The tunnel intersection opened before Hikari like the maw of something ancient and hungry.

  She flew through the darkness, psychic energy propelling her forward in bursts of cyan light that illuminated crumbling concrete and rusted metal. The air was thick here, heavy with supernatural pressure that made her lungs work harder for each breath.

  **CRASH!**

  Her body punched through into a massive chamber where multiple tunnels converged, a hub connecting pathways that stretched into infinite darkness. The walls here were different. Smoother. Almost organic. Like being inside something that had once been alive.

  She landed hard, sandals scraping against concrete slick with moisture. The cyan glow around her hands flickered, casting dancing shadows across the space.

  The darkness was absolute.

  Not the comfortable dark of a bedroom at night. This was something deeper. Something wrong. A blackness so complete it felt like a physical presence pressing against her eyes, her skin, her thoughts.

  Hikari's breath came in sharp gasps. She couldn't see. Couldn't orient herself. The suppressor behind her ear pulsed with that maddening rhythm, dulling her senses when she needed them most.

  **Focus.**

  She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. Nothing. Just void.

  Her psychic abilities stirred, instinct taking over where training failed. If she couldn't see with her eyes, maybe she could see another way. The cyan glow around her hands intensified as she pushed energy outward, not as an attack but as illumination.

  It wasn't working fast enough.

  The darkness swallowed the light like water extinguishing a candle. She could barely make out her own hands in front of her face.

  **Move. Adapt. Survive.**

  Hikari focused on her optical nerves, channeling psychic energy to enhance them. Not telekinesis. Not constructs. Something more fundamental. She was learning this on the fly, forcing her abilities to evolve in real-time because the alternative was being blind in a place where things hunted.

  The world brightened by fractions. Shapes began to emerge from the void. The tunnel mouths. The walls. The—

  **WHOOSH.**

  Air displacement. Something moving fast.

  Hikari spun, her enhanced vision catching movement at the hole she'd created in the wall.

  "Lirael" stepped through, her form flickering between solid and shadow. The clone's dull silver eyes gleamed in the darkness, somehow visible when everything else was obscured.

  Time slowed.

  The clone raised both hands. Black and purple energy coalesced around her fingers, swirling with malevolent intent.

  **Dark matter arrows.**

  Forty-five of them materialized in an instant, each one humming with destructive force. They hung in the air for a heartbeat, pointed directly at Hikari's chest.

  Then they launched.

  **WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!**

  Hikari's hands shot up on pure instinct.

  **BOOM!**

  Psychic energy exploded from her palms in a massive, unfocused blast. Raw power channeled through desperation. The cyan wave hit the incoming arrows and detonated them mid-flight, dark matter and psychic force colliding in a spectacular cascade of light and sound.

  The explosion threw Hikari backward. Her feet left the ground. She tumbled through empty space before crashing hard against the concrete, rolling twice before sliding to a stop.

  Her vision swam. The darkness pressed in again, her optical enhancement faltering.

  **Get up.**

  She pushed herself to her feet, legs shaking. Her enhanced vision was working better now, the world resolving into shades of gray and dim outlines. Not perfect. Not fast enough. But better than blindness.

  "Lirael" watched her with that unsettling smile. The clone tilted her head, almost amused.

  Hikari ran.

  She chose a tunnel at random and bolted, her sandals slapping against wet concrete. The darkness swallowed her immediately, but her enhanced vision caught enough detail to navigate. Walls. Floor. The path ahead.

  Behind her, footsteps.

  Not running. Walking. Casual. Confident.

  The tunnel began to shift.

  Hikari felt it before she saw it. The walls groaned, concrete grinding against itself. The floor beneath her feet rippled like water, sending her stumbling.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  **Earth manipulation.**

  The clone was bending the tunnel itself, warping the passage into something hostile. The walls contracted, narrowing the space. The ceiling dropped lower, forcing Hikari to duck.

  Then the tunnel attacked.

  Jagged spikes of stone erupted from the walls, thrusting toward her with lethal intent. Hikari twisted, barely avoiding a spike that would have impaled her shoulder. Another shot up from the floor. She leaped over it, her momentum carrying her forward.

  The darkness made it worse. Her enhanced vision showed shapes moving, but not fast enough to give her time to fully react. She was dodging by fractions of seconds, her body moving on instinct while her mind struggled to keep up.

  **CRACK!**

  A spike caught her leg, tearing through fabric and skin. Pain exploded up her calf. She gasped but kept running, her healing factor already working to seal the wound.

  The tunnel twisted ahead of her, bending at an impossible angle. Hikari skidded to a stop, her enhanced vision barely catching the shift in time.

  Something grabbed her ankle.

  Hikari looked down. A tendril, black and glistening, had wrapped around her leg. It pulsed with unnatural life, tightening with crushing force.

  **Shapeshifting.**

  The clone was extending herself through the darkness, her form no longer bound by conventional anatomy.

  Hikari kicked, trying to break free. The tendril yanked.

  Her feet left the ground.

  She was dragged backward through the tunnel, concrete scraping against her back and shoulders. Her hands clawed for purchase, finding nothing but smooth stone. The darkness rushed past her as the tendril reeled her in like a fish on a line.

  **WHAM!**

  Her back hit the wall of the intersection chamber with bone-crushing force. The impact drove the air from her lungs. Stars exploded across her vision, her enhanced sight flickering.

