The Crack

**11:55 PM.**

The wind was howling now. It wasn't just wind; it was the intake breath of the Abyss.

Kaelen sprinted along the cliff edge. Below him, the purple fog of the Void had risen. It was lapping at the foundations of the Dregs. Tentacles of shadow whipped over the precipice, searching for purchase.

He could see the shack.

It was dark. The Ward Stone was dead.

"Elara!" Kaelen screamed against the wind.

He kicked the metal door open.

The inside of the shack was freezing. Frost coated the walls.

Elara was huddled in the corner. The static had spread. It covered her chest now, crawling up her neck. Her eyes were wide, terrified, fixed on the floorboards where black smoke was seeping through the cracks.

"Kaelen?" she whimpered. Her voice sounded synthesized, distorted.

"I got it!" Kaelen shouted. He held up the blue crystal. "I got it, El!"

He threw himself at the threshold. He fell to his knees beside the dead Ward Stone. His hands were shaking so hard he almost dropped the crystal.

**11:58 PM.**

The floorboards groaned. The Void was pushing up.

Kaelen jammed the blue crystal into the socket of the Ward Stone.

He waited for the flash. He waited for the golden dome of light that would push the darkness back and buy them another night.

* Click.*

The crystal seated.

It glowed for a second. A bright, hopeful blue.

Then, a hairline fracture appeared in the center of the gem.

* Crr-ack.*

The light didn't expand. It imploded. The crystal shattered into dust.

Kaelen stared at the blue powder on his hands.

"No," he whispered. "No, no, no."

The Broker. The crystal was flawed. Or maybe he had tripped and cracked it. Or maybe the universe just hated him.

"Kaelen!" Elara screamed.

The floorboards shattered.

The Void Tide surged up like a geyser of black ink. It didn't look like water; it looked like the absence of light.

It hit Elara.

She didn't burn. She didn't drown. She simply... unspooled.

The static covering her body expanded. She reached out a hand to him—a hand that turned into grey pixels and dissolved into the wind.

"Elara!" Kaelen lunged for her.

He grabbed her wrist.

It felt like grabbing a handful of sand. She disintegrated in his grip, her scream fading into digital noise.

The Void swallowed the back half of the shack. It rushed toward Kaelen.

He fell back, scrambling against the dirt, until his back hit the doorframe.

He was alone.

The shack was gone. His sister was gone. The memory of his mother’s song was gone.

**11:59 PM.**