The creature came back through the hole like a storm given flesh.
It didn't crawl or climb. It launched itself, limbs snapping outward at impossible angles, claws scoring sparks from the concrete as it tore into the room. Its mouth opened in a scream that wasn't sound so much as pressure—like the air itself recoiling.
Maya met it head-on.
Light flared from her armor as she drove a knee into its chest. The impact cracked ribs that looked more like fused stone than bone. The thing staggered but did not fall. It swiped at her with one elongated arm, catching the edge of her wing. Light splintered. Maya grunted, boots skidding across the floor.
Ethan stood frozen, the bag heavy against his back for the first time.
Move, he told himself.
The creature's eyes flicked to him again. Hunger sharpened its grin.
It took one step toward Ethan.
Maya shouted his name.
That broke the paralysis.
Ethan yanked the bag off his shoulder and fumbled it open, hands shaking so badly he nearly dropped it. The darkness inside felt deeper than before—churning, expectant.
He didn't have time to think.
He reached in.
His fingers closed around something long and solid. He pulled it free.
A metal rod clattered into his hands—thick, weighted, cold. A pipe. No. A baton. No—too balanced.
A short spear.
The shaft hummed faintly, like it was eager.
Ethan stared at it for half a second too long.
The creature lunged.
Ethan screamed and swung.
The spear connected with the creature's shoulder in a shower of sparks and black fluid. The impact numbed his arms. The thing shrieked and recoiled, clutching the wound. The fluid smoked where it hit the floor.
Ethan staggered back, heart trying to claw its way out of his chest.
"I—I didn't—" He looked at the spear. "I didn't ask for this."
Maya slammed into the creature again, driving it away from Ethan and toward the far wall. "You don't have to ask," she said through clenched teeth. "You think. The bag listens."
The creature recovered faster than it should have. It twisted, grabbed a chunk of broken brick, and hurled it at Maya's head. She raised an arm; the stone shattered against her armor.
Ethan felt a cold clarity cut through his panic.
Think, she had said.
The bag answered imagination.
The realization was terrifying.
He tightened his grip on the spear and pictured—no, not pictured. Decided—that the creature would stop moving.
The bag pulsed.
The spear grew hot.
When the creature lunged again, Ethan thrust forward—not wildly this time, but with intent.
The spear extended as it moved, lengthening in his hands like a living thing. It punched through the creature's chest and pinned it to the far wall, concrete cracking around the point of impact.
The creature convulsed, screeching.
Ethan gasped, staring at the weapon in his hands. "I didn't— I didn't know it could—"
"Neither did it," Maya said.
She crossed the room in a blur of light and drove her fist into the creature's head. The skull shattered like brittle stone. The screech cut off mid-note.
The body sagged, then dissolved—collapsing inward on itself, leaving behind only a smear of black residue and the faint stink of sulfur.
Silence fell.
Ethan's ears rang.
He dropped the spear. It clattered to the floor and reverted, shrinking back into a simple metal rod before fading entirely, dissolving into motes of dark light that sank into the floor.
Ethan stared at his empty hands.
His knees buckled.
He caught himself on the table, breathing hard, vision tunneling. His stomach churned.
"I stabbed it," he whispered. "I killed it."
Maya's armor dimmed slightly as she stepped closer. The wings folded in, light receding until she stood before him once more in jeans and a tank top, breathing just as hard.
"Yes," she said. "And you didn't die. That's the part you should focus on."
Ethan laughed once, sharp and hysterical. "That thing came through a wall."
"And you stopped it."
"With a thought," he said, voice cracking. "I didn't even know what I was doing."
Maya studied him for a long moment. There was no judgment in her eyes—only something like grim respect.
"That," she said, "is the first rule."
Ethan looked up at her.
"The bag doesn't care if you're ready," she continued. "It doesn't care if you're moral, or sane, or scared. It responds to what you mean. To what you imagine. To what you believe should happen."
She reached down and nudged the black smear on the floor with her boot.
"And imagination," she said quietly, "is a weapon."
Ethan swallowed.
"What's the second rule?" he asked.
Maya's gaze flicked to the hole in the wall, to the street beyond, where distant sirens were beginning to converge.
"Every time you use it," she said, "something notices."
Ethan felt the echo of that pressure again—the sense of being weighed, measured.
His grip tightened on the bag's strap.
"And the third?" he asked.
Maya met his eyes.
"The bag gives you what you can imagine," she said. "Not what you should."
Outside, something howled—far away, but answering.
Maya reached for her jacket.
"Pack up," she said. "We're leaving. You can't stay here anymore."
Ethan looked around the wrecked room, the hole in the wall, the smear of black ichor.
He nodded once.
"Where do we go?" he asked.
Maya paused at the door and glanced back at him.
"Somewhere hidden," she said. "Somewhere that buys us time."
She hesitated, then added, softer:
"Because now that you've drawn blood with that bag… the universe is going to start asking what kind of man you plan to be."
Ethan lifted the bag and slung it over his shoulder.
It settled against his spine like a promise and a threat.
He followed Maya out into the gray afternoon, stepping over shattered brick and into a life that no longer belonged to chance.
Behind them, unseen and patient, something ancient smiled.