Chapter 15(Part 1): The Crumbling Path

The ground shattered beneath Aedric's feet as he ran.

The trees, once towering sentinels in the night, twisted and warped, their trunks splitting open like gaping mouths, their branches stretching unnaturally toward the sky. The very air around them bent and fractured, as if reality itself was beginning to splinter apart.

Behind them, the faceless things pursued.

Not with footsteps. Not with the rustle of leaves or the snap of twigs. They moved in shifts of space, blinking forward with each pulse of the unraveling world, growing closer without moving. Their presence distorted everything—warping the forest, stretching the land, making it impossible to tell how far they truly were.

Aedric did not dare look back.

"Faster!" Elias shouted, his voice hoarse, urgent. "Do not stop! Do not look!"

The group pushed forward, sprinting blindly through the disintegrating forest. The path they had followed was gone, erased from existence. Each step felt like they were running deeper into nothing.

Then the screaming began.

Not human. Not even voices.

The sound was inside their heads.

Aedric staggered mid-stride, clutching his skull as pain splintered through his mind. Visions. Flickers of memories he did not recall. A city crumbling, fire devouring the sky, his own hand reaching toward something—a door, a gateway, an answer—

And then darkness.

"Aedric!" Rhea grabbed his arm, yanking him forward before he could fall. "Don't let it pull you in!"

He gasped, pushing through the pain. The forest was vanishing.

No—not vanishing. Changing.

The ground beneath them pulsed, turning from dirt to stone to nothingness. Shadows clawed at the edges of his vision, shapes flickering in and out of existence. They were running toward something—but what?

"Where are we going?" Aedric demanded between gasps. "There's no way out!"

"There is!" Elias barked back. "Just keep running!"

Aedric clenched his jaw, forcing his legs to move. The faceless figures did not slow. They did not stumble. They did not stop.

Then the trees ended.

The group burst into an open expanse—a massive, ruined clearing that stretched into the distance, the sky above twisting in impossible directions. Fragments of broken structures hovered midair, rotating slowly, pieces of a world that had already fallen apart.

Aedric felt his chest tighten. This place.

He had been here before.

Somewhere in the ruins, a door waited.

"The Key!" Osric bellowed. "Aedric, use the key!"

Aedric's fingers instinctively curled around the metal in his pocket. It was burning hot, searing against his palm.

He hesitated.

And in that moment, they caught up.

A surge of force—impossibly fast—and something unseen slammed into Aedric's chest. He was airborne before he even realized what had happened, his body twisting through space. The sky flickered—dark, light, dark again—before his back collided with the hard, cracked stone beneath him.

Pain flared through his ribs. His breath caught. His vision swam.

The world bent.

Elias's voice, distant, distorted— "Aedric! Get up!"

Aedric forced himself onto his hands, gasping. The faceless figures were closing in, their movements no longer slow, no longer measured.

They were rushing him.

And Aedric understood—

They were done waiting.

A choice had to be made.

Now.