The room breathed shadows.

  It wasn’t just dim—it felt submerged, drowning beneath a dark tide of grief and memories long buried. Candlelight wavered uncertainly across peeling wallpaper, casting eerie, dancing shapes that seemed desperate to escape the confines of their faded floral prison. Dust clung possessively to every surface, undisturbed, except by the lethargic spirals of incense smoke drifting lazily upwards like whispered prayers nobody dared voice aloud.

  The air was thick—not merely stale, but heavy with expectancy and dread, saturated with the mingling aromas of melting wax, burning sage, and an elusive, coppery tang. It was a scent that hinted at secrets long concealed and truths desperately avoided.

  James Caldwell sat rigidly on a warped wooden chair, the uneven legs wobbling unsteadily on splintered floorboards. The chair leaned to one side, as if recoiling from the faded, velvet-covered table before him. Nervously, James twisted his fedora in tense hands, its brim dampened by anxious sweat. Despite the chill seeping through the room, a cold bead traced slowly down his spine.

  A familiar voice echoed inside him—logical, skeptical, weary—urging him to flee this absurdity. Yet grief had stripped him of logic, replacing it with desperation, a hollow faith clinging desperately to thin threads of hope.

  Across from him, the medium waited silently. She seemed woven from the room’s dust and shadows, her frail frame draped in layers of black lace, faded to gray. Her pale hands, fingers delicate and fragile as spider's legs, hovered lightly over the crystal orb resting between them. The orb itself swirled with a fog trapped in perpetual twilight. Her face was gaunt, carved sharply by shadows, yet it was her eyes—depthless, black, inscrutable—that haunted James most profoundly.

  “You seek someone lost,” she murmured softly, her voice carrying a weight far heavier than her frail form.

  “Yes,” James managed to rasp, throat dry. “My wife. Eliza.”

  “I know,” she whispered knowingly.

  Of course, she knew. James had walked this path before, sat across from charlatans eager to drain his pockets and feed on his desperation. They always knew, until they didn’t. But something here felt different. Something was shifting, almost imperceptibly, in the air.

  The medium’s eyes widened suddenly, dilating until they swallowed the scant light of the candles. Her head tilted, listening intently to something beyond James’s perception. Her fingers hovered uncertainly above the crystal orb, trembling subtly.

  “She lingers still,” the medium intoned, voice distant, scarcely her own. “But not here. Not as you know it.”

  James leaned forward urgently. “Then where? Can she hear me? Is she—”

  “She searches for you as well,” the woman breathed, shuddering with effort. “In the spaces between. Where worlds touch, where the veil is weak. But the path is dangerous, uncertain. Something tears the barrier.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  James felt a cold dread uncoil deep within him, intertwined with a desperate surge of hope. Eliza. Her image rose vivid in his mind—her gentle smile, the brush of her hair against her cheek, her voice soft as the rustle of turning pages in the quiet hours of their bookshop.

  He remembered clearly that first meeting, her fingertips dancing reverently across old poetry volumes. “Do you have this one?” she’d asked gently. Her voice had been a melody. James had been lost from that moment, enchanted. They married within the year.

  And just as quickly, like a cruel twist of fate, she vanished. A tragic accident, they said. A carriage ride through mist-shrouded countryside roads, the sudden violent plunge into oblivion. Eliza, lost without trace. James never believed it.

  “There’s a symbol,” the medium whispered, urgently tracing a trembling circle through the air. “A key, but it is guarded. Darkness bleeds through cracks. Be wary.”

  James staggered up abruptly, shaken. Crumpled bills dropped hastily onto the table. He turned, escaping into the clinging embrace of the city’s oppressive fog.

  Outside, gaslamps burned dimly, illuminating rain-slicked streets that gleamed like liquid obsidian. Shadows pooled in alleyways, murmuring half-truths. James hurried forward, haunted by memories, until a whisper stilled him.

  “James.”

  He spun, breath hitching painfully. There, in an alley, stood a slender figure—her dark hair falling gracefully about her shoulders, her dress eerily familiar.

  “Eliza?” he whispered, trembling.

  She remained still, silent, ghostly pale.

  Stepping closer, heartbeat deafening, James reached out.

  But the vision dissolved, dissipating like smoke, leaving only emptiness and the echoing ache of loss.

  Beyond the veil of fog and grief... another city pulsed with a different kind of ghost.

  Victor Harrow stood in shadows deep enough to drown dreams. Harrow's Rest—the name was a dark joke. No one rested here. Dystrios sprawled vertically, piercing clouds with neon spires and plunging deep into forgotten underworlds. Victor stood amidst the filth and grime, beneath sputtering neon lights and holographic advertisements promising empty pleasures.

  Rain sluiced down rusted iron fire escapes, pooling in oily mirrors that distorted the city's neon hues. Victor's trench coat clung heavily to his frame, soaked through, the scar on his cheek a constant pulse of reminders best forgotten. Dark hair streaked prematurely gray hung lankly over haunted eyes that betrayed sleepless nights.

  From his pocket, he drew a small vial: Crux. The substance shimmered oddly, mercury laced with stardust. Uncorking it, Victor inhaled sharply. The substance seared his throat, freezing yet burning simultaneously, dulling the edge of memories too sharp to bear—the falling boy, the crack of gunfire, unbearable echoes silenced for now.

  But the reprieve was short-lived. A faint sound broke the fragile quiet. Victor's revolver was drawn instinctively, eyes narrowing into shadowed corners. He knew the sensation of being watched all too well.

  The crime scene shimmered, bathed in sterile opulence high above Dystrios. Wealth did little to mask death’s brutality. Blood painted stark patterns on pristine marble, a woman's form sprawled awkwardly. Victor moved mechanically, numbed by too many scenes like this.

  An officer gestured silently toward the far wall. Victor approached, pulse quickening. A tear hovered there, faint but real—a shimmering fracture in reality’s fabric. His breath caught as the tear widened briefly, offering a glimpse into otherness before sealing abruptly.

  The veil was thinning, worlds bleeding together. Victor recognized the sickening familiarity of unseen eyes observing from beyond.

  Whatever lurked behind that veil was just beginning.

  He turned away, heart heavy, knowing this nightmare was far from over.