Elias plunged through the void, his body weightless, spinning endlessly in a sea of shattered light. The fragments of reality twisted and reformed around him—flashes of his apartment, the streets he had walked a thousand times, the unknown landscapes of his dreams. Each piece flickered like dying embers before vanishing into the abyss.
Then, suddenly—impact.
He crashed onto solid ground, the force knocking the air from his lungs. Elias gasped, rolling onto his back. Above him, the sky was not a sky at all but a swirling mass of undulating colors, like an oil slick spread across the heavens. He blinked rapidly, his senses struggling to catch up.
Where am I?
He pushed himself up, his limbs aching with the phantom sensation of falling. Around him stretched an endless cityscape, but nothing about it was normal. Buildings twisted into impossible angles, streets curved in on themselves, forming loops that led nowhere. Light sources with no apparent origin cast shifting shadows that moved unnaturally.
A whisper drifted through the air.
"Elias."
He turned sharply, his heart hammering. The sound came from an alleyway just ahead, a narrow passage between two impossibly tall buildings. The darkness within it pulsed, inviting, waiting.
Something deep inside told him he should run the other way. But another part of him—a part that had been growing louder—urged him forward. He had to know. He had to understand.
Elias stepped into the alley.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the walls behind him closed like a living thing, sealing him inside. Panic surged through him, but before he could react, a figure emerged from the shadows.
It was the woman from his dreams.
Her eyes, silver and endless, held him in place. "You're getting closer," she said, her voice a melody of echoes. "But you must tread carefully. The deeper you go, the harder it is to return."
Elias swallowed hard, his throat dry. "What is this place?"
She studied him for a long moment before responding. "A place between waking and dreaming. A place built from forgotten things."
The air grew heavier. A low vibration pulsed through the ground, and the alley seemed to constrict around them.
"You don't have much time," she said urgently. "They know you're here."
A distant sound echoed—something like footsteps, but wrong. Distorted. Crawling.
Elias's breath hitched. The woman reached for him, her fingers brushing against his wrist. "Run."
Then, the world collapsed once more.