THE OTHER SIDE

THYME'S POV:

The world dissolved into a silent, crushing weight. My lungs burned for a fire that had already gone out, a desperate, final ache that gave way to a strange calm. It was cold, a deep, seeping chill that worked its way into my bones. So this is it. The end of the race. I let the last of the air bubble from my lips, watching it shimmer and vanish. In the quiet darkness, I felt a kind of peace.

Then, a violent jolt. A hand, rough and unyielding, clamped around my bicep, wrenching me from my descent. I was being dragged, a dead weight pulled through a world I could no longer see. My body was a useless shell, a puppet on a string, as I broke the surface and gasped in air that felt like swallowing razors.

I landed hard on something solid and wet. A brutal, rhythmic pressure started on my chest, forcing the water from my lungs in painful spasms. A voice cut through the haze, a clipped, angry command. "Wake up."

It was Meta's voice, but it was wrong. All wrong. Flat. Cold. The sound of a slammed door.

Then, fingers pinched my nose shut. A hand tilted my chin back, exposing my throat. My mind, which had been floating in a peaceful abyss, snapped back into my body with the electrifying terror of a cornered animal. Every nerve ending screamed. He was going to do it. He was going to put his mouth on mine.

No. Nononono. Not him. Anyone but him! My first kiss wasn't going to be a sterile, life-saving procedure performed by an arrogant, infuriating—

The warmth of his breath, smelling of rain and ozone, ghosted across my skin. It was the final desecration. A violation worse than death. A desperate, primal energy surged through me.

"NO!"

My body launched upward as if struck by lightning.

THWACK!

A sickening crack echoed as my forehead slammed into his. Stars exploded behind my eyes, but a more urgent agony seized me. A violent cough ripped through my body, and I doubled over, expelling a lungful of the ocean in a raw, heaving retch. Salt and bile burned my throat as I gasped, my whole frame shaking with a brutal combination of cold and residual terror. The fear of his kiss still lingered, a more potent venom than the seawater in my gut.

"Shit. That hurts. Do you have a death wish?"

I flinched, the voice hitting me like a physical blow. It was a low growl, laced with a menace that made the hair on my arms stand on end. I finally blinked the world into focus, and the breath I'd just fought for hitched in my chest.

The beach was gone. The sun was gone. I was huddled on the muddy bank of a river, its surface a black, motionless mirror for the full moon hanging overhead. Skeletal trees clawed at the sky, their branches forming a cage around us. The air, thick with the smell of damp earth and decay, was unnaturally still. My frantic escape from the beach had somehow landed me in the middle of a waking nightmare.

"Stop spacing out and look at me." The command was absolute.

My head swiveled toward him. And my heart stopped. "Me…Meta?"

It was his face, his frame, the impossible set of his shoulders. But he was dressed in a pristine black suit that seemed to absorb the moonlight, and a presence radiated from him that was chillingly alien.

"How do you know my name?"

In one terrifyingly fluid motion, his hand vanished inside his jacket and reappeared with a pistol. The click as he cocked it was the loudest sound in the universe. He leveled it between my eyes, the small, dark circle of the muzzle seeming to pull all the light and air from the world. "Answer me."

My gaze was glued to his face, to the detail that changed everything. A thin, white scar bisected his cheekbone, stark against his skin. It was a mark of violence, of a life I couldn't imagine. This wasn't Meta. This was a monster wearing his face.

"ANSWER ME BEFORE I PULL THIS TRIGGER."

The words tumbled out of me, a frantic, desperate torrent my brain couldn't stop. "I… I don't know what's happening! You look like someone I know, but you're not him! He doesn't have that scar and… and he's not nearly as violent as you!"

The words hung in the dead air between us. My own voice, my own stupid, runaway mouth had just sealed my fate. My hand flew up to cover it, a second too late. An icy dread washed through me as I stared into the cold, unblinking eyes of the man holding the gun, realizing I had just given him the perfect reason to use it.

His eyes narrowed, the moonlight catching the chilling emptiness in them. "You think I'll believe such a childish lie?"

His voice was a low rumble, and it vibrated in my bones. He wasn't convinced. How could he be? I wasn't even convinced. My mind was a frantic storm of confusion, a jumble of a drowning beach, a phantom hug, and now a moonlit riverbank with a man who wore my friend's face like a mask. Think, Thyme, think! There has to be a way out of this, a lever I can pull.

