They find me in the darkness between moments, when The Marionette thinks I'm practicing my abilities.

"Your mother misses you," they whisper, their voices tasting like static on my tongue. The shadows twist into shapes that shouldn't exist, showing me glimpses of home.

Mom in the kitchen, making my favorite breakfast. The way she used to hum while flipping pancakes, adding chocolate chips to make them smile. Dad reading the Sunday paper, his coffee getting cold because he's too absorbed in the crossword. Everything normal. Everything perfect. Everything lost.

Sometimes, when the shadows show me these visions, I can't help but remember how it all changed. The day my powers manifested - the day I broke reality and my family in one stupid moment.

It was just a normal argument. Mom wanted me to clean my room. I wanted to play video games. Dad was trying to mediate from the doorway, using his "let's be reasonable" voice that always drove me crazy.

"It's not fair!" I'd shouted, fourteen years old and full of hormones and self-righteousness.

That's when it happened. Reality... hiccuped. One moment my room was a teenager's mess of clothes and games, the next - emptiness. A void that shouldn't exist. I'd accidentally erased everything except the floor and walls.

Mom screamed. Dad tried to grab me, but his hand passed through my shoulder like I was made of smoke.

I panicked. Reality buckled. The void spread.

When it was over, when I finally got control, my room was back. But it wasn't the same room. Every object was wrong - subtly different in ways that made my brain hurt. My posters showed movies that didn't exist. My books were filled with stories that had different endings.

Mom and Dad tried to understand. Tried to help. But how do you help your son when he accidentally rewrites pieces of reality?

The government came three days later. Said they could help. Said they had special facilities for "people like me."

I ran.

Sometimes I wonder if that was worse - letting them think I was taken rather than letting them know I chose to leave. The shadows love showing me what happened after: Mom crying into my pillow, Dad putting up missing person posters, both of them jumping every time the phone rings.

"This isn't real," I tell the Umbras, but my voice shakes. Reality ripples around me like water disturbed by falling tears. "You're just showing me what I want to see."

"Are we?" they ask. Their form shifts - angles folding in on themselves, geometry that hurts to look at. "Look closer."

Stolen novel; please report.

The vision changes. Now I see Mom sitting on my bed, clutching my old baseball jersey. She's crying. Dad stands in the doorway, looking helpless. Their pain feels so real it steals my breath.

"This is happening now," the shadows whisper. "They haven't given up on you. Haven't stopped searching. Every day, your mother checks the hospitals. Every night, your father drives through the city, looking for his son."

My hands clench into fists. "Stop it."

"We can give you this back," the Umbras say. "All of it. Just help us when the time comes."

The Marionette thinks he's using me to stop The Fellowship's ritual. Thinks he's pulling my strings. But I've seen inside VoodooEyes' memories. I know what The Marionette really is - centuries of manipulation compressed into human form.

During the day, I play my part. Bend reality like he teaches. Let him think his strings still hold. At night, though, in the spaces between spaces, the Umbras show me what real power looks like.

"Show me again," I whisper to the shadows. "Show me my family."

They do. Each vision more perfect than the last. Mom's laugh. Dad's hand on my shoulder. The smell of home. But it's the imperfect moments that break me - Mom burning dinner and Dad suggesting pizza with that grin of his. The ordinary miracles I took for granted.

Sometimes they show me what could have been. Me graduating high school, Mom crying happy tears. Dad teaching me to drive without freaking out about me accidentally warping the car. Family vacations where I learned to control my powers with their support instead of running scared.

"The Fellowship thinks they can control us," the Umbras tell me. "The Marionette thinks he can use us. But you... you could be so much more. You could have everything back. Better than back."

They're right about one thing - I'm not what The Marionette thinks I am. The pocket dimension where I've hidden StarStruck proves that. He thinks I sent them to the shadow realm, thinks I've fully embraced his path.

But there are lines I won't cross. Yet.

Last night's vision was the hardest. I sat at dinner with them. Really sat there. Could smell Mom's lasagna, hear Dad's terrible jokes, feel the scratch of the chair against my legs. When it faded, I cried for hours.

Today I found a photograph in my pocket - Mom and Dad at the beach last summer. Except it's impossible. They haven't been to the beach since I disappeared. When I close my eyes, I can see them there now, walking along the shore, still searching the crowds for a glimpse of their son.

"Soon," the Umbras promise. "Soon you'll understand what you really are. What you could become."

I nod, pretending to be The Marionette's perfect puppet while the shadows whisper sweeter songs. He thinks he's preparing me for a war against The Fellowship. Doesn't realize I'm fighting a different battle entirely.

Reality bends around my fingers like taffy. But in the darkness between moments, I'm learning it can do so much more.

I'm learning it can break.

And maybe, just maybe, it can be remade into something better. Something where families don't have to lose each other. Where parents don't cry themselves to sleep wondering where their child is. Where scared kids don't have to run from their powers.

The shadows gather closer, hungry and eager. They show me one last vision - Mom cooking breakfast tomorrow morning, looking up to see me walking through the door.

"All you have to do," they whisper, "is let us in."

I close my eyes, feeling reality pulse around me like a living thing. The Marionette thinks he's the puppet master.

But some strings are stronger than others.

And family ties might be the strongest of all.