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The human realm grates upon me, its air coarse and... soiled. It presses against the edges of my being, unnatural in its brightness, relentless in its vitality. I despise it. But for her, I endure.

Snow Pea. My sweet Snow Pea.

Her death has sung to me since the moment of her first breath, a song only I can hear, only I am meant to end. For over two decades, I have waited, savored each brush of her fleeting mortality as if it were a banquet laid before me. And yet, I am denied again and again. Denied by chance, by her stubborn will to survive, and now… by him.

The beast.

And the human.

I hover in the shadows, where the light cannot reach me, my form coiling and writhing as fury courses through me. The scent of her fear lingers in my essence, sweeter than any I have tasted, and it fuels my longing. My hunger. Her death is mine.

The beast dares to lay claim on her. R?dslakorcu—a creature of lesser purpose, born of fleeting terrors, with no reverence for the sanctity of death’s design. He toys with her as if she’s some fleeting amusement, feeding on her fear like a carrion bird pecking at a feast not its own.

I will not allow it.

The bakery is a sanctuary I cannot breach fully with all these accursed lights. I long for the days before such things as fluorescents were invented. Back when everything was a free-for-all as even firelight casts some shadows.

Still the shadows are mine to command. They stretch, they crawl, they whisper in the dark corners of her mind. Snow Pea. Always mine.

Yet, the beast lurks here too, his presence a foul stain upon my Snow Pea. He is tethered to her in ways I cannot sever and though I would delight in unmaking him, I cannot risk her fragile mortality. Not yet. Not until I know I can consume it.

I linger in the measly reach of shadows—watching, waiting. I feel her heartbeat—a delicate thrum, a melody that quickens with fear every time she sees me shift. It should be mine alone to savor. But the beast’s energy clashes with mine, an affront I can abide no longer.

When he slithers into my domain, unbidden and unworthy, it’s all I can do to contain my rage.

“Well, fancy seeing you here, Bone Daddy,” he says, his voice a low rumble laced with mockery. His form solidifies, his beastly visage towering yet absurd, fur rippling and fangs bared in a grotesque grin.

Bone... daddy? What utter nonsense is this?

“You know, you seem restless. Perhaps it’s been too long since you last fed,” he continues. “Maybe you should go elsewhere tonight. And all the nights thereafter…”

“R?dslakorcu,” I snarl, my voice a hiss that cuts through the air. “You trespass where you do not belong.”

He chuckles, the sound a grating jeer. “And you linger where you cannot act. Tell me, Steorfan, how does it feel to be so… impotent?” He prowls closer, his form radiating insolence. “Once again… she summoned me, you know. Chose me. Not you. We are connected, she and I.”

The shadows around us ripple with the force of my fury. “She is mine! Her death was promised to me from her first breath. You are but a parasite, feeding where you have no claim.”

“Claim?” R?dslakorcu’s grin widens, his eyes gleaming. “You speak of claims as though the girl’s life is yours to dictate. But she lives, Steo. And as long as she does, she is mine to enjoy.”

Fury ripples from me down my shadows and I lunge, my form surging toward him with the weight of centuries worth of hunger and wrath. He meets me head-on, his claws slashing through the air, his laughter echoing as we collide. The clash sends ripples through the fabric of the mortal realm, a battle of energies that tears at the fragile boundary between our world and hers.

He fights with the wild abandon of a beast, but I am no mere shadow to be scattered. I am the end of all things, the harbinger of final breaths, the keeper of inevitable truths. My strikes are precise, calculated, meant to unmake. Yet he counters with maddening agility, his movements chaotic and primal.

“You are a relic,” he snarls as he twists away from my grasp. “A hollow remnant of a time long past. She does not fear you as she once did with me around. And without her fear, what are you?”

His words bite deep, but they do not deter me. He does not know that I do not only seek fear and death. Not any longer. Not where my Snow Pea is concerned. I’ve tasted something much more potent from her and I will not share. I press forward, my form shifting and striking, each blow driving him back. “You cannot protect her forever, beast. Mortality is fleeting, and her end will come.”

“Perhaps,” he concedes, his grin faltering for the first time. “But not by your hand if I have any say.”

With a final surge of energy born of brutality and fear, he forces me back, his form solidifying as he returns to her realm. I remain in the shadows, seething, my essence fraying at the edges from hunger. He has won this skirmish, but the battle is far from over.

Snow Pea. My Snow Pea.

I will have her. No beast, no tether, no force in this cursed realm will deny me.

Her death will be mine.

The taste of her fear still echoes in my marrow, but it is not enough—not when she now dares to defy, not when a new thrill she discovered now vibrates in my shadows. Her fear is thinned, dulled by the beast’s interference. And that human —that warm-blooded thing with too-long limbs and a laugh like it belongs in the sun—he stands too close. Watches too closely.

He thinks he matters.

He does not.

But she looks at him like he might. Trusts him. Craves his company. And that alone is enough to stoke my fury into something feral.

She was alone for so long. I cultivated that loneliness. I fed on it. Molded it. And now? Now it slips away like water through the cracks.

I rage silently from the shadows of the bakery—just far enough to avoid the worst of the fluorescent poison light—but close enough to see . My vision narrows, my form coiling tighter, until it locks onto one thing:

The human.

He stands beneath a vent, stretching, arms loose, posture easy. Relaxed. Complacent.

Arrogant.

And in my way.

I do not need to take her now. I do not even need to touch her.

But he —he is soft, mortal, breakable. And it has been so, so long since I reminded this world what it means to be afraid.

My essence stretches across the tile and metal, slipping into the cracks between shadows. I gather in the far corner of the ceiling, the light above me flickering just enough to make the humans doubt their eyes.

I do not throw with hands. I do not need hands.

The shadows hurl the utensil for me.

A dough scraper whistles through the air toward the soft flesh of the human’s throat.

But she moves faster. A blur of instinct and defiance. She lunges into him, knocking him aside as the metal buries itself in the wall behind them with a violent thunk . The sound echoes in my ears like a scream.

I missed.

Missed.

My fury curdles into something colder, meaner. Her fear is back now—thick, real, raw. And yet not enough. Not when it’s tangled in concern for him.

She guards him.

Like he matters.

My rage howls through the corners of the bakery. They won’t hear it, not with their ears. But their bones will. Their blood will.

The human will sleep light tonight. If he sleeps at all.

And as for her?

She will learn.

All things die. Even those who run toward the light.