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I shoulder my duffel, the familiar weight suddenly insignificant against the pressure building in my chest. SIG burns against my hip. Metal getting hotter by the minute. Soon I won’t be able to draw it without screaming. I shift it once, twice, a third time, before accepting the ceramic knife in my boot as my only trustworthy weapon.

The path barely exists—a suggestion rather than a reality, marked by stones that pulse with faint blue light.

Eyes watch from everywhere—between trees, behind leaves, under roots—but the weight of their attention doesn’t bother me.

“Get it together, Morgan,” I whisper, but the name tastes wrong on my tongue, hollow and borrowed. “Focus on the objective. Find the artifacts. Report their locations.”

The path curves ahead, and what lies beyond steals the breath from my lungs.

Colors bleed between trees—violent purples and midnight blues my eyes shouldn’t process. Scents assault me with spices that have no human names. Sound stretches and compresses as my watch flickers to 8:17 PM and freezes.

The boundary lies ahead—invisible but screaming against every sense. The pendant turns ice-cold, then burning hot. Something inside me fights back. And wins.

Every fragment of training demands retreat, reassessment, and report. This isn’t within mission parameters.

This defies explanation.

The Academy shouldn’t exist—towers spiraling in impossible directions, the entire structure undulating like a dreaming beast. It lives, aware in ways that feel like recognition. And impossibly, it knows me too.

The path widens beneath my feet, stones glowing brighter as if responding to my presence. It winds toward gates tall enough to admit giants, standing open in what feels like expectation.

No—in welcome.

As I approach, movement flickers in peripheral vision—shapes that evaporate when directly observed. Not threatening, though. Curious. Waiting.

A figure guards the gates—skin blue-gray as twilight, eyes bottomless black pools. Ancient beyond measure. “State your purpose here, mortal.” The voice vibrates through my bones.

I suppress a shudder as I produce Graves’ documents. “Professor Ashlyn Morgan. I’m expected.”

The guard studies them without touching the papers, then raises those fathomless eyes to my face. Black eyes strip me down to atoms. They peel back layers of self until I feel exposed down to whatever lies hidden beneath.

“Expected... yes. Though not quite as you appear.”

My instinct screams to look away, to run, to fight—anything but endure this soul-stripping scrutiny. The silver chain digs into my throat. Fighting something rising in my chest. Losing. Sweat breaks across my forehead despite the chill.

This isn’t just fear, it’s primal recognition of something so far beyond human that my mind struggles to process its existence.

“Meaning?” The challenge emerges despite my intimidation.

My hand moves without conscious direction to the birthmark behind my ear—the mark that changes shape with moon phases. Under my fingertips, it pulses once, hot and alive as a second heart.

The guard’s stone face cracks. Just for a second. Surprise. Recognition. Fear.

“Proceed,” they finally say, stepping aside with liquid grace that defies their apparent stone-like nature. “Your quartersawait in the Eastern Tower. Try not to lose yourself before morning.”

“I’ll do my best.” The dry understatement masks the unease crawling up my spine.

As I pass through massive gates, finality settles over me like a cloak—heavy, permanent, transformative. The gates swing closed with a sound like history ending.

Inside, the Academy grounds explode into impossibility—a courtyard larger than the walls containing it, paths that rearrange when not observed. Flowers close like shy children when I look directly at them.

My logical mind struggles against reality that refuses its rules.

I scan for threats—old habits from a life that suddenly feels borrowed.

Corners that aren’t quite right angles, shadows that move against light sources, high points that change elevation. My mind maps exit routes that probably lead to different places each time, defensive positions that might not exist tomorrow, choke points that could widen without warning.

I am not in West Virginia anymore. I am not in any place human maps acknowledge.