My eyes felt like they were splitting open.
The pain was no longer a burn. It was pressure, as if something behind my eyes was swelling, pushing forward, trying to force them shut from the inside. My vision pulsed in time with my heartbeat, bright then dim, bright then dim, each pulse threatening to snuff the world out completely.
I could not tell if I was standing or kneeling anymore.
My legs shook violently, muscles locking and unlocking without permission. The floor rippled beneath me, not sinking this time but stretching, as though it were made of skin pulled too thin. My stomach twisted hard enough that bile crawled up my throat. I swallowed it back with a gag, saliva thick and sour.
The whispers grew louder.
They crowded around me, brushing my ears, my neck, the inside of my skull. They spoke in no language I understood, yet every sound carried intent. Hunger. Curiosity. Possession. I felt watched from every direction, from above and below, from places my eyes could not turn toward.
My vision began to fracture into doubles.
Two doors. Two walls. Two versions of the same room sliding apart from each other. Between them, something darker pressed through, stretching like tar forced through a crack. My chest tightened until each breath became a sharp, shallow gasp.
Blink.
My eyelids twitched uncontrollably now. Tiny spasms, milliseconds long, stealing slivers of sight. With every flicker, the room changed. The air thickened. The smell of damp stone and rot crept deeper into my lungs. My ears rang with a distant, echoing thrum, like a heartbeat far larger than my own.
My fingers clawed at my arms.
My nails dug into skin hard enough to sting, grounding me in pain, reminding me that I still had a body. Still here. Still human. The sting faded too quickly, drowned out by the greater agony behind my eyes.
Darkness surged forward.
It was not empty. It had texture. Weight. It pressed against my vision like a tide, dragging shapes with it. I saw silhouettes clearer now, no longer content to linger at the edges. Long limbs bent the wrong way. Faces that never fully formed, mouths opening and closing in silent anticipation.
My jaw trembled so hard my teeth clicked.
Every instinct screamed to close my eyes, to rest, to let it take me. The urge was overwhelming, seductive in its promise of relief. Just a second. Just a blink. The pain would stop.
No.
I forced my eyes wider than felt possible. Tears streamed nonstop, blinding me, but I did not care. Seeing nothing was better than seeing that place.
My chest convulsed as I sucked in air that felt too thick to breathe. My heartbeat roared in my ears, drowning out everything else. I counted again, desperately, but the numbers slipped away, dissolving before I could hold them.
Then the pull tightened.
It yanked at something deep inside me, something vital. I felt myself tipping forward, not physically, but inward, as if my soul were being dragged through a narrowing gate. Panic detonated in my chest.
I screamed.
The sound tore out of me raw and broken, scraping my throat. It echoed wrong, stretched and distorted, as if the room no longer knew how sound should behave.
My vision dimmed to a tunnel.
Black crowded in from all sides. My eyelids shuddered violently, on the verge of surrender. I felt warmth spill down my cheeks, my face numb, my body trembling on the edge of collapse.
I held.
Barely.
With everything left in me, I held my eyes open, staring into a world that was already trying to erase itself, knowing that the moment I failed, even for a heartbeat, I would be gone.
Then it stopped.
The pressure vanished all at once, so sudden that my body did not understand it had been spared. The weight crushing my chest lifted, the pull on my insides snapped loose, and the world lurched back into place.
I gagged violently and sucked in air like I had been drowning. My lungs burned as if scraped raw. Each breath came out ragged and uneven, half cough, half sob. My knees gave out and I hit the floor hard, palms slapping against the cold stone.
Something warm dripped from my mouth.
I tasted iron.
Blood spilled freely from my tongue, thick and dark as it splattered onto the floor below me. I must have bitten down very hard on it, my jaw clenched so hard it tore flesh. The pain followed a second later, sharp and insistent, grounding me in a way terror never could.
My entire body stung.
