The black, needle-toothed moths didn't just bite; they dissolved. One second, I was watching Red recoil from a moth-eaten croissant, and the next, the entire kitchen of our Silver-Port bakery was being pulled through a straw. The walls stretched into long, thin ribbons of wood and plaster, the ceiling spiraled upward like a whirlpool, and the light—that warm, golden sun through the window—was snuffed out like a candle in a gale.
"Kaelen! Red! Grab ahold of—"
My voice didn't even make it past my teeth. The air was ripped out of my lungs, and for a terrifying heartbeat, I felt that same stretching sensation from the Void-Wastes, but more clinical. More precise. It wasn't just my body being moved; it felt like I was being filed away in a drawer.
I hit a floor. Hard.
The impact knocked the remaining wind out of me. I lay there for a long minute, gasping, my face pressed against something cold, smooth, and smelling faintly of... bleach?
