noone notices the contrast of white on white
The beach was alive, pulsing with firelight and laughter, a heartbeat of revelry against the black tide of LongNight. Music tangled in the air, voices lifted in song and delight, while the sea whispered in its endless hush. Seren stood at the water’s edge, toes buried in the warm sand, her fingers idly twisting in the hem of her dress. She was happy. The kind of quiet happiness that didn’t need to be announced, only felt, deep and certain as the stars she had once called home.
A thought struck her—an errand, a whim, barely more than a flicker. Something she had stored away, something she suddenly wanted. It was so easy, so instinctive. A pull on her magic, a step forward, a slip between the seams of reality—and then she was elsewhere.
The moment she arrived, she knew something was wrong.
The air was wrong in her pocket dimension. Thick. Clotted. A silence so absolute it pressed against her eardrums, swallowing the memory of sound. Her island was gone. In its place, an endless abyss stretched in all directions, a yawning void where light should be. The trees—once lush and heavy with fruit—were nothing more than brittle bones, calcified in the eerie luminescence of something deep and distant. The water, once clear, now ran black as ink, sluggish, oozing. The sky above her was no sky at all, but an absence, a wound in the firmament, the very concept of space unravelling before her eyes.
A shiver danced down her spine, and she exhaled, slow, steady.
"Alright," she whispered, voice stolen almost as soon as it left her lips. "Alright. Just go back."
She reached for the thread of her magic, the tether that bound this place to her will. But there was nothing to grasp. Only static. Only a terrible, leering emptiness that curled cold fingers into her chest, pressing against her ribs, against her heart.
Panic rose like bile in her throat. Her mind reeled, a thousand thoughts colliding at once, breaking apart, reforming. She tried again. And again. But the way back was closed. No. Not closed. Devoured.
A ripple in the dark. A movement, just beyond the edges of knowing. She turned too quickly, pulse hammering, and saw them—shapes shifting in the periphery, phantoms draped in the absence of light. They had been waiting. Watching. Growing fat in a dimension that existed outside of space and time, adapting to the lack of air and biding their time.
Seren took a step back, but there was no back. The ground beneath her feet softened, turning vicious, sucking at her ankles like a mouth, like a lover, like a grave. She struggled, breath quickening, the first raw edge of fear cutting through her ribs. "No," she breathed. "No, no, no—" Not when there was still so much to do —
The void things surged forward.
They moved without sound, without form, a tide of hunger and intelligence beyond comprehension. They did not lunge. They did not attack. They simply touched, and the moment they did, she understood.
She had been carrying it all along. A seed, buried deep in her magic, in her bones, in the marrow of her being. It had waited, patient as the deep sea, until she had come home to feed it.
Pain tore through her. Not a wound, not something sharp, but unravelling—skin peeling away like paper, thoughts crumbling into ash. Seren tried to scream for her mother, but she had no mouth. She tried to run, but she had no legs. Tried to fight, but she had no strength. She was stretching, thinning, dissolving into the thing she had harboured, the infection she had never felt growing inside her. And it took her gently, lovingly, pulling her into itself, piece by piece, until there was nothing left.
The pocket dimension collapsed.
On the sands of Torchline, beneath the pitch sky of endless night, a body appeared. It was whole, untouched, as if she had only lain down to rest. But there was no breath in her lungs. No warmth in her skin. Her wide blue eyes—so full of wonder, of stardust and unshaken belief—stared sightlessly at the sky.
And the sea, in its endless hush, whispered its mourning in waves upon the shore.
A thought struck her—an errand, a whim, barely more than a flicker. Something she had stored away, something she suddenly wanted. It was so easy, so instinctive. A pull on her magic, a step forward, a slip between the seams of reality—and then she was elsewhere.
The moment she arrived, she knew something was wrong.
The air was wrong in her pocket dimension. Thick. Clotted. A silence so absolute it pressed against her eardrums, swallowing the memory of sound. Her island was gone. In its place, an endless abyss stretched in all directions, a yawning void where light should be. The trees—once lush and heavy with fruit—were nothing more than brittle bones, calcified in the eerie luminescence of something deep and distant. The water, once clear, now ran black as ink, sluggish, oozing. The sky above her was no sky at all, but an absence, a wound in the firmament, the very concept of space unravelling before her eyes.
A shiver danced down her spine, and she exhaled, slow, steady.
"Alright," she whispered, voice stolen almost as soon as it left her lips. "Alright. Just go back."
She reached for the thread of her magic, the tether that bound this place to her will. But there was nothing to grasp. Only static. Only a terrible, leering emptiness that curled cold fingers into her chest, pressing against her ribs, against her heart.
Panic rose like bile in her throat. Her mind reeled, a thousand thoughts colliding at once, breaking apart, reforming. She tried again. And again. But the way back was closed. No. Not closed. Devoured.
A ripple in the dark. A movement, just beyond the edges of knowing. She turned too quickly, pulse hammering, and saw them—shapes shifting in the periphery, phantoms draped in the absence of light. They had been waiting. Watching. Growing fat in a dimension that existed outside of space and time, adapting to the lack of air and biding their time.
Seren took a step back, but there was no back. The ground beneath her feet softened, turning vicious, sucking at her ankles like a mouth, like a lover, like a grave. She struggled, breath quickening, the first raw edge of fear cutting through her ribs. "No," she breathed. "No, no, no—" Not when there was still so much to do —
The void things surged forward.
They moved without sound, without form, a tide of hunger and intelligence beyond comprehension. They did not lunge. They did not attack. They simply touched, and the moment they did, she understood.
She had been carrying it all along. A seed, buried deep in her magic, in her bones, in the marrow of her being. It had waited, patient as the deep sea, until she had come home to feed it.
Pain tore through her. Not a wound, not something sharp, but unravelling—skin peeling away like paper, thoughts crumbling into ash. Seren tried to scream for her mother, but she had no mouth. She tried to run, but she had no legs. Tried to fight, but she had no strength. She was stretching, thinning, dissolving into the thing she had harboured, the infection she had never felt growing inside her. And it took her gently, lovingly, pulling her into itself, piece by piece, until there was nothing left.
The pocket dimension collapsed.
On the sands of Torchline, beneath the pitch sky of endless night, a body appeared. It was whole, untouched, as if she had only lain down to rest. But there was no breath in her lungs. No warmth in her skin. Her wide blue eyes—so full of wonder, of stardust and unshaken belief—stared sightlessly at the sky.
And the sea, in its endless hush, whispered its mourning in waves upon the shore.
