Chapter 2: A Choice That Isn’t Hers

Towering spires of glass and silver rise around her, stretching toward a sky that is not sky at all, but a great swirling canvas of liquid gold and ink-black shadow, shifting and melting together in slow, impossible patterns.

The ground beneath her is not stone, but something smoother, something soft, almost like silk, cold, yet firm, like polished bone.

The air is thick with scent, rich and intoxicating; burnt honey and parchment, something ancient, something searing.

It does not belong to any place she has ever known.

And for the first time in years, Aldia feels small. Her instincts scream at her to move, to retreat, to turn away before whatever force shifted her here decides to do something worse.

But she does not move.

She cannot.

The space around her hums, not with sound, but with a presence, an awareness.

She swallows against the dryness in her throat.

"This is real." Aldia murmurs to herself.

Her own voice sounds wrong here, fragile, as though the air itself might crush it.

She forces herself forward, just an inch, just enough to prove to herself that she can.

Her boot presses into the ground.

Not stone. Not dust.

Something else.

Something that seems to sigh beneath her weight.

Her pulse spikes. And then, 

The World Collapses

The vision shatters.

Noxport slams back into existence around her.

The sky is black once more, choked with clouds. The scent of honey and parchment is gone, replaced by mildew, rust, and rot.

The rift still lingers, but it is smaller now, weaker, flickering like a dying ember.

Aldia's breathing is uneven, her chest tight, her fingers curled into fists at her sides.

The world may have returned, but something has changed.

Something has seen her.

And it will not forget.

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Aldia is left with scattered thoughts. The world she saw was beyond imagination. Though, she iss aware of the existence of several realms but had never seen one, other than her previous realm.

Her steps are slow, measured. The streets of Noxport never truly settled, even when the city pretended to be asleep. The cobblestones still pulsed, the wind still carried whispers, and she had learned that even silence here had teeth.

And yet, something skittered at the edge of her vision...small, fast, playful.

Aldia sighed.

"Took your time," she grumbled.

From the darkness, a shape unfolded. Not stepped, not leaped but unraveled, like ink spilled into water, shifting until it became something solid.

Nyxie.

A creature of shadows and whispers, barely the size of a cat but far less predictable. Its body did not hold a true form—sometimes sleek like a fox, sometimes compact like a coiled serpent. Tonight, it chose something between the two, its inky frame stretching lazily, silver eyes gleaming with mischief.

Despite its eerie form, Nyxie is mischievous and oddly affectionate, often wrapping itself around Aldia's shoulders like a weightless scarf or perching atop her head. It is drawn to pockets of darkness, curling into places where light bends strangely. Though playful, Nyxie is also deeply protective—its presence often warning Aldia of things unseen before she even notices them as it has certain abilities.

It leaped onto a crumbling crate and curled its tail around its paws, if it had paws at all.

"You were slow." Nyxie purred amusingly.

Aldia snorted, adjusting the weight of her dagger at her hip.

"I wasn't slow," Kaelen said. "You just didn't feel like being found."

Nyxie flicked a too-long ear, eyes narrowing in mock innocence.

"I was busy."

Aldia arched a brow.

"Busy stealing, or busy spying?" Aldia snorted, giving a side stare.

Nyxie stretched, back arching impossibly before relaxing again.

"Both." Nyxie lazily said.

Aldis, sighed, but there was no real annoyance in it. She had long since accepted that Nyxie would do as it pleased, slinking into places unseen, plucking small treasures from those who didn't guard them well enough. A shadow that did not belong to her, yet always returned.

"You're going to get caught one of these days."

Nyxie tilted its head, then blinked once, slow, deliberate, smug. "I don't get caught."

Aldia rolled her eyes but let it go. There were more pressing concerns tonight.

"Well, something happened here earlier," She said.

"What?" Nyxie shifted its shape.

"I think I got a glimpse of another realm," Aldia said.

Nyxie got upto Aldia's shoulder, "Did you really now?"

Nyxie wasn't something she tamed...it was something that found her. One night, as Aldia wandered through the crumbling ruins of a Veil-scarred temple, the creature slipped from the darkness, trailing behind her like a second shadow. At first, she tried to ignore it, thinking it was just another anomaly of the collapsing world.

But it followed.

And when she awoke the next morning, it was curled beside her, its silver eyes gleaming through the mist.

It never left after that.

"Well for sure." Aldia walked towards the end of the dark alley.

"I can tell where it was if you tell how it looked" Nyxie said. One of Nyxie's ability was to pass through the Veil and appear somewhere else, however at small distances.

"I will...later" Aldia replied. "At the moment we got more pressing matters." Her stomach growled.

Noxport was not kind to the hungry.

Aldia led them through the city's forgotten paths, moving through half-collapsed markets and alleyways that smelled of damp and rust. Food was scarce, but not impossible to find if one knew where to look.

She stopped near an overturned cart, rummaging through wooden crates that had been left to decay. A few bruised apples, a chunk of hardened bread—nothing much, but enough to get by.

"We will have to rely on this for the day as I failed to hunt anything" Kaelen sighed.

Nyxie sniffed disdainfully. "Rotten."

"So are we," Aldia replied dryly.

Nyxie huffed but took no further argument.

Aldia tore off a piece of bread, testing it with a bite. Stale, but edible. She tossed a bit toward Nyxie, who sniffed it once before making a low, unimpressed noise.

"I don't eat peasant food, " Nyxie gruntled being displeased with the day's condition.

Aldia smirked, flicking another crumb at its head. "You don't eat at all."

Nyxie flickered, form dissolving slightly before piecing itself back together. It whispered mockingly, "Not in front of you."

Aldia pauses at that, but before she could respond, the air shifts.

Not the wind. Not something natural.

Something wrong.

"Give me a break." Aldia hissed.