"How much farther?" he finally asked.
She didn’t glance at him. "We’ll be there by morning."
Jude sighed and shifted in his seat. His body was still sore from the fight, and his head throbbed with exhaustion, but there was no chance of sleeping now. He glanced at the rearview mirror. The road behind them was empty, but that didn’t an they weren’t being followed.
"They know we’re gone," he muttered.
"They knew the mont we left," she confird.
Jude clenched his jaw. "Then why aren’t they stopping us?"
"They don’t need to. Not yet."
There was sothing unsettling about the way she said it, like she knew sothing he didn’t. He wanted to press her for answers, but he wasn’t sure he was ready for them.
The entity remained still in the corner of his vision, as it always did. It never spoke, at least, not in words. But Jude could feel sothing shifting between them, sothing almost like... anticipation. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
Hours passed in tense silence. The city was long behind them now, replaced by empty roads and thick forests. Jude couldn’t shake the feeling that the world itself had changed sohow, like they had crossed so invisible threshold between reality and sothing else entirely.
Finally, the car slowed, turning onto a narrow dirt road barely wide enough for the vehicle. The trees pressed in on either side, their branches reaching like skeletal fingers overhead. Jude felt his pulse quicken.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"The place I told you about."
"That’s not an answer."
She exhaled sharply but didn’t respond. The road continued winding through the dense forest until the trees finally gave way to a clearing. In the center stood a house, if it could even be called that. It was old, the wood weathered and dark, like it had been abandoned for years. But the lights were on.
Jude didn’t move as the car ca to a stop. He stared at the house, an uneasy feeling settling in his stomach. "Who’s here?"
She turned off the engine. "Soone who can help."
Jude narrowed his eyes. "Help with what?"
She finally looked at him, her expression unreadable. "With what’s happening to you."
Jude didn’t like the way she said it, like he was sothing broken that needed fixing. He glanced at the entity again. It was still there, unmoving, but he felt it react. Not fear, not anger, just... recognition. Like it knew what this place was.
That didn’t make him feel any better.
Still, he stepped out of the car, stretching his sore muscles as he took in his surroundings. The air was thick, heavy in a way that felt unnatural. There was no sound, no birds, no rustling leaves, nothing. Just the distant hum of electricity from the house.
The woman led the way up the creaking porch steps. She knocked once, then stepped back. The door swung open almost imdiately.
A man stood in the doorway, his face lined with age but his eyes sharp with sothing else, sothing Jude couldn’t quite place. He studied Jude for a long mont before stepping aside.
"Co in," he said.
Jude hesitated.
The woman gave him a look. "You don’t have a choice."
That was becoming a pattern.
Jude sighed and stepped inside. The house slled of old wood and sothing faintly tallic. The walls were lined with shelves, each filled with objects that made no sense, jars of dark liquid, rusted tools, bones that didn’t look entirely human. A single dim bulb flickered overhead.
Jude’s instincts scread at him to turn around and leave.
The man shut the door behind them. "You’ve bonded with it."
Jude stiffened. "What?"
The man nodded toward the entity. "I can see it."
Jude exchanged a glance with the woman, but she showed no surprise.
"How?" he asked.
The man ignored the question and walked deeper into the house. "Co."
Jude hesitated, then followed. The room at the end of the hall was even stranger than the rest of the house. Symbols were carved into the walls and floor, their patterns dizzying to look at. In the center stood a chair, old, wooden, and stained with sothing dark.
Jude frowned. "I’m not sitting in that."
The man didn’t seem to care. "You don’t understand what you are now. If you want to survive, you need to."
Jude glanced at the woman, but she simply crossed her arms, waiting.
He didn’t like this. Every part of him scread that this was a mistake. But the truth was, he didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t understand what was happening to him, and that was more dangerous than anything else right now.
So, against his better judgnt, he sat.
The wood was cold beneath him. The man moved behind him, muttering sothing under his breath. The symbols on the walls seed to shift, the air growing heavier.
Then, pain.
A sharp, searing pain shot through his skull, his vision flashing white. He gasped, gripping the arms of the chair as his body tensed.
He wasn’t in the house anymore.
The world around him twisted, shifting into sothing unrecognizable. Dark shapes moved at the edges of his vision, whispering in a language he didn’t understand. The entity was there, but it wasn’t separate from him anymore. It was inside him.
mories that weren’t his flooded his mind, images of places he had never been, faces he didn’t recognize. He saw destruction, fire, shadows stretching across cities he didn’t know the nas of. And through it all, he felt sothing growing inside him, sothing powerful and ancient.
Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.
Jude gasped for air, his body trembling as he gripped the edges of the chair. The room was still spinning when he finally looked up.
The man was watching him closely. "Now you understand."
Jude didn’t speak. He couldn’t.
The woman stepped forward. "What did you see?"
Jude swallowed hard. "It’s not just following ." His voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper. "It’s a part of ."
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