Chapter 5 The Morning After the Impossible

AMELIE POV

Dawn does not arrive gently.

It drags itself across the horizon like a broken thing, bleeding pale gold into the sky in a rhythm that doesn’t feel quite right. The light hits Ashmir’s rooftops in delayed pulses, like the sun itself is unsure how to rise.

I stand in my cottage doorway, staring at the world that should feel familiar but now feels wrong in all the smallest, quietest ways.

Dexter is gone.

The thought is a stone in my chest—heavy, cold, immovable.

He didn’t fade peacefully.

He didn’t slip away softly.

He was torn from reality, ripped back into the nothing he came from, dissolving into my shadow like a scream swallowed by darkness.

I can still feel the echo of his touch in my bones.

I step outside, and the light stutters again. Not enough for anyone else to notice. But enough for me.

My shadow stretches too far, too eagerly on the ground.

“Dexter?” I whisper before I can stop myself.

Nothing answers.

But the air seems to hold its breath.

I walk through the early morning streets of Ashmir, hood pulled low. Vendors are setting up their market stalls. Water carriers walk with half-asleep expressions. A baker sweeps flour from his doorstep.

Ordinary things.

But beneath the surface, reality is wrong.

A bird flies overhead—yet its shadow stays behind on a roof for three heartbeats before catching up. A street lantern flickers, then flickers again in reverse. A stray dog crosses my path twice, the second time walking the same path with no memory of having done it moments earlier.

Something has cracked.

And I know exactly when it happened.

When Dexter touched my shadow.

When our essences fused.

When we crossed a boundary the universe never meant to be crossed.

If I close my eyes, I can still hear his voice—faint and scattered, like a thought drifting across an ocean.

I’ll find my way back to you.

It felt like a promise.

A vow.

A threat whispered to reality itself.

But if he’s truly gone…

How am I hearing him now?

The cottage door behind me creaks as a breeze sweeps through the street—carrying the faint smell of ink and lavender, the scent of my home.

Something cracks beneath my boot.

I look down.

A small piece of chalk lies broken on the ground.

My stomach tightens as I turn back to the cottage door.

Three words are written across the wood in looping strokes—familiar strokes, strokes I have traced a thousand times in my maps.

Find me again.

My knees nearly buckle.

It’s his handwriting.

Not perfect.

Not fully stable.

The lines shimmer faintly, like they’re resisting the hold of sunlight.

My fingers tremble as I touch the letters.

Warm.

Vibrating.

Alive in a way ink and chalk should never be.

“Dexter…” My voice breaks.

A pulse shudders through my shadow.

One beat.

Two.

Another—soft and uneven, like a heartbeat learning how to exist.

I stagger back, clutching my chest. Air feels too thin, too sharp.

He’s still here.

Not whole.

Not real.

Not in body.

But in fragments—pieces of him clinging to the world, refusing to disappear completely.

I wrap my arms around myself as the truth settles over me:

He didn’t die.

He shattered.

I need air.

I leave the chalk writing on the door and walk fast—through narrow alleys, past waking houses, toward the main square. The world feels like it’s warping around me. The streets ripple subtly, bending in ways they shouldn’t.

The closer I get to the market, the heavier the atmosphere feels.

Like something is gathering.

Listening.

Watching.

I keep walking.

The vendors’ voices glitch mid-sentence. A woman’s reflection in a window turns her head a full second after she does. A stack of apples rolls off a table, then rolls back, reversing their fall.

The world is fraying at the edges.

And I caused it.

I swallow hard and keep moving, trying not to look too long at anything that might break.

Then—

A sharp scream slices through the air.

High-pitched. Terrified.

A child’s scream.

My heart lurches. My feet are moving before thought can intervene. I shove through a forming crowd, ignoring the mutters and startled glances.

And then I see her.

A little girl, about six, stands trembling in the center of the square. Her mother clutches her shoulders, panicking, trying to soothe her.

But the girl points at the ground, sobbing.

“The shadows!” she cries. “They’re wrong!”

Her mother tries again. “Sweetheart, it’s just—”

“No!” The girl screams. “They’re reaching! They’re reaching for me!”

She looks up—

And I freeze.

Her eyes flicker.

Not brown.

But storm-gray.

Dexter’s storm-gray.

For half a second—barely long enough for anyone but me to see—her irises glitch with a color that doesn’t belong to her. Flicker like a candle caught between worlds.

My breath stops.

“Dexter?” I whisper without meaning to.

The girl’s gaze snaps to mine.

And suddenly her face is too still. Too calm. Too knowing.

“You let me fade,” she whispers.

But the voice—gods, the voice—it isn’t hers.

It’s him.

Dexter’s voice, crushed into a child’s throat, fragmented and distorted but undeniably his.

The world tilts.

My legs go numb.

“H-how…?” I can barely form the words.

Then the glitch vanishes.

Her eyes go brown.

Her posture relaxes.

She looks frightened, confused, utterly normal.

Like she has no idea she was just speaking with someone else’s voice.

The mother scoops her up, glaring at me for coming too close.

I barely notice.

I’m staring at the shadows around the square.

Every shadow—every person, every object—begins stretching toward me. Reaching. Crawling in elongated streaks across the cobblestones.

Not toward the girl.

Toward me.

I swallow a scream.

My own shadow shifts across the ground—not following the sun, not following me, but reacting, pulsing with some internal rhythm.

A heartbeat.

Not mine.

I take a step back.

The shadows follow.

Then a hand grips my wrist.

I nearly lash out before I see her.

An older woman with silver hair. Eyes like sharpened moonlight. A presence that feels both ancient and terribly familiar.

“You’re unraveling the city, child,” she says softly. Calmly. As if this is expected. “Come with me before you tear the rest of reality open.”

My voice shakes. “Who are you?”

“Someone who knew exactly what would happen the moment you let him touch your shadow.” Her gaze drifts to the distorted darkness stretching across the square. “And someone who knows how to help you fix it.”

“I don’t understand—”

“You will.” Her grip tightens. “But not here. The city is already listening.”

I look again at the shadows pulling toward me.

At the lingering pulse in my own.

At the echo of Dexter’s voice still trembling in my bones.

She steps away, expecting me to follow.

And I do.

Because I already know:

Dexter is not dead.

Reality is cracking.

And I am the reason both are true.

Whatever comes next—I can't face it alone.

I follow her into the twisting streets.

Behind me, the shadows crawl after us like hungry things.