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After the horrific, otherworldly might of the initial blast, Darien had no idea how he was still alive. It had torn his hands out of the others’ grips and launched him blindly into a wall hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Hard enough to bruise to the bone.
Now, he was hunkered down beside that wall, arms thrown over his head, waiting out the collision of dimensions as darkness triumphed over light, suffocating everything it touched.
Finally, the falling of the Veil and the sheer force of two worlds blending into one stopped like a window shut against a storm. There was nothing now but an eerie silence and endless, choking darkness.
Nothing but blindness.
With a roar of pain, he pushed rubble off his body and staggered to his feet, a part of him wishing, as he blinked fiercely at his surroundings that had disappeared, leaving nothing but flat black, that he hadn’t survived the blast.
Because this darkness that was choking the tunnels… It felt thicker than tar. Colder than ice. It pressed on Darien like a weighted blanket, not even the vaguest of shapes visible in the endless gloom, no matter how hard he blinked or squinted. A hellseher, blind for the first time in his life, even his Sight unable to glimpse a single thread of color. What irony.
Worse than the darkness was the silence. Roman, Jack, Tanner… Where the hell were they? He could hear nothing but the odd clack of debris, the pounding of his heart and his rapid breaths, so warm against the sudden chill.
No other heartbeats. No one else breathing.
“Roman?” he called, the word crackling with exhaustion. With pain.
No answer.
“Roman!” he called again. His shout echoed as if he were stuck in a bell.
The eerie sound that followed was a faint groaning and creaking, as if the walls themselves were stretching, the throat of a beast poised to devour.
“Tanner,” he tried, chest pumping with labored breaths. He tried using his Sight again, but it showed him nothing. Just endless velvet black that made Darien wonder if this wasn’t the Void at all, but maybe he’d gone blind during the explosion. His breaths came faster, and his next shout was a desperate roar. “JACKYYYYY!”
Nothing.
“Fuck. Fuck.” Darien reached over his shoulder, his skin and muscles screaming in agony from the blast, his bodysuit ripped from head to toe, and grabbed the automatic rifle.
The tactical light bobbed before him like a spark as he pointed the firearm into the black shroud. Not blind. He wasn’t blind, but—
No light could penetrate it. The lightbulb just flitted about uselessly like a firefly, emitting no beam to cut through the dark.
A cold sweat broke out across his back. His heart stumbled two beats.
The Veil had fallen. He had no idea where his friends or family were, if they were even alive—
And, for the first time in his life, he was utterly blind.
Roman couldn’t tell up from down, left from right. The darkness pressed on him, relentless and suffocating. It was closing in—
I’m here, Sayagul said. Stay calm. Find Darien. We need to find Darien—
“Darien,” Roman panted. He got to his feet and staggered through the dark, following the sound of his cousin’s shouting.
“Roman!” Darien’s deep voice cracked with relief. “Roman, where the fuck are you?”
“Here,” Roman squeezed out, moving faster, the toes of his boots catching in rubble. He tripped and smacked his face against stone—a wall, the skin of his cheek ripping open. He pushed off the adamant and kept walking, focusing on the sound of Darien’s footsteps. Blood trickled in lines down his back, warm against the icy air inside the chamber. “I can’t see.” And if he couldn’t see, then what did that mean for Pax? Kylar? Shayla? Were they even alive? Fuck, he had to find them.
“Neither can I.” Darien’s voice was closer now, the shift of rock under boots getting louder.
Roman’s lungs were too small; he couldn’t draw a full breath. They shrank further, squeezing and burning and shriveling—
Stay calm, Roman, Sayagul urged, though her words were also edged with panic, her mind flashing between their surroundings and thoughts of Paxton. Shay.
Roman tried to take her advice, but he couldn’t breathe, his phobia gripping him in sharp claws. He couldn’t fucking breathe. “I can’t see—”
“I know.” Darien’s voice was strained. A hand settled on Roman’s arm, and Roman flinched, breaths drawn through clenched teeth. “It’s me—I’m here,” Darien said. “I’m right here. You hear me? You listening?”
