The warehouse groaned around them.
Metal creaked somewhere overhead, the sound stretching too long, echoing in a way that made distance meaningless. The darkness was still absolute—no windows, no weak light bleeding in. Just cold concrete beneath their feet and the suffocating sense of being watched.
"Izana?" Leah called again, voice shaking.
Her hand slid along the wall as she moved, fingers brushing rust and flaking paint. Every step was cautious, measured. Her breathing was still uneven, panic lingering just beneath the surface, but she forced herself forward anyway.
"I'm here," his voice answered, faint and strained. "Don't stop."
She clung to the sound like a lifeline.
Across the warehouse, Izana staggered forward, one hand pressed hard against his side. Warmth soaked through his fingers, slick and wrong. Blood loss made the world tilt, edges blurring, but he gritted his teeth and stayed upright through sheer will.
He couldn't afford to fall.
Not now.
The curse pulsed again.
And the warehouse changed.
Not physically.
Temporally.
The air thickened, heavy with something old—fear, desperation, rage. Leah's footsteps faltered as the concrete beneath her feet seemed to shift, the present peeling away like a thin layer of paint.
"No," she whispered. "What is this…?"
The darkness opened.
Images slammed into her mind without warning.
A child's scream.
Not hers.
Not Izana's.
A boy.
Small. Too small for the weight pressing down on him.
Black hair matted with sweat. Red eyes wide with terror—until they suddenly flared, shifting violently to green as something dark surged through him.
Leah gasped as the memory swallowed her whole.
She wasn't standing anymore.
She was watching.
The warehouse was brighter then—harsh overhead lights buzzing loudly, casting stark shadows across reinforced walls. Thick restraints bolted into the floor. Heavy chains. Symbols carved deep into the concrete, meant to contain something no one fully understood.
A half-crushed cake box lay overturned in a corner. The frosting smeared across the cold concrete, a candle toppled and melted onto the floor. A faint, almost ghostly echo of a voice whispered, "We were going to celebrate tonight…"
The boy was dragged in.
He fought.
Not like a child should fight.
Power rippled violently around him, invisible but devastating, cracking concrete, rattling metal. His eyes burned unnaturally green now, no longer fully his own, as the curse clawed its way through him. Every scream he made tore through the air like a weapon.
"Hold him!" someone shouted.
The curse roared.
Leah felt it then—raw, uncontrolled, newly awakened. A force that didn't yet know restraint, only hunger and terror. Anyone who got too close—
Death.
Guaranteed.
Her chest tightened painfully.
"This was…" she breathed. "This was on purpose…"
The memory twisted.
A man and a woman rushed forward—panic overriding reason, love overriding fear. They reached for the boy despite the warnings, despite the restraints, despite the power tearing the room apart.
"No—!" Leah cried, even though she knew it was already over.
The surge came fast.
Violent.
Uncontrolled.
The man and woman hit the floor hard, bodies crumpling as the air itself seemed to strike them down. They didn't move, barely breathing, the aftermath silent and horrifying.
The boy screamed.
Not in rage.
In horror.
In guilt so deep it shattered something inside him.
His eyes flickered—green dimming for a split second, red trying to return beneath the curse's grip.
"No—no—NO—!"
The sound echoed—
—and became Izana's voice.
The memory slammed into him like a blade.
Izana dropped to his knees.
"Sixteen years," he snarled, voice cracking. "Sixteen FUCKING YEARS and you bring me back HERE?!"
Leah cried out as the memory bled into her own senses—Izana's rage, his grief, his terror colliding with her own panic. She stumbled, nearly falling as the warehouse seemed to close in.
"Izana!" she shouted. "I can feel it—it's showing me—."
"I KNOW!" he screamed back, breath ragged. "I KNOW WHAT IT DID—WHAT IT TOOK—!"
The curse writhed, delighted.
This was its triumph.
This place wasn't chosen to trap them.
It was chosen to break them.
Leah pressed a hand to her chest, fighting the urge to collapse as the boy's sobs echoed in her mind, layered with Izana's shouts in the present.
Then she saw it—the candle, the frosting, the boy's tiny fists clenched around the empty cake box. His small, trembling lips forming words she could almost hear:
"It's my birthday…"
Her chest hitched.
"It was his birthday…" she whispered, realization hitting her like a physical blow. "That night—it was his birthday…"
Izana's scream tore through the warehouse.
"DON'T SAY IT!"
His vision blurred, blood loss and memory conspiring to pull him under. He forced himself up again, staggering forward blindly, following her voice, following her.
"I didn't ask for it!" he shouted, voice hoarse and fractured. "I DIDN'T ASK TO BECOME THIS—!"
The curse surged violently, the warehouse lights in the memory shattering, plunging everything back into darkness.
Leah sobbed as the vision finally released her, dropping her back into the present. She slid down the wall, shaking, tears streaming freely now.
"It wasn't your fault," she whispered desperately, though she didn't fully understand why she said it. "Whoever that boy was—it wasn't his fault—."
Izana froze.
Her words cut through the curse like a blade.
For a moment—just one—the pressure eased.
Then he stumbled forward again, forcing his weak body to obey.
"Leah," he rasped. "Don't stop talking."
"I'm here," she said immediately, pushing herself up despite her trembling legs. "I'm not going anywhere."
They moved toward each other through the darkness, drawn by voice, by pain, by something the curse could not fully sever.
Blood dripped from Izana's side, strength fading fast.
Leah's fear threatened to consume her again.
But they kept moving.
Because the warehouse had already taken enough.
And neither of them was willing to let it take the other too.