  Before she could recover, more tendrils wrapped around her. Arms. Legs. Throat. They pinned her against the wall, squirming and pulsing like living things.

  "Lirael" emerged from the tunnel mouth, her body supported by additional tendrils that lifted her off the ground. She hung in the air like some grotesque spider, her feet dangling while flesh appendages held her suspended.

  The clone drifted closer, her silver eyes reflecting Hikari's struggling form.

  Hikari tried to channel psychic energy. The tendrils tightened, cutting off her concentration. She couldn't breathe properly. Couldn't focus. The darkness pressed in again, her enhanced vision failing as panic took over.

  "Struggling makes it worse," the clone said softly, her voice layered with harmonics that bypassed conscious thought.

  Hikari gritted her teeth. Her hands twitched, trying to gather power. The cyan glow flickered weakly around her fingers.

  Not enough.

  The clone raised one hand, dark matter energy beginning to coalesce.

  **FLASH!**

  Azure light exploded through the chamber.

  Lila came through the hole Hikari had created, her form blazing with psychic power. She moved with perfect grace, two daggers of pink-tinged energy materializing in her hands.

  **SLASH!**

  The first dagger cut through the tendrils holding Hikari. The second severed the appendages supporting the clone.

  "Lirael" fell.

  Lila was already there, catching Hikari as she dropped from the wall. The older girl's arms wrapped around her, steadying her as they both landed.

  "Got you," Lila said.

  Then, with surprising strength, she tossed Hikari toward the hole.

  Hikari flew through the air, tumbling through the opening and landing hard on the other side. She scrambled to her feet, spinning back toward the chamber.

  "Lila!"

  The pink-haired exorcist stood between Hikari and the clone, her psychic daggers blazing with renewed intensity. Her expression was calm, focused, tactical.

  "Go!" Lila commanded. "Get Amanda! Avoid fighting at all costs!"

  "But—"

  "We don't have time!" Lila pulled out her encrypted phone with her free hand, holding it up so Hikari could see the screen.

  Even from a distance, Hikari could make out the message from Jecka. The timestamp showed it had been sent five minutes ago.

  **JECKA:** VPD mobilizing. You have maybe 10 minutes before they breach the perimeter. Get the girl and GET OUT.

  The words hit Hikari like a physical blow.

  Ten minutes. Maybe less now.

  "Lirael" was rising again, her tendrils reforming, her body reassembling itself with grotesque efficiency. The clone's silver eyes fixed on Lila with predatory interest.

  "GO!" Lila shouted again.

  Hikari hesitated for one more heartbeat. Then she turned and ran.

  Her enhanced vision was working better now, the darkness less absolute. She could make out the tunnel ahead, the path back toward where they'd entered this nightmare.

  Behind her, she heard the clash of combat. Azure light flashing. The wet sound of tendrils being severed. Lila's controlled breathing as she engaged the clone.

  Hikari ran faster.

  Her sandals pounded against concrete. Her lungs burned. Her leg throbbed where the spike had caught her, though the healing factor was knitting the wound closed with each step.

  The tunnel seemed endless. She pushed herself harder, channeling psychic energy into her legs to enhance her speed. Not flying. Just running with supernatural assistance, her body moving faster than it should be able to.

  The Forsaken Academy. That's where Amanda was. In that twisted gymnasium at the heart of this nightmare. Lila had bought her time. She couldn't waste it.

  The pressure in the air intensified as she ran. The supernatural weight that had been constant since they'd entered Long Island City now felt like it was focusing, concentrating ahead of her.

  Amanda knew she was coming.

  Or the thing attached to Amanda knew.

  Hikari didn't slow down.

  Her enhanced vision caught movement ahead. Shadows shifting. The walls beginning to breathe again, that same disturbing rhythm she'd noticed when they'd first entered the tunnels.

  The faces appeared. Children's faces pressed against the concrete from the inside. Their mouths opened in silent screams. Their eyes followed her as she ran past.

  She ignored them. Had to. There was no time to process the horror of what this place had become.

  The tunnel opened ahead of her, widening into a familiar space. She'd been here before. The entrance to the gymnasium section. The path that led to where Amanda sat on that rusted swing.

  Hikari burst through, her momentum carrying her into the vast chamber.

  The bleachers stretched into darkness on either side. Shadow figures with no faces occupied the seats, watching. The scoreboard flickered with unreadable symbols. And there, in the center of the court—

  The swing set.

  Empty.

  Hikari skidded to a stop, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Sweat dripped down her face. Her leg ached. Her back throbbed from being slammed into the wall.

  The swing moved gently, its chains creaking softly despite the absence of any wind.

  "Amanda?" Hikari called out.

  Her voice echoed through the vast space, bouncing off walls that shouldn't exist and returning distorted.

  No response.

  The supernatural pressure intensified. The air grew colder. The shadow figures in the bleachers turned their faceless heads toward her in perfect unison.

  And somewhere in the darkness behind her, back in the tunnels where Lila fought alone against a clone of one of the most powerful witches in existence, time continued to tick down.

  Ten minutes.

  Maybe less.

  Hikari took a step forward, her enhanced vision scanning the gymnasium for any sign of the girl they'd come to save.

  The swing continued its gentle motion, back and forth, back and forth.

  Waiting.

  To be continued...