eyes. They felt older. Deeper. Like she was staring through me instead of at me.
"Like someone's standing behind the world," she said quietly. "Watching us pretend."
That sent a chill down my spine.
Before I could answer, Grandma's spoon froze mid-stir in the kitchen.
The room went silent.
Too silent.
Grandma didn't turn around, but her voice came out calm—too calm."Kristopher," she said, "Kristina… step away from the drawings."
Kristina's hand shook.
"Grandma?" I asked.
She finally turned, and I saw something I'd never seen before.
Fear.
Not for herself.For us.
"That world you kids play in," Grandma said slowly, "it's not a game."
Mom appeared in the doorway behind her, arms crossed tight, face pale. She looked like someone who'd been holding a secret for too long and was tired of carrying it alone.
"We hoped it wouldn't wake yet," Mom said. "You're both too young."
Kristina swallowed. "Wake… what?"
Grandma walked over and knelt in front of us, placing her hands gently on our heads, one on mine, one on Kristina's.
"The Bouie Bloodline doesn't imagine," she said. "We create."
The air shifted.
Not dramatically. Not loudly.
But the walls felt thinner. Like reality itself leaned closer to listen.
I laughed nervously. "Okay, that's—"
The drawing on Kristina's paper moved.
Not like animation.
Like breathing.
Lines lifted. Shadows deepened. The little world she'd sketched—trees, broken towers, a sky split by light—expanded. The room stretched, bent, folded inward, and suddenly we weren't in Grandma's living room anymore.
We were standing on stone.
Cold. Cracked. Endless.
A sky above us churned with colors I didn't have names for.
Kristina grabbed my arm. "Kris… this isn't pretend."
I already knew.
Something stepped out of the mist.
Not human.
Not monster.
Something in-between, shaped like armor and smoke, eyes glowing faintly like dying stars.
It knelt.
Knelt.
"To the Heirs of Bouie," it said, voice echoing like it came from everywhere at once. "The world answers again."
Kristina staggered back. "No—no, no, we didn't mean to—"
The creature turned its head toward her, and the air around her twitched. Just for a second. Like reality flinched.
I stepped in front of her without thinking.
The ground cracked under my feet.
The creature froze.
Its glowing eyes widened.
"…Impossible," it whispered.
That's when I felt it.
Not power.
Memory.
Like something old recognized me.
Like the world itself had been waiting.
Far away—far beyond this place—something darker stirred.
Malachor didn't know our names yet.
But he felt us.
And for the first time in a very long time…
The enemy smiled.