Page 74 of Avidian
RULE 22 OF THE NEW ORDER: MORE POWER DOESN’T ALWAYS MEAN MORE CONTROL—SOMETIMES, IT’S THE QUICKEST WAY TO LOSE YOURSELF.
I’m standingin the living room, but Malachi isn’t looking at me.
He’s looking through me.
A chill races down my spine as I whirl around. My body is still seated on the couch, Bash’s hands glowing faintly where they touch my arms, his head bowed in concentration. This is wrong. I never cross into the veil this way—without trying, without intention.
“Malachi?” I say, testing the air, but he doesn’t react. It’s like I don’t exist.
I glance back at Bash, my voice trembling. “Bash, something’s?—”
Then I hear it.
A whisper. Soft at first then louder, like dozens of voices layered together. The air thickens, and shadows ripple along the edges of the room, stretching and twisting as if they’re alive. My heart pounds as I turn in a slow circle, the temperature dropping with every second.
This isn’t the veil. This is something else entirely.
“Katja.” The whisper carries my name, disembodied but familiar. A woman’s voice. Then a man’s. Then another. The air vibrates with their chorus, each word tugging at me like invisible threads.
I stumble back, my foot catching on nothing, and suddenly I’m falling. The world tilts, and I tumble out of the living room, out of the light, into endless darkness. The room I left hangs above me like a distant window, glowing faintly in the void. I scramble to my feet, reaching for it, but something—someone—shoves me back.
“You don’t belong here...but you will soon.”
The voice brushes against my ear, cold and hollow, as though the speaker is right behind me. The icy breath freezes me in place, and I scream, spinning around to find...nothing. Only the darkness stretches on, endless and suffocating.
But then the void churns, swirling like ink in water, and shapes begin to emerge. The ground beneath me solidifies into a desolate, cracked landscape. Wisps of mist curl around my ankles, cold and clinging, and then they take form.
Spirits.
They materialize all around me, flickering in and out like broken projections. Men, women, even animals—some look almost normal, their faces solemn and pale. Others are horrors. Twisted bodies, gaping wounds, and empty eyes, frozen in the moments of their violent deaths.
I take a shaky step back, but they’re everywhere. A crowd, restless and shifting, growing thicker with each second. My chest tightens, my breaths coming in shallow gasps. This isn’t like the veil I’ve known. This is chaos. This is...wrong.
Amid the spirits, something else moves. Shadows. They dart between the dead, fast and deliberate, always narrowly out of sight. I whip my head around, trying to follow their movement,but they’re too quick, slipping between the figures like predators stalking prey.
“Who said that?” My voice wavers as I turn, searching for the source of the voices.
A woman stands beside me, her face pale and lifeless, her eyes wide with something that might have been fear—or madness. Her lips curl into a wicked smile, too wide and too sharp, and she begins to laugh. It’s a high-pitched, manic sound that claws at my nerves, and then she’s gone, vanishing into the air like smoke.
The laughter lingers, echoing around me, picked up by others in the crowd. More spirits turn toward me, their hollow eyes fixed on mine. I stumble back again, my foot slipping on the uneven ground.
I’ve never seen so many at once.
The sheer weight of their presence presses down on me, until I think I may be sick. Their whispers grow louder, a thousand overlapping voices clawing at the edges of my mind. My head throbs, and I press my hands over my ears, but it doesn’t help. They’re inside me now, their voices wrapping around my thoughts, making it impossible to think, to focus.
I try to will it all away, to block them out like I’ve done before, but it’s too much. The darkness is alive, crawling with restless energy, and I don’t know how to control it. Panicking, I spin in place, searching for a way out.
The spirits close in.
“Help,” I whisper, but there’s no one here to hear me.
“Here, kitty, kitty.” Damien’s voice slithers through the crowd like smoke, wrapping itself around me and making my skin crawl. My heart jumps at the familiarity, a bizarre cocktail of relief and dread settling over me. At least it’s someone I know—if you can even call Damien a “someone” anymore.
“The very person I wanted to talk to,” I call out, forcing my voice to stay steady even as the weight of the veil presses in on me. My eyes dart through the sea of dead, searching for him, but he’s nowhere to be seen. The air feels charged, the overwhelming energy of so many voices, faces, and emotions making it hard to focus. I clench my fists, trying to keep control. Bash said I’d be stronger. If I can see all of this—feel all of this—then I should be able to control it. Shouldn’t I?
I close my eyes, forcing three slow, steady breaths as I try to quiet the madness around me.
I can do this.
