Wei's consciousness jolted.
The world did not pause.
The darkness did not hesitate.
It was as if nothing had happened at all.
Except that something was gone—
a warmth this world had never needed in the first place.
But to Wei,
that warmth had been everything.
It was Chun's heart-fire.
The only proof that she had ever existed.
She did not come back.
She did not fight beside him again.
She only—
pushed him out.
Wei could not think.
He could not speak.
It was not a sob.
It was worse than that.
It was as if even the right to make a sound
had been taken from him.
The white light surged forward, unbalanced.
Not by choice.
Not by decision.
It moved on because stopping was no longer possible.
Behind him, the darkness sealed itself shut—
like the jaws of an abyss snapping closed.
No echo.
No aftermath.
No trace left behind.
No red.
Only him—
cast onto the side of survival.
—
Wei did not look back.
He could not.
Because if he did—
that single glance would kill him.
Not because he would hesitate,
but because the moment he confirmed it,
his body would collapse on instinct alone.
Something cracked behind him.
Not an explosion.
More like the sound of something being torn open against its will—
a violent, unbalanced rupture.
Then—
a hiss.
Like cold water poured onto hot iron.
The sound detonated against his back, close enough that his skin crawled,
carrying with it a slick, cold undertone,
a wet whisper that made his spine tense.
Something was forcing its way out of the breach.
Slowly.
Relentlessly.
Then—
boom.
A massive black hand formed rapidly within the fog.
It had no bones.
No texture.
No detail at all.
But the moment its five fingers spread,
the air itself was crushed outward,
bursting apart with a shrill, piercing crack.
It lunged for Wei's white light.
This was not pursuit.
This was harvesting.
This was the sound of death stepping directly behind him.
Cold laughter seeped through the mist.
It was not a human voice.
It sounded more like metal grinding slowly through flesh,
forced out by pressure rather than breath.
"Running…?"
The word stretched unnaturally long, as though the idea itself amused it.
"…Do you really think that helps?"
The voice broke and rejoined,
never fading,
never falling back.
It hovered at his nape—
too close.
So close that Wei was certain if he slowed even slightly,
the hand would follow the sound and close around his spine.
His heartbeat slammed against his ribs, wild and uneven.
His chest felt cinched tight by iron bands.
Every breath scraped his lungs raw, like blades dragging along the inside.
He tried to steady his breathing.
Tried to slow it down.
His body refused.
With every inhale, the darkness gained ground.
With every exhale, the white light thinned just a little more.
He could not stop.
Not even for half a beat.
If he did, that black hand would drag him back whole.
And the darkness—
would not offer him a second chance.
Ahead was not open space.
Fog churned violently.
A passage was closing.
Like a tube being pinched shut from both ends.
The surrounding darkness flowed inward,
slowly,
deliberately.
This was not collapse.
It was sealing.
Wei surged upward.
For every inch he gained, the space behind him healed itself by the same measure.
Not repaired—
sealed.
As though an invisible hand were locking it down section by section.
The passage ahead narrowed.
Its inner walls were no longer smooth.
Cracks spread across them.
Edges curled outward.
They looked like the torn interior of living channels,
ripped open by brute force, still twitching irregularly.
Each spasm scraped away a fragment of the white light's stability.
It did not hurt.
Pain was not the right word.
It was loss.
A constant, undeniable loss.
Wei understood then—
this passage had not been made for anything human.
It allowed light through.
But it rejected form.
His existence was being worn down, grain by grain, as he passed.
But there was no alternative.
Because in that instant, clarity struck him with brutal precision—
this was his only chance.
Not a path to safety.
Just an exit.
A deep vibration rolled from above.
It was not sound.
It was direction.
A sense of tilt.
A clear, undeniable pull upward—
the feeling of an opening.
Just a little faster.
Just a little more.
Because if he was caught before reaching it—
he would not even leave behind a price.
The white light hurled itself forward.
It slammed into fragments of the collapsing passage, producing a dull, shrieking friction—
like a blade dragged across shattered bone.
Wei clenched his jaw until his teeth ached.
He knew it.
The exit—
was close.
But behind him, the darkness did not slow.
The black hand stretched again, longer now,
its shape distorting as it reached,
fingers thinning, splitting, reforming as if the concept of anatomy no longer applied.
The fog screamed as it parted.
The laughter returned, lower this time, closer,
as though pressed directly against the back of his skull.
It did not rush him.
It did not need to.
The passage itself was doing the work.
Every narrowing inch, every convulsing wall, was stripping him down.
Wei forced the light forward anyway.
Not because he believed he would escape cleanly.
But because stopping meant erasure.
His thoughts fragmented.
Images tried to surface—
red light.
A presence.
A warmth that no longer existed.
He shoved them down without mercy.
Memory was weight.
Grief was friction.
He could not afford either.
The vibration ahead sharpened.
The pull strengthened.
The tunnel angled more steeply now, like a throat tilted upward, demanding everything pass through quickly, or not at all.
Wei drove himself harder.
The white light flared,
thinning and stretching,
shedding pieces of itself as it scraped through.
The darkness shrieked behind him.
Not in anger.
In anticipation.
Then—
pressure.
A violent squeeze.
The passage constricted suddenly, far more than before.
Wei felt something tear free from him—not flesh, not pain, but coherence.
The white light wavered.
He screamed—
but the sound never formed.
And then—
space.
The pressure vanished all at once.
The fog ruptured outward.
The pull snapped him forward—
and the darkness slammed shut behind him with a final, absolute seal.
No echo.
No breach.
Only silence.
Wei shot out into open space, the white light collapsing inward, barely holding together.
He did not slow.
He could not.
Only when the darkness was gone—
truly gone—
did his body finally begin to shake.
And still,
he did not look back.