Elias barely paused to consider how absurd the situation might look from the outside. Baby Dee Jay stood framed by the swirling mist, her fingers clamped tightly around the humming, black device. None of them had time to debate introductions; the café air still quivered with unnatural chill, and the shapes in the fog pressed in as if listening.
They tumbled into motion. Lena fetched her bag, Lily clutched her mug like a talisman, and Aena glided past the counter, her eyes fixed on the door as if daring the mist to follow. Baby Dee Jay led the way, her sneakers squeaking on the linoleum.
Outside, the world felt both safer and stranger. The night was the color of old television static, and the town’s streetlamps haloed the fog with the sickly yellow of sodium light. Elias glanced back just in time to see the café windows clear as if nothing had happened at all. The normal world had returned, but only on the surface.
The group hurried down the sidewalk, boots and sneakers keeping a comic rhythm. Only when they turned the corner, out of sight from any prying eyes, did Baby Dee Jay stop. She thrust the object into Elias’s hands.
It was heavier than it looked, buzzing gently. Circuit lines traced luminous green along its sides, shifting like graffiti that refused to settle. In the center, a glassy lens blinked open and closed.
“What is it?” Lena demanded, her bravado thin but holding.
Baby Dee Jay shrugged, tugging her headphones into place like a shield. “It’s the anchor. The source. I followed the interference all the way from Mirage Lane. Nearly got snatched by a—well, I call them static-walkers. Not important. When this thing pulses, the worlds try to sync up. Almost like it’s… bored and wants attention.”
Aena nodded slowly. “An artifact from the seam. Very old, very lost. Its waking calls to both sides.”
“Can it be shut off?” Lily asked, voice trembling.
Baby Dee Jay’s lips twisted in a wry smirk. “If I knew that, I’d have chucked it into the river already.”
Elias rolled the device in his palm. He could feel the air hum in sympathy, electric and expectant. “If this is what’s pulling the worlds together, maybe it’s also the key to stopping them from colliding.”
A nearby bush flickered, as if it couldn’t decide which world it belonged to. A branch stretched, warped, then snapped back. A passing car’s headlights bled into drifting pinpricks—stars falling from the sky and scattering on the pavement.
The street was slipping. The barrier, whatever it was, was failing faster than before. Elias could taste copper. We’re running out of time.
From above, a shadow bent in impossible angles across the wall. Something enormous shifted just outside the bounds of vision—a presence that made the artifact flare hotter and the mist bloom anew.
“Someone—or something—is coming,” Aena whispered. “We must choose where to go.”
At that moment, the ground underfoot wavered, like the sidewalk was a sheet about to split. A shriek twisted through the fog. The device in Elias’s hand pulsed once, then twice, as if measuring his resolve.
All four companions turned to him—the artifact’s reluctant bearer—as the world threatened to tear apart beneath their feet.