The corridor did not simply shake.
It convulsed.
Stone buckled like ribs crushed inward. Scripture etched into the walls split down the middle, glowing red as if molten blood had flooded behind them. The floor lurched under Evin's feet, tilting so sharply he had to brace himself against a cracked column as the world he'd known for years tore itself apart.
This wasn't the Veil being released.
This was the Veil reacting.
And it reacted like a wounded beast.
Behind him, the remnants—what little remained of their essence—twisted violently beneath his skin, sending jarring spasms up his spine. Evin grabbed a handful of his own cloak, trying to keep upright as the corridor pitched sideways.
The Choir screamed.
Not in pain—
in terror.
Their voices fractured, their hymn disrupted as the Veil's presence surged through the stone like a shockwave. One Choir member's mask shattered, revealing eyes that rolled white in absolute panic before their body folded inward, collapsing like paper sucked into a flame.
Their veil hit the floor empty.
The Bishop snapped her fingers sharply.
"Retreat!"
Her voice cut through the chaos, calm and lethal. The Choir obeyed instantly, stumbling and fleeing down the splitting corridor, their white robes streaked with dust and fear.
The Bishop remained.
Of course she did.
She stood unmoving as the walls tore open around her, watching Evin with a terrible calm—as though she were not in danger at all.
As though she had expected this.
Evin shouted over the roar, "What did you do to me?!"
The Bishop tilted her head, unfazed as a piece of ceiling stone crashed behind her.
"I did nothing," she said softly. "I simply stopped pretending you were controllable."
Another shockwave burst through the corridor.
Evin's knees buckled.
Dark tendrils erupted across the walls, crawling like living veins. Scripture glowed brighter, then burned away, peeling off the stone like scorched parchment. The air warped, bleeding shadow and light until there was no distinction between solid and impossible.
Evin felt a tearing inside his chest—
a ripping sensation, like claws scrabbling to escape.
He clutched his ribs and screamed.
The Bishop watched him, face unreadable.
"You cannot contain an ocean, Evin," she murmured. "Even if you cup your hands until they bleed."
A fissure split the floor in front of Evin, opening like a jagged mouth. Black tendrils surged upward, reaching for him, wrapping around his arms and waist, not painful—but desperate.
Holding him.
Anchoring him.
Or trying to pull him under.
Evin gasped, "Stop! STOP!"
His words echoed, layered—
his voice and another voice beneath it, deeper and older, speaking in a tongue that bent the air.
The Bishop took one slow step backward.
"You see?" she said quietly. "Your voice is not even your own anymore."
Evin staggered as the tendrils dragged him another inch toward the fissure. His fingers dug into the shifting stone, scraping raw. The shadows coiled around his wrists like chains, tightening—not suffocating, but restraining.
Keeping him from going further.
Or keeping him from escaping.
He didn't know.
He couldn't tell.
Another tremor hit—this one so violent the corridor twisted. The far wall folded in like soft cloth before snapping back, warping reality as cracks spread like spiderwebs.
From those cracks came eyes.
Not physical eyes.
Not human eyes.
Shadows with pupils.
Silhouettes forming faces.
Remnants that had been consumed or erased clawing for the surface again.
Thousands.
Hundreds of thousands.
Pressing against the thin membrane between worlds.
Trying to get back into reality through the only open door—
Evin.
He felt their hands pushing into him—through him—pulling at his breath, his blood, his memories, trying to take shape within him.
"STOP!" he screamed, voice breaking. "I CAN'T—!"
The shadows surged.
The Bishop raised her hand—not to attack him, but to shield herself from the backlash.
The corridor ceiling split open, sending a torrent of dust and fractured scripture raining down. A massive stone beam cracked loose overhead.
It fell directly toward Evin.
He didn't move.
He couldn't.
The shadows acted for him.
A tendril of darkness whipped upward, hardened like obsidian, and caught the falling beam midair, crushing it to gravel with a sickening crack.
Evin stared in horror at his own shadow as it retracted, trembling.
The Bishop's voice was barely audible over the collapse:
"You see now? You cannot escape the Veil."
Evin tried to step backward, but the fissure behind him widened, forcing him forward. Tendrils yanked at him again—some trying to protect him, others pulling him toward the widening tear.
He screamed as the Veil tore at him from inside and outside simultaneously.
The Bishop remained eerily calm, even as the corridor completely collapsed behind her.
"You do not understand your role," she said. "You believe yourself a victim. But you are the breach. The bearing point. The singularity."
Her eyes flashed silver.
"You are the door, Evin."
He felt something inside him snap.
A scream ripped out of him—not a human scream, not even a mortal sound. A layered cry of thousands of voices trapped in one body, echoing through the collapsing corridor.
It blew out the remaining torches instantly.
The Bishop raised her arm to shield her face.
And in that moment—
Evin felt a new sensation.
Something he had not felt in hours.
Maybe days.
Maybe since Rell died.
Instinct.
His instinct screamed one thing:
RUN.
The shadows behind him roared in protest, trying to pull him back—trying to complete what had begun.
But Evin dug his fingers into the stone and dragged himself forward, forcing his body toward the narrow passage the Choir had fled through.
The Bishop did not move to stop him.
She simply watched him run.
And whispered:
"You won't get far."
Behind Evin, the corridor buckled, twisted, and finally collapsed into absolute darkness, swallowing itself whole.
He didn't turn around.
He didn't look back.
He ran.