My eyes darted around, desperately searching for anything, and snagged on his left shoulder. A dark, wet patch stained the pristine fabric of his suit jacket, spreading like spilled ink. The faint, coppery scent of blood hit the air. It wasn't a deep wound, I thought, but from the far-off sounds of cracking branches and muffled shouts, it was clear he was running from whoever gave it to him. This was it. This was my leverage.

"Tell me the truth," he hissed, taking a half-step closer, the gun unwavering. "Or this is where you die."

The finality in his tone sent a fresh wave of ice through my veins. But for me to survive, I had to swallow the fear. I forced my chin up, channeling a bravado I didn't feel.

"Then shoot me." The words came out as a squeak. I cleared my throat and tried again, my voice trembling only slightly. "Go on."

A slow, cold smile stretched his lips, a terrifying sight on Meta's face. It held no humor, only predatory amusement. "You think I won't?" His finger deliberately, slowly, slid onto the trigger. The faint click of the movement was like a countdown to my own extinction.

This was it. My bluff was my only card. "If you do," I blurted out, my heart hammering against my ribs, "those men chasing you will hear the gunshot. They'll know exactly where you are."

I watched his face, praying for a flicker of hesitation, a sign that my logic had landed. Instead, he laughed. It wasn't a sound of joy; it was a dry, rasping noise that scraped at the silence of the forest, the sound of a predator enjoying the final moments of a hunt.

"You really are just a child," he purred, the gun glinting as he tilted it slightly. "This pistol has a suppressor. They won't hear a thing." He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that was more terrifying than a shout. "But you? No one will ever find your body in this river."

The world tilted. The air rushed from my lungs as if I'd been punched. A silencer. My one genius plan, my only lifeline, had just been severed. I'm going to die. He's actually going to do it. Will it hurt? God, what do I do?

"Please!" The word tore from my throat as my knees gave out, and I crumpled to the muddy ground. "Please, don't kill me." My pathetic attempt at bravery dissolved into a desperate, groveling plea. My life was worth more than my pride.

"And why should I spare you?" He looked down at me, his expression one of dead, serious finality. My body began to tremble uncontrollably. This was real. This was the end.

My body trembled on the muddy ground as I stared up at the man wearing Meta's face, his threat hanging in the air like a guillotine. But before he could act, before I could even draw another breath, the night exploded.

BANG!

A gunshot, deafening and brutally close, ripped through the forest. The sound slapped against my eardrums, leaving them ringing, and the echo bounced between the skeletal trees before being swallowed by the darkness. My head whipped around, as did his. The shot came from nowhere. We were alone in this moonlit clearing. There was no one there.

The impossible gunshot was immediately answered by a new sound—the crashing of undergrowth and a chorus of angry shouts drawing rapidly closer. The men who had been hunting him were now stampeding toward our location.

"Fuck!" the scarred man snarled, whirling around, his gun now sweeping the dark tree line. His face was a mask of pure fury, a cornered predator now exposed from all sides. "What the hell was that?"

He was distracted. His attention was split between the approaching mob and the ghost who fired that shot. This was it. This was my only chance.

Adrenaline, sharp and potent, flooded my veins. It screamed one word: RUN! I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the fire in my muscles, and lunged for the perceived safety of the woods. I took one step, then a second, my feet sinking into the slick mud.

Then, a bolt of white-hot agony shot through my right calf. The muscle seized, twisting into a brutal, unyielding knot. My leg buckled instantly, folding beneath me like paper.

"Shit!" The curse was torn from my throat as my balance vanished. For one heart-stopping moment, I was suspended in air, my arms pinwheeling uselessly at my side. Then, gravity won, and I toppled sideways, crashing through the reeds and into the river with a heavy, ignominious splash.

The cold was a physical blow, a shocking, icy fist that knocked the wind out of me. The river immediately soaked my clothes, turning them into a lead weight dragging me down. Panic, cold and absolute, seized me. My leg was a useless anchor of pure agony, the cramp intensifying in the frigid water.

I thrashed, my arms clawing uselessly at the dark, heavy water, but I was sinking. I had fallen in without a breath, my lungs already burning. I was in deep, deep trouble. The distorted moonlight on the surface above seemed a million miles away, a shimmering, unattainable star. My struggles grew weaker, my limbs heavier. The last thing I saw was that pale circle of light shrinking, a closing eye, before the darkness swallowed it, and me, whole.