The ruins of Mimi's Café stretched around her. The bitter scent of charred sugar and grease lingered, curling in the damp air.
Eri stood in the center of it all, silent.
She had seen this before.
Lived it before.
The door stood wide open, the neon arcade lights flickering through the mist, spilling warped color into the broken space. The café had been abandoned for years.
And yet, he stood in the doorway.
Garrison.
Rain dripped from the edges of his coat, pooling at his boots, but he remained motionless. His presence was as unshakable as the gun in his grip.
And his eyes—
They didn't burn with fury.
They weren't hollow with grief.
They were certain.
"You think you get to live?" His voice cut through the rain, steady, final.
Eri felt nothing.
No fear.
No guilt.
Just inevitability.
That wasnt true for the younger her in the dream.
The bunny in her arms twitched.
Its patchwork seams pulsed faintly, shifting—something alive stitched into the fabric. A shudder ran through its small frame, its beady, mismatched eyes reflecting something that wasn't quite real.
"Run, little one," it whispered. Its voice slithered into her skull, honey-thick and sickly sweet. "He'll never stop."
Eri's fingers tightened around the rabbit's worn body.
The shadows at her back stirred.
The Doom Tree's conquered roots twisted unseen beneath their feet, whispering through the earth, waiting for her command.
But she said nothing.
Did nothing.
Garrison stepped forward, boots heavy against the cracked tile. His breath fogged in the cold.
"I promised them," he murmured, fingers tightening on the trigger. "I promised I'd be the one to do it."
The gun rose.
The bunny exhaled a quiet, delighted giggle. "Let me, Marisol."
The darkness moved.
A shot rang out.
And the shadows answered.
A wolf, massive and fluid, pulled itself free from the fractured remains of the café, its limbs shifting between smoke and flesh. Hollow eyes glowed faintly, reflecting nothing.
It lunged.
The bullet struck.
The wolf staggered—but it did not fall.
Did not die.
The darkness simply reclaimed it.
Garrison took another step.
Another shot.
This time, a stag, its antlers curling into unnatural spirals, materialized in front of her. The bullet should have torn through its form. But the moment the impact landed—
The stag absorbed it.
Garrison exhaled, unmoved. His gaze flicked to the bunny in her arms.
"That thing can't save you," he muttered. "You can hide behind tricks all you want. It ends the same way."
The bunny's head snapped toward him, its stitched mouth pulling into something too wide, too knowing.
"He's scared of you, scared of us," it cooed, nestling deeper into Eri's grasp. "Of what we could be. We must stop him too."
Eri's breath hitched.
Another step.
The gun cocked again.
The roots beneath her shifted, restless, coming to the stuffed bunnies. To her side.
The bunny purred.
"We don't need him anymore."
But she still wasn't ready.
She turned.
And ran.
Eri's breath caught in her throat as she woke.
Not a gasp.
Not a scream.
Just a slow, sharp inhale, like she had surfaced from beneath deep water.
The morning dew against her skin, as if the rain from the dream had followed her into waking.
She sat up nice and slow. Moving Marisol gently from her lap. The black cat shadow stretching mockingly before nesting back on Marisol.
The ruins of Mimi's Café were still wrapped around her—but she was no longer the girl in that memory.
The Doom Tree's presence pulsed within her, not as a whisper, not as a thing separate from her, but as her own breath.
She was it.
It was her.
Her hands pressed into the soot-covered tile, grounding herself in the present.
No gun.
No Garrison.
No past reaching out to drag her backward.
But the dream lingered.
Not the man.
Not the gun.
The bunny.
Surely This version of Garrison would be here soon.
The way it had purred in her arms. The way its voice had curled inside her skull, weaving into her thoughts like it belonged there.
Had it always been like that?
Or had she let it in?
Eri's fingers curled, nails scraping against the debris-strewn floor.
Something had changed.
She felt them before she saw them.
Two presences.
One was clearly bathed in light. Cautious, careful. A survivor, but not enough to matter.
The other—
Eri stilled.
The other one was wrapped in something else.
Something that made her pulse steady instead of spike.
Something that should have been suffocating.
But wasn't.
She moved toward the shattered window, pressing her fingers against the rain-slicked frame.
Headlights cut through the thick mist of the early morning.
A car.
Two figures stepped out.
Eri's eyes lingered on the first one, the taller of the two, her movements measured, calculated. Cautious, but not weak.
And then—
The second one.
Her breath hitched.
The shadows twisted around her, the roots of the Doom Tree stirring, recognizing something her mind had not yet caught up to.
This one—
She carried the stench of it, its weight pressed against her skin like a second soul.
And yet—
It wasn't wrong.
The aura rolling off of her was dark, heavy, but it wasn't suffocating.
It was comforting.
It called to something deep within Eri, something she didn't understand.
She should have turned away.
Should have ignored it.
Instead—
She pressed her hand fully against the glass.
Watched as the two figures moved further into the lot, their voices too distant to hear but their presence impossible to ignore.
The shadows at Eri's feet stirred.
She exhaled, slow, controlled.
She did not fear the dark.
She was the dark.
And yet—
The presence of the Core in that woman's frame felt like something else entirely.
Not a threat.
Not a force to consume.
Something unfamiliar, but—
Something that fit.
Her heartbeat slowed.
She didn't look away.
Didn't move.
Let the moment stretch.
Let the realization settle.
She turned, to her only ally.
Mephisto.
He did not speak. Did not move.
But he was watching.
Eri felt it—the weight of his gaze, the silent reverence buried beneath layers of amusement and calculation. A servant, despite his power. A disciple, despite his games.
His agenda, whatever it was, remained masked beneath that ever-present grin. But it did not matter.
Not to her.
Not now.
Eri turned from the glass, letting the moment stretch, letting the realization settle.
She no longer knew the end of this little tale.