CHAPTER 416: CHAPTER 416: I SAID—STAY BACK!

The fog thickened until it felt alive—curling around her ankles, climbing higher, whispering against her ears. The moment one of those goat-creatures lunged, its body melted into the mist. It didn’t run. It didn’t fall. It simply... vanished.

Isabella froze, her heart dropping straight to her stomach. "What the hell—" she started, spinning around. But Glimora was gone too. Her arms were empty. "Glimora?" Her voice trembled, barely more than a breath.

"Bubu?" Nothing. No soft electronic hum. No sarcastic comment. No glowing screen. The silence was heavy, so thick it pressed against her chest until it hurt to breathe.

"Bubu!" she shouted louder this time, her voice bouncing off the rocks and dying quickly after. Nothing answered her except the distant, hollow drip of water.

Her pulse began to race. She wasn’t stupid. She’d been in this world long enough to know when something was wrong. This wasn’t normal—none of it.

She clutched her fan tighter, forcing herself to take shallow breaths. "Okay, Isabella, breathe," she whispered to herself. "It’s fine. You’re fine. You’ve got this. It’s just—"

"Isabella." The voice cut through the fog like a blade. She froze. It was soft. Familiar. A voice she knew better than her own heartbeat. "Cyrus?" Her voice cracked, small, broken. The world tilted. Her mind couldn’t process it—Cyrus was miles away, back at the palace. He couldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be here. "Isabella, please," he said again, his tone trembling.

He sounded like he was crying. "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you." Her fan slipped from her hand, hitting the damp ground with a dull thud. "Cyrus?" she whispered again, voice shaking. Her heart ached so hard it hurt.

Tears burned at the back of her eyes. "Cyrus, where are you?"

"Please, come to me," the voice said again—closer this time. It echoed softly through the mist, dripping with sorrow. "Let me explain. Please." The air felt wrong. The temperature dropped. Her breath came out in faint white clouds.

Something deep inside her screamed not to move. Her instincts—sharp and old as the beasts she’d met—told her to stay very still. Every muscle in her body locked. "No," she whispered, her eyes darting around the fog. "This isn’t real." She swallowed hard, forcing herself to take a single step back. "You’re not him."

The voice broke, raw with emotion. "Isabella, it’s me. I swear."

"No." Her tone was firm now, but her voice trembled anyway. Her mind was screaming, her heart begging her to believe it, to run into that sound—but her instincts clawed at her spine like daggers.

"You’re not him. He’s not here. He can’t be here." Silence. And then, softly—like a lullaby gone wrong—came a sound that shattered her resolve. Crying. Not from far away. From everywhere. The same voice, the same sobs, circling her. Echoing like the mountain itself was weeping.

"Stop," she whispered, backing up again. "Stop, please." The crying grew louder. Closer. Desperate. Then suddenly—it stopped. The silence that followed was worse. A suffocating stillness, heavy enough to crush bone. Her breath caught in her throat. She could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.

"Bubu?" she whispered again. "Please, say something." Still nothing. The air pressed tighter around her. And then— A soft whimper. Small. Trembling. Familiar.

"Glimora?" Isabella’s head snapped toward the sound, her pulse hammering. The noise came again—a scared, choked whine. "Glimora!" She spun in circles, searching through the mist. The sound grew louder, desperate, pained. "Hold on, I’m coming—" she began, but the words stuck in her throat as the fog parted slightly, revealing a shadow ahead.

The fog thinned just enough for Isabella to make out the tiny figure ahead—small, hunched, and shaking. "Glimora?" she whispered again, voice breaking.

The creature was facing a tree, its little shoulders trembling violently, the sound of its whimpers slicing through the still air. At first, they were animal-like, pitiful, exactly how Glimora cried when she was frightened.

But then—something shifted. The cries stretched, deepened, warped. They became wet, breathy, human. It was the sound of a child crying through blood. The sound alone made Isabella’s knees weak. She pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to steady her breath.

"Glimora?" she tried again, softer now, her voice barely holding together. The little creature didn’t move. It just kept facing that tree, sobbing harder.

The branches above it began to sway though there was no wind, and the air grew thick, heavy—like the mountain itself was holding its breath.

Every part of her screamed to run. But Glimora’s cries—those helpless, broken noises—anchored her in place. "Hey, baby..." she whispered, taking one step closer. Her hand trembled as she reached forward.

"It’s me, okay? It’s Mama." The thing stilled. Slowly, its crying turned into quiet hiccups, the kind Glimora made whenever she was trying to stop herself from bawling. Isabella took another step. The mist curled tighter around her ankles.

She didn’t notice. "It’s alright," she murmured, her voice gentler now. "You don’t have to cry anymore. I’m here." The tiny form twitched again—too suddenly, too sharply. Its head snapped up toward the tree bark.

The sound it made next didn’t belong in any world she knew. It started as a faint snicker—high-pitched, almost shy—and then it grew louder, wet and distorted, like laughter bubbling through a throat full of water.

Isabella’s entire body went rigid. "Oh no," she whispered. "Oh, hell no." The creature’s spine cracked as it twisted around. Slowly. Bones snapping one after another. The neck turned last, bending far too far until it faced her completely. What turned toward her wasn’t Glimora. It had her size, her shape, but the face—oh gods—the face was stretched, mouth too wide, eyes hollow, the same goat-like pupils staring with human tears still streaming down.

Isabella stumbled back, her heart slamming against her ribs. "Oh, wow," she gasped, her laugh breaking from pure terror. "Okay, that’s—yeah, that’s definitely not my baby. Nope. Nope, nope, nope—"

The thing tilted its head at her laugh, mouth still open in that awful, trembling grin. And then it moved. Too fast. It lunged at her, limbs jerking, feet dragging like they weren’t used to being attached to a body.

Isabella screamed, stumbling back, her instincts kicking in before her mind could. Her fan she had dropped earlier appeared in her hand in a flash of blue light, the air vibrating around her.

"I said—STAY BACK!" she yelled, slashing through the air. The fan cut forward, slicing clean through the creature. The mist exploded around them in a burst of crimson light— And the thing that looked like Glimora let out a shriek that didn’t sound like anything human.