Chapter Twelve
“Ryder, you mind telling me what the fuck that was?” River asks, peeling himself off the cold, hard floor we landed on.
“And what makes you think I know what that thing was?” Ryder grits his teeth, bristling as he props himself up, a flicker of offence in his eyes.
“Uh, I dunno… maybe because of the immense fucking shadows seeping out from the bloody thing,” River snaps back, narrowing his gaze.
Ryder scoffs but pauses, his eyes scanning the room. Something about the tiles on the walls catches him off guard.
“Where are we?” he mutters, his voice low and cautious.
This can’t be right… I didn’t portal here.
“We’re in my kitchen… in my village.” My voice trembles slightly despite my attempt at calm. My eyebrows knit in worry.
“Why are we here?” Nala asks, her fingers brushing against the frame of a picture of my dad and me on the counter, lingering as if seeking reassurance.
I swallow hard. “I don’t know… I didn’t mean to portal here.” My words falter. Ryder slides a chair back with a scrape and sinks onto it, rubbing his temples like the motion can erase the confusion.
“I think I just… thought of my dad for a split second and—” My voice trails off, uncertainty clawing at me.
“Where is he?” River’s voice cuts through the silence, sharper now, eyes darting around the empty kitchen, noticing the smashed glass on the floor.
My breath catches as my eyes stop at the clock on the wall.
“It’s before nine, he should still be here.” Worry laces my words.
“Dad!” I call out loudly. My throat tightens, panic bubbling just beneath the surface. The silence that answers feels alive, pressing in on us.
No reply.
I scramble through every room, Nala, River, and Ryder mirroring my frantic pace. Our footsteps echo against the wooden floors, loud and hollow, and our voices ricochet off the empty walls.
“Dad!” I shout again, my throat raw, but the silence only swallows my words.
Every room appears abandoned. Not just this house, but the whole village.
Windows are still boarded up, yet doors swing loosely in the wind, unlocked and careless, as if no one had thought to secure them despite the looming storm.
My stomach twists. This… this feels too much like Sun and Moon Sovereign—empty classrooms, corridors stripped of life—and now it’s affecting my village too.
I feel my heart hammering against my ribs, a sharp pang of panic slicing through me. That thing—the shadows, the violence—it could be near my father. My throat tightens, swallowing hard against the fear rising in me.
A gentle hand presses against my back, grounding me just a fraction. Ryder’s voice cuts through my spiralling thoughts, low and uneven. “He’s not here… we’ve looked everywhere.”
I glance up at him, searching his face, and something in his eyes hits me harder than any words could, a glint of unspeakable truth in them…this thing that has them is so much stronger than we thought.
“Whoa, was your dad in the army or something?” River calls from another room.
Ryder and I follow his voice, curiosity pulling us down the narrow hallway. When I see what he’s looking at, a small, involuntary smile creeps onto my face. My father’s cupboard is a treasure trove of weaponry.
“What, this?” I pick up a knife, spinning it lightly between my fingers. “This was all for my training.” The familiar weight in my hand brings a flicker of comfort amidst the tension in the empty village.
“That explains why you’re terrifyingly good with a knife,” River smirks, running his fingers along the length of a long blade as if testing its balance.
“And you didn’t think this was… strange?” Nala’s eyebrows draw together, disbelief etched into her face.
“I just thought he liked fighting,” I shrug, the memories warming my chest despite the chill crawling along my spine. He always trained me to survive, never to scare me.
“Well, we’re gonna need weapons if we stand a chance against that thing,” I say, lifting two daggers and handing them to River. Then I pick up my favourite pair—jewelled daggers my father gave me for my tenth birthday—and strap the holster around my waist.
Nala’s eyes light up as she grabs the bow and arrow set, slinging the bag of arrows over her shoulder. “Your dad is so cool,” she admires, and I chuckle, feeling a small surge of pride.
“Are you not going to grab anything?” River asks Ryder, who hasn’t pocketed a single weapon.
“No… I have one of my own. I’ll grab it before we leave.” Ryder steps back, his eyes refusing to meet River’s.
The scrape of legs against tiles echoes far too loudly in the empty room as we settle down into the chairs at the table.
For a moment, it feels as if the silence itself is listening, waiting. Yet somehow, once we settle, our conversation picks up from where it left off.
“Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t a Moon… I’ve never seen anything like it before.” Ryder admits breaking the silence, “It absorbed my shadow hawks like they were nothing.” His brows furrow harshly as his eyes stare into the distance, his face a mixture of intrigue and fear.
“Guys… what is that?” Nala’s voice thins, fear threading through it.
Her eyes are locked on the windowpane from the inside.
I follow her gaze, and my stomach drops.
A black slug is smeared across the glass, clinging to its pane, its slick body writhing slowly as though it’s searching for a way out. It moves with purpose, dragging itself upward, leaving a dark, oily trail behind.
I’m on my feet before I realise I’ve moved. The chair crashes to the floor behind me, the sound too loud, too sharp. I grab a glass from the drawer and slam it down over the thing, trapping it against the window.
The moment the rim presses into its side, it reacts.
I gag as the glass crushes into its body. It flinches—actually flinches—its surface rippling like disturbed tar, as though pain shudders through it.
“River,” I say, my voice tight, eyes locked on the twitching mass. “The picture. From the frame.”
He moves fast, yanking the photo free and sliding it into my waiting hand. His fingers are cold. I slip it beneath the glass, sealing the creature inside, then flip the whole thing onto the table with a dull, sickening thud.
We gather around it despite every instinct screaming not to.
Up close, it’s worse.
The substance isn’t solid, not fully liquid either—thick and viscous, like living oil. Nala tilts the glass slightly, and the black mass climbs, stretching itself upward, tapping against the base with a soft, wet sound.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
My skin crawls.
“It’s—” Nala swallows. “It’s moving like it knows we’re here.”
The thing pauses.
Then it spreads thin against the glass, flattening itself as if listening, as though it’s aware of every breath in the room.
“It looks like the same thing that came out of your ears.” I look over at River and Nala, pointing at them, and their faces screw in disgust.
“Eww! That was in my ear!” Nala remarks, digging at her orifice as if the creature still lay inside.
I understand her repulsion. It’s thick, black and moist like a snail with no shell, and a slight metallic odour rings off of it.
It curls with the shape of the beaker and sticks to the side of the glass.
Although it moved before, it now looks dormant, as if it is sleeping.
“Asha, light an orb beside it,” Ryder asks me, cocking an eyebrow in my direction. I do as he says, and the goo shies away from the light and writhes around almost as if it is in pain. “Just like we thought, whatever it is, it doesn’t like the light.”
“I’m no expert, but I’ll bet that the sun dimming has something to do with this…” River pauses for a moment, his face turning to disgust, “…thing!”
He clinks on the glass, and the black sludge vibrates away from the beaker slightly. I stare at it hard. The creature was made up of these freakish slugs; somehow, they are a part of it, even here in this glass, away from its body, it lives.
“At least we know one thing we can use against it,” Nala adds, and River nods his head, but I stare at Ryder. He knows what I am thinking.
“Yeah, but with the sun dimming, our powers are only gonna get weaker. I won’t be able to scare this thing,” I gesture to the glass, “let alone that giant, great sludge monster back there.” I exclaim.
The expressions in the room slowly become less hopeful.
“And even if, somehow, my powers do work to their fullest ability, we still don’t know how to kill it. The light only seems to startle it.”
“This is some real end of the world type shit.” River leans back on the counter, and Ryder shoots him daggers.
“Save the boy and save the world,” I mutter under my breath as the spirit world comes to the front of my mind.
“What?” River looks over at me, and Nala walks in closer.
“In the Shadow Realm, that’s what the spirits told us. We have to find the crescent gem.”
“What’s that?” Nala asks, and River butts in.
“The crescent gem? We might as well all just let that thing take us.” River points to the window.
“You’ve heard of it?” I question River, and Ryder looks just as surprised as I do.
“My grandfather told me stories about it, said he knew someone who went looking for it and was never seen again.” His brows furrow as he says this, “He was a drunk, always in the tavern and talking with some real questionable people. He was convinced it was a fable, but the man he spoke with that day was sure it was real.” He takes a seat on the nearby desk.
“Maybe it was the same person Psy spoke to?” I question, looking over at Ryder.
“No, that man had to have been a Moon; there is no way he would have made it into the shadow realm otherwise.” Ryder shakes his head.
“I did,” I explain, trying to shake the lingering aura of that place off of me.
