The world had been shifting for weeks now—at first in ways Selene could explain away. A flicker in her peripheral vision. A whisper caught in the wind. A shape that disappeared the moment she turned her head.
But tonight, the shadows weren't just watching.
They were speaking.
She stood at the corner of Ashland and Fifth, the club's neon sign casting her in eerie pink light. The music inside still thumped against her ribcage, but out here, the air was empty—too still. The streets were never this quiet, not in this part of the city.
She exhaled a slow breath, cigarette smoke curling in front of her like ghosts.
"Selene."
Her spine went rigid. The voice came from nowhere and everywhere, woven into the hum of the streetlights.
"You need to listen."
She shuddered. She had spent years drowning voices like these in pills, smoke, anything that would make them go away. But this… this wasn't the usual madness. This wasn't withdrawal or some twisted hallucination.
This was real.
The shadows shifted at the edge of the alleyway, writhing like something alive.
"They're coming."
Selene swallowed. "Who?"
The shadows pulsed.
"Run."
She turned, breath quickening. The street stretched long and empty in front of her. No people, no cars. Just silence.
Then she felt it.
A shift in the air behind her.
Someone—something—was there.
She didn't wait to see what it was. She ran.
The Streets of Ashland
Her boots hit the pavement in frantic rhythm. The city blurred around her as she weaved through dark alleys and abandoned storefronts, heart hammering against her ribs. She didn't know where she was running, only that she had to keep moving.
But no matter how fast she went, she felt it closing in.
A presence. A weight pressing against the air, warping the world around her. The neon signs flickered wildly as she passed them. The streetlights dimmed, one by one.
She gasped, stumbling against a brick wall, her pulse a wild, erratic thing.
Then—footsteps.
Slow. Deliberate.
They weren't behind her.
They were ahead.
A figure stepped into the dim glow of a streetlamp.
Selene's breath caught in her throat.
Tall. Wrapped in a long, tattered coat that moved unnaturally, as if caught in a wind that wasn't there. Their face was obscured by shadows—or maybe there was no face at all.
The shadows behind her trembled violently.
"Don't let it touch you."
Selene's throat tightened.
The figure tilted its head, as if listening. Then it moved.
Not walked—shifted. A flicker, a distortion, suddenly closer than it should be.
Selene bolted.
She didn't know how long she ran, only that her legs ached and her lungs burned. The city twisted around her, familiar streets bleeding into places that shouldn't exist.
At some point, she turned down an alleyway—one she was sure hadn't been there before.
And then—a hand closed around her wrist.
Cold. Too cold.
A scream tore from her throat.
But before she could fight, before she could even understand what was happening, the shadows surged forward—and swallowed her whole.