The underground chambers of the old monastery pulsed with an energy that couldn't be mistaken for anything else. Time had stopped here—or perhaps only bent, trying to contain the power Jeremy was about to release.
Henry kept glancing around, as if every stone might witness a betrayal. Or maybe he was waiting for the sky to catch fire.
"This is our only chance," he said quietly. "We try once. And either it works… or we lose them forever."
Jeremy stood in the center of a circle formed by unknown symbols, burned into the ground by the inner force of his own fingers. In his hands, he held his mother's diary—its cover damp with sweat, the pages nearly glowing with saturated magic.
"I can feel them. Stronger than ever." His voice trembled. "Mom… Dad… They hear me."
"It's not a voice. It's a bond," Henry corrected, standing across from him. "Love, Jeremy. The kind that neither time nor the boundary between dimensions can break. And only that can open the gate."
Jeremy closed his eyes. He focused.
Julie.
Her touch.
Her voice.
And what he had felt back then—in dreams, when they held hands and whispered names to each other they hadn't yet spoken aloud.
A warmth began to radiate from his body, but it didn't burn. The air quivered. The symbol beneath his feet ignited, and the monastery's stones hummed quietly, like disturbed spirits of the past.
Henry threw the relic—a feather from Alison's ancient wings—into the circle.
The ground trembled.
For a moment—a very brief one—a rift opened before Jeremy. Cold. Menacing. But inside… light.
Jack.
His form.
Real.
Alison. Her voice, though still silent, screamed his name.
But the gate immediately began to close. Jeremy shouted:
"No! Not yet! We're not ready yet!"
He shut his eyes tighter and focused harder. Blood dripped from his nose, but he didn't stop. In his thoughts—Julie. Always Julie. Her energy… was the anchor.
It wasn't his power keeping the gate open. It was their connection.
As the rift began to glow again, Henry called out:
"You need her. Julie. Only together can you bring them back."
Jeremy, struggling to stay upright, straightened and nodded.
"Then… it's time to tell her the truth."
*
In the silence of a foreign world, where time flowed differently, Jack opened his eyes and sat up abruptly. The grass beneath him was wet, the air thick and sluggish. But something inside him cracked. Something… familiar.
"Alison…" he said, before he even understood what he felt.
She was lying nearby, in the shadow of the ruins of an old house that had been their only shelter for years. Slowly, she lifted her head, and her eyes lit up.
"You felt it too?"
Jack nodded.
"It was him. Jeremy. He tried to reach us."
Alison walked over to him, sitting across from him as if by instinct.
"Does this mean the Gate… is cracking?"
"Not yet. But someone stirred it. And he wasn't alone," Jack hesitated, looking into her eyes. "He's not just our son anymore. He… he's become the key."
Alison closed her eyes, feeling the familiar thrum deep beneath her skin. The echo of her power, once capable of burning the skies. Now—quiet, dimmed, but not dead.
"Julie," she whispered. "It's her."
Jack looked at her with curiosity.
"Their bond isn't ordinary. It's more than a connection. It's the sign of change. They were born in two different worlds, but their souls…" she trailed off.
Jack leaned in closer.
"You think they'll bring us back?"
"Not just bring us back," she answered softly. "But the world we return to won't be the same. Neither will they."
In the distance, a strange sound rang out—like the air had been torn in one sharp pull. Jack stood up suddenly. A light flickered on the horizon—subtle, pulsing.
"The Gate. An attempt to open it." His voice was steady now. "He's calling us."
Alison took his hand.
"We must be ready. If we ever return… not as powerful beings. But as parents."
Jack looked at her face—still beautiful, but matured. Changed.
"As humans?"
"As them and us. No masks. No power. But with what's left—our fight. And our love."
For a moment, silence fell.
And then Jack said:
"Then we have nothing left to lose. It's time to prepare… to return."
*
A stormy sky hung low over the ruins. Mist curled between the stones, and the air trembled softly—as if even it wasn't sure what was coming.
Jack sat leaning against a stone pillar, wiping mud from a blade he hadn't used in years. It was dull, rusted, but in his hands, it still carried the weight of battle.
Alison sat beside him. She was quiet for a long time before speaking in a soft, almost uncertain voice:
"Do you remember when you thought you'd killed me?"
Jack didn't lift his gaze from the blade.
"Every day."
"Back then… I wanted you to kill me. To make everything stop mattering."
"And now?"
She looked at him—without makeup, without wings, without power. Tired. But real.
"Now I want to go back. Not for me. Not for you. For him." Her voice carried no emotional flourishes. Only truth. "I made a terrible mistake, leaving him there alone, without us…"
Jack placed his hand on her knee slowly, as if testing whether he still could.
"He doesn't know us, Alison. He knows himself. And the girl who awakened something in him, we never had the courage to give."
"Love?"
Jack nodded.
"Light."
A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky. Short, vertical. The mist trembled. In the distance, something shifted—maybe a shadow, maybe a sign.
Alison looked toward the direction from which the change would come.
"If he lets us in… we're no longer monsters. But we're not saints, either."
Jack smiled—bitterly, but with a certain pride.
"That's exactly why we're ready."
They clasped hands. Touched foreheads.
And for a moment, just a moment, Jack managed to whisper something he hadn't said in ages:
"We'll return to him. And this time… we won't leave."