It was not pain in one place but everywhere at once, like countless needles pressed just beneath my skin. My muscles twitched uncontrollably, small violent spasms racing up my arms and legs. Even my fingers trembled, curling and uncurling as if they no longer belonged to me.
A phantom vibration ran through my bones.
It hummed inside my chest, inside my skull, an afterimage of the force that had tried to take me. The air felt wrong against my skin, too loud, too present. Every sound echoed, my breathing, distant shuffling, muffled cries from other recruits who had survived the same ordeal.
I swallowed and choked on the copper taste in my mouth.
My vision swam, edges blurring, but the room stayed solid. No shadows crawled at the corners anymore. No whispers brushed my ears. The scent of rot was gone, replaced by sweat, blood, and cold stone.
I pressed my forehead to the floor, trembling.
I was still here.
My heart pounded so hard it hurt, each beat sending a dull ache through my ribs. Slowly, painfully, sensation returned to something normal. The shaking eased. The vibration faded to a faint echo, then nothing at all.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and stared at the blood smeared across my skin.
Five minutes.
That was all it took for the veil to remind me how easily it could have claimed me.
Medics rushed in from every direction, boots striking the floor in sharp, practiced rhythms. The chaos they brought was controlled, efficient, almost frightening in how routine it felt to them.
One woman knelt in front of me.
She did not waste time with words.
Her gloved hand hovered near my chest, fingers spread, and I felt it immediately. Warmth bloomed where her palm faced me, gentle at first, then deeper, sinking past skin and muscle and into something closer to my core. It was not the heat of fire, but the comfort of sunlight through closed eyes.
My shaking slowed.
The ache in my lungs dulled, the raw scrape easing with every breath. The sting across my body softened, replaced by a soothing heaviness that pressed me down instead of pulling me away. It felt like being wrapped in layers of thick cloth, safe and close, the world muted around me.
She moved her hand to my jaw.
A faint pressure followed, and the pain in my tongue faded to a distant throb. The metallic taste in my mouth lessened as warmth sealed torn flesh, leaving only soreness behind.
"Easy," she murmured, her voice low and steady.
The warmth spread further, coiling around my spine, my ribs, my limbs. Each place it touched relaxed in turn, muscles unclenching as if they had finally been given permission to rest. Even my heart slowed, its frantic pounding settling into a steadier rhythm.
I let out a breath I did not realize I had been holding.
The fear did not vanish, but it loosened its grip. For the first time since the veil began to pull, I felt present in my body again, anchored to it instead of slipping away.
Her hand lifted, and the warmth faded gradually, like embers cooling rather than being snuffed out.
I was left weak, sore, and exhausted.
But alive.
It felt like I had just tasted hell itself.
The memory clung to the back of my throat, bitter and suffocating, as if it had seeped into my lungs and refused to leave. I swallowed hard, my hands trembling against the floor.
I do not want that. I do not want to feel that again.
"It will take about two hours before you fully recover," the medic said calmly. "The veil's symptoms are temporary, so do not worry."
Temporary. The word sounded fragile.
A sharp tone chimed from the device in her ear. She straightened slightly and turned her head, listening. Her expression shifted, the warmth in her eyes tightening into something heavier. Something practiced.
She answered in a low voice, her words clipped, efficient.
When the call ended, she did not look at me right away.
I noticed the pause.
Something was wrong.
"What is the call about?" I asked, my voice hoarse.
She finally met my gaze.
"About thirty recruits are gone," she said. "They have been pulled into Arkael."
The words landed heavier than any pain.
Gone.
Not injured. Not delayed. Not unconscious.
Pulled in.
My stomach twisted, cold spreading through my chest. Thirty. Faces from the barracks, from the exam hall, from the open grounds. People who were standing, breathing, complaining about tests and training just yesterday.
"They blinked?" I whispered.
She did not answer.
She did not need to.
The room felt smaller after that, the walls pressing in as if the veil itself were still watching us, waiting for the next moment of weakness.