Jude swallowed hard. "It’s not just following ." His voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper. "It’s a part of ."
The man nodded. "And now, they’ll never stop hunting you."
Jude closed his eyes, trying to steady himself. The weight of what he had just seen pressed against his chest, suffocating.
For the first ti in his life, he wasn’t just running from sothing.
He was running toward sothing far worse.
The silence between them stretched as Jude tried to make sense of what had just happened. His body still felt like it didn’t fully belong to him, as though sothing else was moving beneath his skin, whispering in a language he didn’t understand. The entity was closer now, no longer lurking at the edges of his vision but pressed against his thoughts, waiting.
The old man watched him with sothing close to curiosity, though his expression remained unreadable. The woman, however, seed more impatient. She leaned against the doorfra, arms crossed, eyes locked on Jude as if she was waiting for him to break.
Jude pushed himself up from the chair, his legs unsteady. "You knew," he said, directing the words at her. "You knew what would happen if I ca here."
She didn’t deny it. "You needed to know."
He let out a short, bitter laugh. "And what exactly did I learn? That I’m so kind of walking curse? That this thing isn’t just following , it’s inside ?"
The old man tilted his head slightly. "It’s not a curse. It’s a bond. One that was never ant to exist."
Jude clenched his fists. "And what the hell does that an?"
The man stepped closer, his voice steady. "It ans you weren’t supposed to survive."
Jude felt a cold weight settle in his stomach. He thought back to all the tis he should have died, all the monts where sothing had shifted in his favor at the last second. Bullets missing by an inch. Falls that should have broken bones leaving him with only bruises. The entity had always been there, lurking, watching.
Protecting.
His breath ca a little quicker. "Then why am I still here?"
The man didn’t answer right away. He walked past Jude, running his fingers over the carvings in the wall, tracing their patterns like they ant sothing more than what they appeared to be. Finally, he said, "Because sothing changed. Sothing that even I don’t understand."
Jude turned his gaze to the entity. It had never spoken to him, never explained itself. It had only ever been there. A shadow. A presence. A force he couldn’t na.
And now, it was part of him.
The woman pushed away from the doorfra. "We don’t have ti for this."
Jude shot her a glare. "Then what do you suggest? That I just accept this?"
She held his stare, unflinching. "I suggest you start acting like soone who wants to survive."
Jude let out a sharp breath, dragging a hand through his hair. He wanted to argue, to demand answers, to find so way to fix whatever had happened to him. But deep down, he knew there was no going back. He had crossed a line he hadn’t even known existed, and now he was stuck on the other side.
The old man finally turned back to them. "There’s one place you can go. One place where they won’t find you."
Jude’s pulse kicked up. "They?"
The man’s expression darkened. "You think you’re the only one who can see it? The only one who knows what you are now?" He shook his head. "You’re not the first to bond with sothing like this. You’re just the only one who survived."
The words sent a chill down Jude’s spine. "And what happened to the others?"
The man didn’t need to answer. Jude already knew.
The woman didn’t waste ti. "Where is this place?"
The man hesitated. "It’s not a place you’ll want to go."
Jude let out a humorless laugh. "And you think I want to be here?"
The old man t his gaze. "It’s a prison."
Jude’s stomach twisted. "You’re telling my only option is to lock myself up?"
"It’s not just a prison," the man corrected. "It’s a sanctuary. A place built to contain things like this." He nodded toward the entity. "A place where it won’t be able to reach beyond you."
Jude didn’t like the way that sounded. "What happens if I go there?"
The man’s eyes held sothing almost like pity. "You’ll be safe."
Jude shook his head. "That’s not an answer."
"It’s the only one I can give."
The woman stepped between them. "We don’t have ti to argue about this. If there’s a place where they can’t follow, we go there. Now."
Jude hesitated, glancing toward the door. The air felt heavier than it had before, the house pressing in on him like it was trying to keep him there. He could feel sothing shifting outside, a presence just beyond the trees, watching.
They weren’t alone.
The woman must have felt it too because she pulled a gun from her jacket, her stance shifting. The old man cursed under his breath and moved toward the window. His face went pale.
"They’ve already found you."
Jude didn’t hesitate. He bolted for the door, but the mont he threw it open, the world outside had changed.
The forest was gone. The road they had driven on had vanished. Instead, an endless stretch of darkness sprawled before them, pulsing like sothing alive. Shapes moved within it, shifting just beyond the edges of his vision.
The entity inside him reacted.
A voice, not his own but within him, whispered.
Not yet. Not here.
Jude staggered back, slamming the door shut. "What the hell is that?"
The old man’s face was grim. "It’s them."
The woman swore under her breath. "How do we get out?"
The old man turned to Jude. "You already know."
Jude’s heart pounded. "No. No, I don’t."
The man stepped closer. "You do." He tapped a finger against Jude’s temple. "It’s inside you. It knows the way out."
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