“But you were with me, trust me, the guy was a Moon.” He responds whilst swirling the beaker in his eyeline. The creature defies his movements and sticks to the glass.
“Okay, so we need to find this gem.” Nala butts in, looking out the window past the trees. “Death trap or not, I’ll take my chances.”
River taps me on the shoulder and gestures concerningly to Nala, who is looking waywardly on her own. I give him a nod and walk over to her.
“Are you okay?” I ask, rubbing her back slightly.
“I just…” She pauses, “Never got the chance to tell her I like her.” Nala wipes a stray tear from her eye and snuffles her nose.
“Trina?” I question, and she nods her head.
“I wasn’t sure because I’ve never had feelings like this before, I mean, I did with Charlie, but never with a girl, but now she’s there, and I’m here, all I keep thinking about is if she’s okay.” I cringe at the mention of Charlie’s name, but understand her pain all the same.
“You can tell her yourself once we find the gem.” I comfort her even though the voice in the back of my head tells me it may be a suicide mission. She nods her head slowly and looks to the boys in the rest of the group.
“So what’s the plan?” She asks, and River peels himself off the table whilst Ryder walks over to us.
“We need to get to Half Dead Hollow,” Ryder grits his teeth as he says this, as if even naming this place could poison the tip of his tongue.
“Whoa, no one said we had to go there.” River startles, shaking his head.
“Why, you scared?” Ryder smirks, and River clears his throat uneasily.
“Sorry, am I missing something?” Nala adds in confusion, “What’s wrong with Half Dead Hollow?
“Have you heard the name, what’s right with it?” River retorts, and I turn to face her.
“It got its name because once you enter it, you’re supposedly already half dead,” I explain, and I see fear in her eyes.
“And we have to go there!” She asks, and I nod my head slowly.
“Not we, me and Asha are going,” Ryder adds, and I look at him questioningly.
“No—
“I can’t keep you all safe. The fewer of us that go, the more likely we return.” Ryder cuts me off.
“No complaints from me.” River holds his hands up.
“No, that thing got to them before. I am not leaving without them.” My eyes pierce through Ryder’s, and he knows this is not up for negotiation. “We’re safer all together.”
“Fine, but when one of them gets hurt, don’t come crying to me,” he spits, and I see a shimmer of resentment in his eyes.
“That’s not fair.” I soften my tone, “I know what this is about; whatever problem you have with River, I suggest you hash it out now.” He exhales and rubs the back of his neck.
“I thought we put our problems behind us, brother.” River smirks as he slyly confronts Ryder.
“That was before you kept a huge secret from me.” He turns to face him now, “I thought she was cheating on me with you.” His voice cracks a little. “Do you know what that’s like, seeing the person you love with someone else?”
“I do.” River looks over at me with regret. “But what if the person you loved was in danger, cos that’s what she is, every moment she spends with you is a moment closer to her death. And yet she still won’t listen to me.” A tremble claims his lips.
“I would never let anything happen to her!” Ryder shouts, clearly affected by his words.
“But you did! And no matter how hard I try, I can’t keep her safe when she’s with you.
” Ryder looks down at his feet. “She only has eyes for you; there’s nothing more going on.
I told her I wanted to tell you, but she thought you were gonna kill yourself again.
She’s not worried about her life, just yours!
” He exclaims, gesturing to me, then running a hand through his dirty blonde hair.
Nala lets go of a deep exhale; she’s not the only one who can feel the tension brewing.
“You’re a ticking time bomb; meanwhile, the girl you tried to kill would do anything for you. ”
“I know she would, and that’s why I had to do it.
” Ryder exclaims, “The spirit in the Shadow Realm has told me I have five days—five days before the serum takes over.” He looks at me, his eyes slightly glazed, “I know Asha won’t do it, but I need you to promise me you will do what needs to be done if it comes to it. ”
“No,” I order, tears beginning to brim in my eyes. “It will not come to that; there’s no need to be planning it now.”
“Promise me,” Ryder ignores me and keeps his gaze focused on River. “I know I’m dangerous, but I can’t force her to stay away. Hell, I can’t even keep myself away.” Ryder places his head in his hands.
“I’ll do it.” River doesn’t hesitate, “If it’s for Asha, I’ll do it, no questions asked.”