My chest heaves.
My heart pounds.
My mother cries.
Lily gapes.
And darkness swirls.
It gathers into a black hole that sucks us up.
Into darkness.
Into pain.
My parents are slaughtered.
Lily is dead.
Unmoving on the bench.
Her eyes empty, devoid of all life.
I am devastated.
Horrified.
Backing away as her body twists into the hound that killed her.
The rift widens over me—a spiral of chaotic energy.
On the other side, in the Overlay, a flock of winged creatures swarm and swirl like a tornado.
The vines surge through my veins.
They wrap around my heart.
They are going to yank it out.
Or yank me in.
Someone is screaming.
Iam screaming.
I am dying.
But then, light flares and something shrieks.
The plant lets go.
Of my heart.
Of my arm.
I stagger backward, stars dancing in the periphery of my vision as two of thewinged-creatures swoop through the rift right before it closes. With an ear-splitting screech, they burst into the sky and disappear.
Someone steps into the moonlight—tall and broad-shouldered with wild hair—firelight flickering along her profile.
