CHAPTER THREE: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE VEIL

 Chicago, Redline Shelter

Mrs. Chen's knuckles rapped sharply against the doorframe, her brow furrowed. "Riley. Where is Kael?"

Riley, still reeling from the previous night's madness, straightened up from his laptop. "Uh. He, uh—went to see a friend. Out of town. Said he'd be back… eventually?"

Mrs. Chen crossed her arms. "Eventually?"

"Yeah. You know Kael. Spontaneous. Free spirit. Probably forgot to text." Riley forced a laugh.

Mrs. Chen wasn't buying it. "That boy doesn't have friends outside this building. Try again."

Riley swallowed. "Look, I don't know where he is, okay? One minute he was here, the next—" Poof. Gone. Eaten by a shadow monster. "—he was just… gone."

Mrs. Chen's expression softened slightly, but suspicion still lingered. "If he's in trouble, you tell me."

Riley nodded, but the second she left, he grabbed his hoodie and bolted.

Mack was elbow-deep in an engine when Riley burst into Garrison Auto Repair, breathless.

"Mack. We got a problem."

Mack didn't even look up. "If this is about Kael ditching work again, tell him he's fired."

"No, listen—" Riley leaned in, lowering their voice. "Something weird happened last night. Like, glowing cracks in the air, monster-dog from hell, Kael vanishing in a flash of light weird."

Mack finally paused, wiping grease off his hands. Then he burst out laughing.

"Kid, if you're gonna lie, at least make it believable. What, he get abducted by aliens?"

Riley groaned. "I wish it was aliens. At least that'd make sense." He pulled out his phone, showing Mack the shattered wall in their apartment. "You think I did this for fun?"

Mack's smirk faded. The damage was real—jagged, unnatural, like something had clawed its way through.

"Okay," he muttered. "What the hell happened?"

Riley exhaled. "I don't know. But I'm gonna find out."

He pulled up a recording on his phone—security cam footage from last night. The screen showed Kael, the shadow, then—a light pulse. And then… nothing. Just space where Kael had been.

Mack's face went pale. "…Okay. New plan. You don't show that to anyone else."

Riley's phone buzzed—a notification—a news alert.

"Mysterious Blackouts Spread Across City—Authorities Baffled."

The photo showed a streetlight bent unnaturally, its metal warped like taffy.

Riley and Mack exchanged a look.

"This isn't over," Riley whispered.

Somewhere, in the shadows between worlds, something echoed.

Riley pushed through the heavy oak doors of the Blackwood Public Library, the scent of old paper and dust hitting them like a time machine. Normally, they'd beeline for the sci-fi section or the graphic novels, but today? Today was different.

He approached the front desk, where Ms. Hargrove, the head librarian—a woman in her late 60s with silver-streaked curls and glasses that magnified her sharp green eyes—peered over the rim of her spectacles.

Ms. Hargrove: "Riley Carter. Let me guess—Neuromancer again? Or are we finally branching out to Dune?"

Riley: "Actually…" He slid a crumpled list across the desk. "I need these."

Ms. Hargrove adjusted her glasses, scanning the titles:

"The Veil and Its Breaches: A History of Cross-Realm Phenomena"

"Astral Marks: Birthright or Curse?"

"Creatures of the In-Between"

"The Lost Coven: Guardians of the Threshold"

Her eyebrow arched. "That's quite the genre shift."

Riley: "Yeah, well. Research project."

Ms. Hargrove: "On… interdimensional travel?"

Riley hesitated. "Hypothetically."

A slow smile curled on the librarian's lips. "Hypothetically." She leaned in, lowering her voice. "You know, most people wouldn't even find these in our catalog. They're in the restricted section."

Riley blinked. "You have a restricted section?"

Ms. Hargrove: "Officially? No." She reached under the desk and pulled out a brass key. "But between you and me? The Blackwood family—this library's founders—had certain interests."

Ms. Hargrove led Riley through a nondescript door marked "Staff Only", down a narrow staircase, and into a dimly lit basement lined with ancient tomes. The air hummed with something other—like static electricity.

Riley: "Whoa."

Ms. Hargrove: "Careful with these. Some of them… react."

Riley reached for a leather-bound book titled "The Gatekeeper's Legacy"—and yelped as the cover shuddered under their touch, the pages rustling on their own.

Ms. Hargrove (smirking): "Told you."

Riley: "Okay, what the hell? How do you know about this stuff?"

The librarian's smile faded. "Because my grandmother was a Veilwarden—one of the last before the Black Knight purged them. She crossed over in 1943. Never came back."

Riley's pulse spiked. "You're saying this is real?"

Ms. Hargrove: "I'm saying if you're asking these questions, you've already seen something you can't explain." She tapped the book. "Start here. And Riley?" Her voice turned grave. "Don't let the shadows see you reading."

Hours later, Riley sat hunched in a corner, his laptop open beside a pile of notes. The texts confirmed it:

The Aether Mark was a beacon—a sign of the Gatekeeper's bloodline.

The Veil wasn't just thinning—it was tearing.

And most chilling of all: "When the last Gatekeeper falls, the worlds shall collapse into the Hollow."

Riley's phone buzzed. A message from Mack: >> Found something. Get back here. NOW.

He snapped the book shut—just as the library lights flickered.

A shadow moved in the stacks.

Not a person.

Something else.

Riley bolted.