The world was collapsing behind them. Buildings twisted, streets folded into themselves, and the air crackled with distortion. Claire's legs burned, but she pushed forward, gripping Riley's wrist as they sprinted through the shifting cityscape.
"Where are we even going?" Riley gasped, struggling to keep up.
"Anywhere but here!" Claire shot back, her voice barely audible over the growing chaos.
Daniel and Elena flanked them, their eyes darting for an escape route. The stranger who had warned them was nowhere to be seen, and the entities that had emerged from the rift were closing in. Their forms were incomprehensible—shadows twisting into jagged, unnatural shapes, their movements erratic yet deliberate.
A streetlamp flickered violently as reality buckled. Daniel grabbed Claire’s shoulder and pointed toward a subway entrance ahead. The stairwell gaped open like a wound in the earth, its depths shrouded in darkness.
"Underground!" he shouted.
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They didn’t have time to debate. Claire plunged forward, dragging Riley with her as the others followed. The moment they descended, the world above them ruptured. A deafening roar filled the air as an entire block of the city folded into oblivion.
The subway was eerily silent. Their footsteps echoed against the tiled walls, the flickering emergency lights casting long, wavering shadows. Dust clung to the air, thick and suffocating.
"We need to keep moving," Elena said, glancing back toward the stairwell. "That thing—those things—won't stop just because we’re down here."
Riley rubbed his arms. "I don’t like this. Feels wrong."
He wasn’t wrong. The underground didn’t feel like a refuge—it felt like a trap. Claire tried to ignore the sensation crawling up her spine as they moved deeper into the station. The signs were rusted, the vending machines toppled, and the tiled floor was cracked, as if something had been through here before them.
Then they saw it.
A body, slumped against a wall near the edge of the platform. The clothing was shredded, skin pale and covered in jagged black veins, as though something had drained the life from it.
"What the hell happened to him?" Daniel muttered, stepping closer.
The body twitched.
Riley screamed as the thing’s head jerked upward, eyes hollow but somehow aware. It moved in an unnatural way, like a puppet whose strings had been violently yanked. A dry, crackling whisper escaped its lips:
"You don’t belong here."
Then the lights cut out.