“Hope is far more dangerous than fear.Fear eventually kneels.Hope refuses.”~Raja
Raja feltit from three realms away.He stopped walking instantly, the soles of his boots stilling against rain-slick pavement while the city around him kept moving in its frantic, meaningless rhythm.
Life.
Loud.
Fragile.
Temporary.
And below all of it, the realms trembled.
The pulse rolled through existence again.Not physical.Deeper than that.A vibration traveling along the oldest places connecting realm to realm, stone to shadow, life to death.
The foundations.
Someone had touched them.
No.
Something.
The realization settled coldly through him.
Interesting.
Around him, humans instinctively gave him space without understanding why.A businessman glanced over his shoulder mid-step before veering sharply around him, unease tightening the line of his jaw.A woman pulling a child by the wrist through the crowd lowered her voice as she passed, her pulse spiking hard enough that Raja heard it skip.She walked faster after that, tugging the child closer to her side.
Yes.The living always recognized death eventually.Even when they pretended otherwise.
Raja lifted his gaze toward the storm-heavy sky.The pulse came again.Silver light flashed briefly through his mind.
Not memory, but recognition.And threaded inside it, life.
Young.Unshaped.Untouched by fear yet.
For the first time in centuries, surprise flickered through Raja’s ancient control.The Great Luna.Of course.Who else would answer corruption with creation itself?His mouth curved slightly, though no warmth touched the expression.Sentimental creature.
The djinn had sealed him away with power and sacrifice and ancient law.The wolves answered darkness with love, loyalty, and hope, as though those things had ever stopped death from collecting its due.And still, the foundations had responded.
Far beneath the city streets, Raja felt the fractures recoil briefly before spreading again through weakened barriers and broken seams between worlds.Not defeated.Resisted.The distinction irritated him more than it should have.
Rain began falling in slow, uneven drops, striking the shoulders of his coat in a rhythm that did not match the storm above.Humans cursed softly and hurried for shelter, jackets pulled up over their heads, newspapers folded into useless little roofs.
Raja remained where he stood, dark eyes unfocused as he followed the pulse threading through the realms.
A child.Not yet born.And already the foundations recognized her.Interesting.Very interesting.
A scream echoed suddenly from several streets away.Then another.
Raja lowered his gaze slowly.The human realm was deteriorating faster now.
He could feel it everywhere.Erosion.The veil separating living and dead had begun thinning around the weak places first.Graveyards.Hospitals.Battlefields.Places saturated with grief and endings and unfinished longing.Spirits lingered longer than they should.Shadows moved incorrectly.Nightmares slipped too easily into waking minds.
And supernatural creatures?They were becoming unstable.
Fear did strange things to creatures already balanced between instinct and civilization.
