The shed door bowed inward.
Not by force the way a man would shoulder it, but as if the wood itself had decided it was softer than it remembered. Nails squealed. The latch trembled.
Kael backed away, rusty knife in one hand, the iron hook in the other. Lyra planted her feet beside him, breathing too fast, eyes fixed on the door like she could hold it shut by staring.
Outside, the wet hum grew louder.
Then—silence.
A pause so sudden it felt staged.
Kael swallowed. "It's thinking."
Lyra's voice came thin. "Or listening."
The door stopped shaking. The scraping returned—slow, deliberate—like a quill writing across the grain.
Kael's gaze flicked to the window. The harbor's light-lines still pulsed. The oval Rift near the guide-tower shimmered, brighter now, as if it were pulling the world toward it.
Another meaning dropped into his mind, calm and absolute:
Rift Timer: 01:58
Participants must enter.
"Timer," Kael whispered. "It's giving us—" His throat tightened. "—two minutes."
Lyra shook her head, almost angry. "We didn't agree to anything."
Kael looked at the glowing words through the dirty glass. "Apparently it doesn't care."
A scream cut across the docks.
Kael risked another glance outside.
Two men had tried to run past the pier carts. A small shadow-creature—a lesser Extractor—spilled out of the water like a clot, latched onto one of them, and the man collapsed as if someone had unplugged him. Not blood. Not wounds. Just… collapse.
Above the creature flickered text:
Extracting…
The man's skin dulled, his eyes going distant, as though pieces of him were being copied and removed.
Kael's stomach turned. "It doesn't eat flesh."
"It eats… whatever makes you you," Lyra said, voice flat with horror.
The shed door bulged again—this time from the top. The wood groaned like a ribcage under pressure.
Kael made a decision that didn't feel like his.
"We're going to the Node."
Lyra stared. "Kael—"
"There's no withdrawal." He pointed at the air. The timer continued to tick, indifferent. "And that Rift is the only thing I've seen that looks like a rule we can follow."
Lyra's jaw clenched. "Following rules is how traps work."
"Breaking them is how you die," Kael shot back—then winced at his own certainty. Because it wasn't certainty. It was fear pretending to be logic.
The door finally cracked.
A thin black limb slid through the gap like a knife entering a seam. Symbols crawled along it, faint and sickly. It pushed, and the crack widened.
Kael's grip tightened on the hook. Above it, the damage numbers flickered again, briefly brighter, as if noticing his intent.
He moved first.
He kicked the nearest barrel straight into the door.
The barrel slammed the crack with a heavy thud, buying half a second—maybe less. Lyra lunged past him, yanking the window shutter open.
"Out!" she shouted.
Kael followed, half climbing, half falling through the narrow opening. The drop to the pier planks wasn't far, but his knees buckled on impact. Lyra landed beside him, then grabbed his sleeve and pulled.
Behind them, the shed door exploded outward.
Black shapes spilled into daylight—shapes that hated it, or pretended to. One large Extractor followed, unfolding itself with slow confidence, like a predator certain its prey had nowhere left to go.
Kael ran.
The harbor had become a maze of floating labels and pulsing circles. He saw words above ropes, barrels, planks, even the water itself.
Water — Depth: Unknown — Hazard: High
"Left!" Lyra barked, and Kael obeyed without thinking.
They dodged an overturned cart. A man swung a broken oar at a lesser Extractor; the oar connected—and snapped.
Above the oar flashed:
Break Chance: Certain
The system wasn't just describing things.
It was predicting them.
The timer pulsed in Kael's vision:
Rift Timer: 00:57
The guide-tower loomed ahead—old stone, barnacle-stained, a relic from before Stormwatch Tower was built. Now it stood at the center of a glowing web of lines on the pier.
And beside it, the Rift.
Up close, it wasn't a hole in air so much as a tear in permission. The edges shimmered like glass refusing to stay whole. Inside was a moving darkness, threaded with faint light, like a throat swallowing stars.
Kael felt it pulling.
Not by wind or gravity.
By rule.
Lyra slowed, face tight. "Once we step through—"
"No withdrawal," Kael said again, and hated that he had to.
A lesser Extractor leapt from the side.
Kael reacted too late.
Lyra moved first.
She snatched a loose coil of rope from the pier and snapped it outward like a whip. The rope struck the creature midair, the fibers glowing for an instant. The Extractor recoiled, skidding across the planks.
Above the rope flashed:
Improvised Weapon — Damage: 1–3
Lyra blinked, startled. "It counted that."
Kael stared at her. "You—how did you—"
"I don't know!" she snapped. "I just—did it."
The large Extractor was closing now, slower but certain, like a tide that knew time belonged to it. The symbols on its body brightened as it neared the Node.
Above it, new text appeared:
Priority Target: Participants
Kael's heart slammed against his ribs.
The timer hit 00:12.
Lyra grabbed his wrist. Her eyes were wide, wet, furious. "If this kills us, I'm haunting you."
"If it doesn't, I'll apologize," Kael said, and somehow that was the closest thing to a prayer he had.
They ran.
The Rift's edge chilled Kael's skin as they crossed.
For a heartbeat, the world held its breath.
Then the harbor vanished.