Hedi listened to the howls and gunshots outside the outpost, a cold ripple sliding down her spine as her knees and calves shook like wind-struck reeds.

She pulled a handkerchief from her breast pocket to wipe her brow, trying to calm herself, but her hand trembled against her face like a powder puff tapping too fast.

“I’m not afraid,” Hedi turned her face toward Selina, feelings first, words second. “I’m just a bit tense and—excited.”

“At a time like this, you’re still joking.”

“No—aha—you probably can’t grasp my mood right now.”

Hedi clenched her fists, feeling the force travel up into her arms, her forearms quivering like bowstrings drawn too tight.

This mood echoed last night’s lonely fear in the outpost, yet it was different—kin, not twin; “excitement” was too crude, and words failed like fog over a lantern.

Maybe it was peace time speaking.

There’s no war here; even with the Dark Realm, people look toward a fast future like spring shoots reaching light.

Imperial papers brim with petty theft, the kind of gossip poured with tea and steam.

Yet the Empire’s peace stirred a knot in me that language couldn’t untie.

Dark Realm out of control and the Shattered City’s riots were the sharp edge; the root was the gap between the original world and the present one.

The original world had no magic, no Dark Realm, its peace a twin mirror to the Empire.

The social rules I learned there fit here, like a key still turning in a different lock.

But after the riot, Shattered City broke into tribes of attackers and attacked; rules splintered, left as mere self-restraint like a thin string around a bull’s horn.

I kept to rules; my biggest change was office worker to Professor of Magic—another desk, another door.

If I hadn’t come to Shattered City, I’d retire with ceremony and lie in a coffin, plain as a closed book.

No—impossible.

I came to Shattered City to seek thrill and feed curiosity, a moth to a flame and counting the sparks.

And even that kept to rules, observing the Dark Realm with an Investigator as a lantern at my side.

Now—no rule at all, just the wind and the dark.

“Why are you smiling?”

Hedi touched the corner of her lips rising on their own, feeling at last like a goddess reborn into another world, about to blaze into adventure; even if rules return later, right now: “I feel like a novel’s protagonist.”

“At a time like this—you’re still joking? There’s no protagonist. This is the living world!”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry—I can’t follow your mood swing.”

“It’s fine. This pressure’s made me a little—manic.”

Hedi stepped to the window and peered through the boards. No one crossed her view. The road was packed with buildings the color of the outpost, every one hung with a mouse-gray film, grimy as rain-washed dust.

“What’s it like outside now?”

“Don’t know. I barely hear shots.” Hedi shook her head, nudged a wooden chair with her toe, and cracked the door a sliver.

“Professor?!”

“I want to draw them here; it’s narrow; we only need to hold the doorway—forget it. If there are more residents than we think, there’s nowhere to hide in this little box.”

“That’s a good plan.”

“But if I burn out my mana and faint, and their numbers don’t thin, in a room this small, where would you run?” Hedi shrugged, careless as rain on stone. “I won’t feel a thing; if I faint, I’d die without knowing.”

Selina waved both hands. “Let’s wait for the guards.”

“No—you wait here.”

Hedi walked for the door and caught a clear orange-scented shampoo in the air. She turned and almost bumped Selina’s nose. Selina edged back, awkward, then pressed close again like a shadow.

“I’ll be back quick.”

“What if you don’t? What do I do alone?” Selina’s voice was tiny, like speaking on a windy ridge where words blow thin.

“It’s safer here even if I don’t.”

“They’ll come sooner or later!”

“Out there, I can’t protect you.”

“I only can’t use magic. I’m not baggage.”

Hedi stopped talking, pushed the door, and stepped into the street. Selina hurried three steps into two, tight on her heels. They wound forward a short way, as the colors deepened like dusk soaking the walls.

“Stop.”

Hedi threw out an arm to bar Selina, pressed her back to a rough cold wall, and peeked toward the city gate.

Residents hammered at wall and gate with whatever they could grab, trying to break the defense; but the gate, bricked in black, held like iron, their pounding leaving nothing but noise.

“Looks like this way’s shut.” Hedi took Selina’s hand, stepped over a mutated resident’s corpse, and headed for the other end.

“What are they trying to do?”

“Get out. When you came in, this didn’t happen?”

Selina tilted her face, thinking. “It did, but they were well-behaved.”

