The passage seemed endless, a throat of stone swallowing us like dusk swallowing the last star.

We ran in to escape the roach swarm, and time frayed like wet paper.

Even tireless Selina grew weary as minutes sanded her down like wind on rock. It showed on her face—half-closed lids, dull eyes, drooped lips, bloodless pallor.

"If you want, you can put your hand back on my face," she murmured, voice like a warm blanket in winter.

"Is that okay?" I asked, a leaf hesitating before the drop.

"Did you hesitate earlier?" She shot me a look, quick as a sparrow.

"You don’t need my protection. Compared to me, magic is more solid than stone."

"Se—" I paused, the name like a pebble on my tongue. Calling her only Selina felt impolite. I chewed the thought, then sidestepped the name. "My sense of safety doesn’t come from magic."

"From your heart?"

"From another person’s support."

I leaned back and offered my head to Selina, like a willow bowing toward a stream.

I’d thought my temperament had shifted under pressure, but it was only a mask—bravery worn because I couldn’t use magic, brittle as frost on glass.

Without magic, life loses its shield, like a candle without a lantern.

Two souls in a treacherous place—if one rages like thunder, the other’s mental rampart crumbles like sand.

So I could only soothe the one shouting, to keep my own mind from sliding into a whirlpool—may I not have added weight to her heart?

With that thought, I asked softly, testing the water with a fingertip, "How do you feel?"

"Squishy," she said, like bread warm from the oven.

"Squishy, huh," I echoed, a smile rising like dawn.

I meant to ask if she’d let her tension drain, but face-pinching seemed her way—like hugging the quilt at night, a hunger for skin warmth.

We kept walking, deeper down the throat of the passage, two sparks drifting into dusk.

Whoosh whoosh came from ahead, loud as a storm through reeds. Wind rushed straight at us, ricocheting through the narrow hush.

White shards of light floated midair, lanterns that lit only a few steps. We cupped our hands to see farther.

A blurred shadow leaned against the wall, smudged like charcoal.

I tapped Selina’s hand—still kneading my cheek—and pointed forward, a silent arrow.

"Looks like an Investigator. The crystal’s glow is painting that lump," she said, voice like a lantern swung low.

"Stay here. Don’t move," I said, a stone laid on calm water.

I put Selina behind me, then coughed hard, sound like gravel, and fixed my gaze on the shadow for any twitch.

The figure didn’t turn; it rested like driftwood, deaf to our pebble-splash.

"Did he not hear?" she whispered, a reed under wind.

"We’ve been in the Dark Realm so long—I’d bet he’s dead," I said, body angling as I slid forward like a cautious crab.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

I listened to my own steps, three drops in a well, and reached the shadow. Selina had guessed right—a male Investigator.

He wore a heavy coat, weight like a soaked cloak. His hood’s clasp was fastened up to his nose, and wind goggles covered his face—mummified by cloth.

He didn’t sense me. He stayed statue-still, face turned right, staring into the dark depth like a hunter at night water.

The wind grew stronger, a river shouldering into the gorge.

I smoothed hair from my mouth, a brush across reeds, circled to his front, and eased off his goggles, then unhooked the clasp biting his nose.

His face was chalk-pale, eyes rolled upward like dead fish. Dark red welts ringed his neck, as if gouged by claws.

I crouched and checked his hands—nails trimmed flat as shells. To carve such wounds would take force like iron.

"What do you think?" Selina asked, voice small as a moth.

"The crystal’s light isn’t a guidepost. It’s a distress flare," I said, shaking my head, and tossed the goggles aside like a useless shell. "Something deeper made him try to flee."

As I spoke, his lips ticked upward, a twitch quick as a frog’s leg.

Maybe light and dark cast strange shadows on his face, or the pressure made my eyes lie—hallucinations ripple like heat over stone.

Either way, I held my breath and watched, gaze a knife on ice.

His lips crept up again, identical to the first—a repeat like an echo.

Not illusion. Not shadow.

My breath thickened. The air was cold as cellar stone and stank of rot, a swamp inside my lungs.

I edged closer to Selina, then slid a floating white shard of light toward his face, wanting the source laid bare.

From his slightly parted lips, two slender feelers probed out, like pale grass blades.

"Pro... Professor..." Selina stammered, her voice a thread.

"Don’t worry. I can use magic now," I said, comfort uncertain as dawn behind mist.

In the Dark Realm, spending mental power is a bad bargain; its teeth are always at the gate. But roaches inside a body—this should be simple.

I opened my palm and breathed a pearly white flame, a lotus of fire blooming from light.

The fire lit the corridor in a winter noon, chasing shadows like wolves.

Roaches felt the heat and fled, pouring from his mouth like black rain. White larvae spilled from nose, eyes, ears, a snowfall of filth.

Endless roaches swarmed and smothered the burning man, a living cloak of chitin over flame.

I widened the flame, and pain swelled my skull like a drum. The Dark Realm slipped in, spear-deep, stirring my thoughts into porridge.

"Using a human body as a nest?!" I shouted, and pushed the fire wider, vowing to burn this disgust to ash.

Selina hooked her arms around my waist and knees, lifted me to her chest, and sprinted, a deer breaking from brush.

"Stop burning your mental power!" she cried, voice like a bell against storm.

I clutched my splitting head. My face went white as paper. "Maybe I overdid it," I breathed, thin as smoke.

"Don’t worry. Running’s my forte! Among new Investigators, none outpace me!" Her grin flashed like steel.

I raised my hand, slow as a leaf in wind, and tried to pinch Selina’s cheek. Sweat slipped my fingers. I tried again and again, then caught it at last.

"Professor?! I thought you—" Her words stumbled like stones.

"I just didn’t answer. Say something lucky, will you?" I said, a tired smile floating up like a feather.

"Even without magic, I’ll get you out!" she vowed, a lighthouse in squall.

I forced a small smile and opened my palm, then cast Sacred Magic that reshapes matter—one ripple, one command.

Stone walls on both sides slammed inward like jaws, blocking the roach tide behind us.

"You used magic again—can your mental power hold?" she panted, feet drumming like hooves.

"Keep running. They can still... crawl through the cracks..." My voice frayed like worn cloth.

"You knew that, and you still used it!" She shot back, breath quick as arrows.

"Cracks slow them... hiss... slower than open ground..." I said, each word a stone.

Selina kept running, and kept talking, her voice a rope thrown to me, stalling the Dark Realm Erosion gnawing at my brain.

She refused to let the academy’s young, promising Professor go mad in this sinkhole of night.

"Can you still hear me?" she called, breath hot as forge air.

"Mhm," I answered, a sound like a bottle in surf.

"What did I just say?"

"Mhm," I echoed, a lost buoy.

"Professor?"

I lay in Selina’s arms, lips gently closed, a fallen leaf asleep on water. Every jolt of her run made my ash-gray curls tremble.

With each tremor, my mind collapsed to a black dot, slid through stone like rain through soil, and retreated fast, retreating without end—backward into unknowable dark.

I realized it, slapped my cheeks hard, trying to keep the lantern lit, but my lids fell heavy as gates.

Running, wind, and Selina’s breath near as spring—everything flew off, flung beyond the sky.

Only death-still silence and darkness remained, a tomb with no name.