Chapter 56

Sarah's POV

The words hung in the air like a thick fog, suffocating and cryptic. The space between worlds. It didn't make sense. How could we be here? How had we left the rift only to land in another dimension entirely, one that seemed to warp and twist in its own eerie way?

I glanced at Axel, his face pale, eyes wide with disbelief. We both knew, deep down, that whatever this place was, it wasn't going to give us the answers we needed. It was another puzzle piece in the labyrinth we'd been stumbling through.

"Control?" Axel's voice cracked as he spoke, his tone steady but edged with desperation. "Who controls it? And why are we here?"

The woman's smile deepened, and she took a step forward. Her cloak rustled like the whisper of leaves on a windless day, and the shadows around her seemed to shift and respond. It was as if she was made of the darkness itself.

"You are here," she said slowly, "because you were never meant to leave the rift. Your fate is bound to it, to all of this." She gestured to the world around us—an unnatural landscape now blurring in the periphery, the meadow twisting into dark shapes, the trees bending unnaturally toward us. "The rift is a prison, but also a passage, a doorway to many realms. And once you've entered, there is no escaping what lies in between."

I swallowed hard, the weight of her words pressing down on me like a vice. A doorway to many realms. If that were true, how many worlds had we crossed in our flight from the rift? And why did it feel like we were no closer to freedom?

Axel stepped forward, his eyes narrowing in determination. "You're lying," he said, his voice low but fierce. "We've already escaped the rift once. We're not trapped here."

The woman's lips parted, and her laugh was soft but carried a chilling undertone. "You think you've escaped? You haven't. The rift doesn't let go so easily. You are simply caught in another web it spun. It controls all, not just here, but everywhere. It decides what is real and what is illusion." She paused, letting her words settle into the air. "It decides who lives and who dies."

Axel's grip tightened around my hand, and I could feel his pulse quicken. I shared the same dread—the fear that we had only traded one nightmare for another. That this place wasn't a reprieve from the rift but another layer of the web we'd been caught in.

"We have to get out of here," I whispered, mostly to myself, the sense of urgency building inside me like a storm. But I knew, deep down, that there were no simple exits in a place like this. We needed answers. We needed to understand what the woman—this creature—was talking about.

The woman cocked her head, as if she were reading my thoughts, and her smile widened into something almost predatory. "Escape is a delusion," she said, her voice like honey, sweet but poisonous. "But you'll see for yourselves soon enough. The rift will call for you again, as it calls to everyone who's ever stepped through. It is a part of you now."

Before I could ask what she meant by that, a sharp sound pierced the air—an eerie, unnatural shriek that made the ground beneath our feet tremble. The trees, once still, began to bend and groan, their trunks twisting and gnarled as if some force was pulling them into unnatural shapes. The sky overhead darkened as though a storm had suddenly appeared from nowhere, but the clouds didn't move. They hung in place, dense and oppressive, blotting out the sun entirely.

"We have to leave now," I said urgently, taking a step back. My pulse hammered in my chest as the ground beneath us seemed to shift, the earth warping and cracking open, revealing darkness beneath.

The woman laughed again, a sound that felt wrong—too hollow, too cold to be real. "You can't outrun fate, Sarah," she said softly, almost soothingly. "Not here. Not in the space between worlds. You are already bound to it."

And then, as if on cue, the shadows around us moved, coiling and twisting like serpents. From the depths of the darkness, shapes began to emerge—figures, creatures, some familiar, others alien. Their faces were distorted, eyes hollow, filled with a hunger I could feel pressing against me. They moved toward us with purpose, a slow, deliberate advance.

Axel stepped in front of me, his body tense, ready for whatever came next. "We fight," he said, his voice grim but resolute. "We've survived worse."

I nodded, my heart pounding. The creatures were closing in, their movements growing faster now, the sound of their limbs scraping the ground loud in the unnatural stillness.

But the woman's voice cut through the chaos. "You don't understand," she said, her voice a soft, terrifying whisper. "You can fight, you can struggle, but it will never be enough. The rift has claimed you, and now it will feed on you, just like it feeds on everything else it touches."

I could feel the weight of her words, the truth behind them sinking deep into my bones. The creatures were closing in now, and I could see the hunger in their eyes. But in the back of my mind, the words she had spoken echoed—The rift will call for you again. I shuddered at the thought. Was it true? Were we ever going to escape?

Axel's hand tightened around mine. "Whatever happens, we don't stop fighting. We don't give in."

And as the first of the creatures lunged toward us, I knew that he was right. No matter how many layers of darkness the rift threw at us, no matter how many worlds we had to cross, we couldn't stop. We couldn't give up. Not now. Not when the stakes were higher than ever.

With a determined breath, I raised my gaze to meet Axel's, my grip firm on his hand.

This wasn't over. It couldn't be.

We fought.