Hedi licked her lips, hummed through her nose, wore the look of deep thought, and walked on like a lantern seeking a path.

When we went to the Dark Realm, I didn’t see residents. With her answer, I’d guess it’s daytime—like creatures that hide by day and roam by night, Dark Realm Erosion rewrote their habits.

Hedi took out her pocket watch.

10:43.

This morning when Selina reached Shattered City, residents were compliant; now they were storm-brittle and furious. If the Dark Realm controlled them, they’d drag us out of the outpost. Smashing the gate means they’re self-driven, bodies aching only to escape.

“Does the Dark Realm amplify inner emotion?”

“Could be an emotion regulation disorder.”

“Explain.”

“Even a professor doesn’t know this?”

“Holmes was brilliant and still didn’t know the earth was round. I treat things I don’t care about the same way.”

“Normally, the brain modulates emotion through complex circuits, keeping behavior fit to the environment and mind in balance. Under long stress, illness, or certain disorders, that regulation fails or turns unstable.”

“I see. Anxiety at turning monstrous, the press of being penned in Shattered City, anger at the guards’ hard blockade… the Dark Realm magnified it.” Hedi answered, bright as a sudden flame. “Only—if they’ve been shut in so long, what do they eat?”

“Canned food.” A voice rose at their side like a pebble dropping into water.

“Whoa—ah!” Hedi jolted, snapping toward the sound.

A guard leaned against the wall, clutching his belly. Blood at his lip had dried into scab-like clumps, dark as old rust.

“Didn’t I tell you to wait at the outpost?”

“How long were we supposed to wait?” Hedi crouched, pressed her palm to the dented armor—he shoved her off, rough as a broom. “Don’t move. I know simple healing!”

“Not now,” the guard forced himself upright like a tree in wind. “We… have to get… to the gate…”

“It’s packed with residents.”

“Looks like breaking things was right.”

“Breaking?”

“I snapped the lever that opens the gate. These monsters must stay inside!”

Hedi went silent, words drying like ink. “And you didn’t talk to us at all. You trapped the humans too.”

“What about the other guards?” Selina asked. “With this happening—”

Hedi smacked her shoulder, stopping her words mid-breath.

“Some couldn’t bear turning monstrous and ate a bullet. Some changed and I put them down. Some guards tried to shut the Dark Realm themselves…” He batted Hedi’s hand away, then wobbled to his feet, braced on the wall like a wounded stag.

Selina looked at Hedi. Hedi shrugged, helpless, blaming her for a dumb question; they’d only seen one guard—the rest was written in ash.

Hedi folded her arms, trying to thaw the awkward air. “So what now?”

“To the stairs the Investigator carved,” the guard said, voice like gravel.

“Climb the wall, and then?”

“The staircase has two faces. There’s one outside too.”

“Good idea. But the line to that stair has nowhere to hide.”

“I’ll draw their eyes.” The guard pointed at Selina. “You get back to the Dark Realm Research Institute and report to the other Investigators.”

“As for you, return to the Academy, Professor Melvina.”

Hedi said nothing, heel rocking like a pendulum.

“Too dangerous!” Selina shook her head. “The three of us can push through together.”

“No. I’m not leaving.”

“Why?”

“No reason!”

Hedi clamped Selina’s shoulder to keep her voice low, then laid her hand on the guard’s armor again and worked a simple healing like warm water over stone.

“You get it, don’t you, Professor Melvina?” the guard asked, seeking a nod like a sailor seeking a star.

Hedi didn’t answer. She stoked her magic and hunted the damage: cracked ribs, a hairline fissure in the arm bone, a long thin claw mark on the left thigh… But what’s this? On his back, something slick and sticky, ringed with many small circles like sucker prints.

Wait. That looked like—

Hedi snapped her head up, eyes wide, met the guard’s gaze—then smoothed her face and pushed the healing on like nothing happened.

“That’s enough to move.” He swung his arm. “Get to the stairs. I’ll cover you.”

“I still don’t get it, you—”

Hedi pressed Selina’s shoulder again. “If he wants to play hero, let him. We’ve no reason to stop him.”

“Professor!”

“Shh.”

Hedi nudged Selina forward, a hand like wind at her back.

The guard followed in their wake, footsteps dull as drums.

“You noticed, didn’t you?”

“Noticed what?” Hedi kept her voice small, like a moth near flame.

“There’s—tentacles on my back.”

“I know now.”