Callum's clone had watched Dorian for a while now. The Curator was odd, certainly elusive, seemingly harmless. But harmless things didn't leave behind this many misunderstandings... or bodies.
And tonight, something was wrong.
The air near the alley thickened. Not with fog or smoke, but with wrongness. A pressure in the space behind his eyes. The hairs along his arms stood up.
Somewhere inside him, centuries of combat instincts stirred and whispered.
Run. Just run.
He didn't of course, he had a duty to fullfill. So not yet.
He adjusted his coat, eyes narrowing on the alley just out of reach. He heard something, no, he felt something. Like silence being peeled apart.
The thugs thought they'd won. Same group from earlier, cocky, angry, their wounded pride dragging them back with something to prove. That they weren't scared of the Curator. That they could still take the detective, Elira.
But Callum knew fear. He knew what the absence of noise meant in a place usually teeming with rats, footfalls, whispers.
He stepped to the edge of the rooftop. Below, the gang was circling Dorian's lifeless body.
Then he saw it.
Then Dorian's finger twitched.
He lay facedown in the alley, unmoving. A pool of something that looked like blood, maybe, spreading out beneath him.
The gang leader was laughing nervously, the gun still warm in his hand.
Callum tensed. He knew this wasn't right. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
A wind passed through the alley. Not a breeze, but a pull, like breath being drawn into something massive.
And then...
Stillness died.
...
Then I awoke.
It was cold.
No, I was cold. The body had cooled, emptied of its usual confusion and noise.
I was not Dorian. Of course I'm not.
I was what lay beneath.
I stirred.
Limbs formed out of thought. Fingers coiled like roots beneath the pavement. I stood. Their laughter died.
They noticed me when I opened my many eyes.
(Why hello there...)
The first thug tried to scream.
I peeled his voice away. It was loud, I hated it. It fell from his mouth like he was vomiting, dragging his throat with it.
He fell to his knees, his scream echoing wordless in the silence I left behind.
Another raised his gun. I hated that too. But just that. So it was gone.
His bones grew outward. Through his skin. Through his coat. He didn't have time to fall.
Then the rest tried to run.
I let them.
I was feeling merciful...
For the first dozen steps.
The one who turned the corner found that the corner didn't end. I folded the alley like paper. He looped. Again. Again. Again.
The alley stretched.
Callum saw it. Reality distended like pulled dough. They were stuck in a corridor that should've ended twenty feet back, but the more they ran, the further away the street became. Walls bent, warped. Windows watched.
They kept running of course, that was until his legs gave out and he collapsed into himself like crumpled cloth. I left him there, crying.
One boy the youngest, knelt in prayer. I leaned down, listening. It was a wonderful prayer.
He asked to be forgiven.
I forgave him. Of course I did.
So, he burst into flames, holy fire burning within him.
He did not stop burning.
The boss of the gang tried to bargain. He promised loyalty. Secrets. Blood. And his life.
I accepted. It was a generous offer.
Then I reached down his throat and took what he had offered.
They screamed as if their bodies remembered things their minds hadn't yet grasped.
I watched them.
I watched All of them.
Watched as they twisted, tore, pleaded.
And then I turned to the rooftop.
To the man watching.
Callum had frozen the moment he felt the shift.
His training screamed. His power screamed louder. But the noise inside his head.
He couldn't move.
He couldn't blink.
The creature below was not just powerful. It was not merely ancient or strange.
It was impossible.
A hole in the world wearing Dorian's shape.
It turned to him. It just… knew where he was.
Callum's mind snapped.
Not all at once. Just a thread. A single, screaming nerve.
He screamed too.
His hands moved without him, tracing runes into his skin, desperately reaching for grounding magic. Stabilizers. Wards.
They all cracked.
One of my eyes, no, all of them were focused on him.
Callum's soul recoiled.
He dropped his sword.
It felt heavy.
Useless.
Childish.
He tried to teleport. Anchor-shift. Phase.
But I was already there.
I didn't attack.
I didn't need to.
I just watched him.
And he watched me.
And in that gaze, he remembered things he had never lived. He saw a city made of teeth. Heard voices that spoke only in backward language. Smelled the concept of anguish.
He began to sob.
Then, just barely, clarity.
He whispered, "Forgive me," and drove his knife into his eye.
The pain cleared the fog. Barely. Enough to move. Enough to breathe.
Enough to run.
But he didn't.
He had stared for far too long.
He had seen far too much.
His thoughts raced, unraveling and reforming in an instant.
That was… not a man.
That was not even a thing.
Callum dropped to one knee.
He reached for the failsafe built into his mind.
Severance.
He couldn't let the main body see what he'd seen. Madness should not travel to the original. Cause If it did, no, that couldn't be allowed.
He didn't even hesitate.
He severed his link to the main body.
Containing the madness to himself hoping it wouldn't spread further.
He turned his face to the sky. Whispered a prayer.
And exploded.
Not a violent blast.
A flare. A final message to the real Callum.
I tilted my head. Curious. The world tilted also.
Gone now. Just ash and smoke.
That one had some sense, at least.
(You owe me twice now...)
Then... Then...
...
Light.
Noise.
The world reasserted itself.
Dorian blinked.
He was in an alley. Feeling tipsy.
There was blood on the ground. A lot of it. Smelled like smoke and singed leather.
"Oh right," he muttered to no one. "Bread. Cheese. Brandy. And some beef."
There were people lying around.
He didn't even noticed it, the carnage he had caused.
On his way out, he passed a scorch mark in the sky. Like a flare.
He shrugged. "Weird... Is it that time already?"
...
Meanwhile,
Far away, the original Callum stood in his chamber. The flare had reached him. His clones had reached it specifically.
He wondered to himself, why the clone had to sever their connection.
"Just what made you go that far?" he whispered.
But no answer came.
Only silence. And a faint, inescapable dread.