Margo awoke to the savage pressure of salt and darkness, the sea holding her like a silk blanket on her cold-hardened limbs. Her brain was suspended in darkness, each heartbeat a far muffle, a lost world's beat. And then, suddenly, in one savage, rending yank, she was hauled from the bottom—a burst of light and hurricane that tore her away from the darkness. She fell onto the wet sands of Nara Beach, spewing up brine and blood, her chest laboring under the cold, harsh air of the true world.
Above her, the sky yawned wide, no longer Gabriel's turbulent ink but sickly, uncaring blue. She lay there for a moment, feeling the ocean's receding waves wash over her shaking fingers, the salt burning on her shattered lips. Her eyes softened as she turned her head, gritting against the light of day. There, a ghostly figure emerging from the mist, stood her old home, standing, its windows blinded and walls whispering secrets long forgotten.
She strained to stand, tottering across the dunes, her knees trembling and failing like a newly foaled colt. The beach was deserted, a wasteland of weathered stones and shattered shells. As she walked into town, she noticed them—tattered signs taped to rusty lamp posts, her face glowering back at her, eyes wide and despondent under the words, "MISSING." She touched one, the paper hard and soggy under her fingertips, her ghostly face glowering back at her reproachfully.
As she approached the front porch, the door creaked open before her knuckles made contact with the wood. Lindsay was frozen, eyes puffed and breath caught in her throat. The world hung suspended for a moment, and then Lindsay had her arms around her, holding her close, a sob poised on the edge of her words. Margo could feel the ridges of her friend's bones pressing into her flesh, the warmth of another body after all the cold and darkness.
"You're back," Lindsay whispered, her voice a fragile, trembling thing. "You're really back."
Margo's mouth moved, but no words came. She simply clung to Lindsay, letting the tears spill down her cheeks, mingling with the salt crusted on her skin.
The news traveled fast. Neighbors rushed, police officers swarmed, interrogations thrown at her like projectiles. She didn't say anything, just mumbled she had traveled far, her eyes bottomless dark pools that drank questioning looks. George and Lei rushed to her, their faces twisted in a twisted knot of shock and joy. They held her close, their heat like flames after a long winter, their hands stretching for reassurance that she was real.
They stood in the creaking, dusty living room, shadows dark and long, dust motes dancing in the dim light. Margo's fingers fretted at the frayed threads of the couch, her eyes darting to the shadows on the periphery of the room, half-expecting Gabriel's ghost beside her.
We thought you were dead," George panted, his voice shaking, his hands trembling as he gripped hers. "We thought you were gone forever."
Margo smiled once more, a thing of broken glass and splinters. "I was. But I returned."
Lei moved closer, his gaze dark and questioning. "Gabriel… was he…
Margo's own breath caught, the flavor of his name bitter scar on her tongue. She moved away, her heart pounding behind her eyes like some great drum. "It's… nothing," she whispered, the words filled with unspoken truths. "Just a dream."
But the silence that fell on them was thick, oppressive, a darkness that seeped in from the edges of the room, clinging to their skin, whispering of things unsaid.
Later, when the sun had dropped below the shattered line of rooftops, casting long, skeletal shadows across the street, Margo gathered them up. She zipped on her jacket, her stiff and frozen fingers, her mind a whirl of fear and determination. "I need your help," she whispered, her voice low and trembling. "To save him. To save Gabriel."
They looked at her, their faces furrowing, but they did not ask. They only nodded, breathing in slowly, the breaths measured, the air between them heavy with unvoiced promises.
They moved through the town like phantoms, their footsteps muffled by the damp, cracked pavement. Vielle joined them, slipping from the shadows, her eyes gleaming in the dim streetlight. She clutched Margo's arm, her touch cold and steady. "I'm coming too," she whispered, her breath a chill against Margo's ear.
Margo simply nodded, her heart a hollow drumbeat in her chest.
They arrived at the forest's edge, the trees reaching up to the sky like bony fingers, their gnarled branches hushing secrets to the wind. The wind turned chill as they ventured deeper in, the shadows darkening, the night filling with teeth.
And as they entered the clearing, the air vibrated with power, the gate a shining rip in the very fabric of existence, its edges unwinding like an old scar. They passed through it, their shapes distorting and stretching, their breath trapped in their throats as existence wrapped itself around them.
They came to the Cretion World, sky churning, blood-red gash above. The graveyard slumbered on, graves tilting like exhausted men, wind sighing over broken and cracked earth. They left quickly, dodging between the graves, breathing short, steps muffled.
Margo's old house towered over them, its windows black and empty, the chandelier still broken on the floor, the air thick with the stench of decay. There was a pang of nostalgia, a wrenching ache in her chest as she stepped inside, her eyes straining to adjust to the darkness.
And then they spotted them—her parents, their faces drawn into snarls of anger and hunger, eyes empty, features elongated into silent screams. They launched an attack, paws and jaws of darkness, their shapes uncertain like flames.
George was slammed back, his body crashing into the wall, the breath driven from his lungs in a solid, wet gasp. Vielle darted like a shadow, her sword a whisper of metal in the night. She stabbed with no mercy, her eyes cold and dead as she killed them, their bodies crashing into tangled, thrashing heaps on the broken tile.
They pulled the body into the yard, the earth swallowing it in a greasy, wet slurp. With the final distorted arm swallowed by the dark soil, the sky above them burst into red, the wind shrieking through broken windows, the earth trembling around them.
Margo gazed upward, her breath caught in her throat. This was merely the start.