It felt like waking from a dream.
But the longer it went on, the less it felt like one.
Shoto sat on the front steps of his house, the cool breeze brushing past his skin — real wind, real sunlight, real sounds. Cars passed by. A dog barked somewhere down the block. The scent of fresh grass drifted on the air.
This wasn't Valoria.
It was Antwerp.
Home.
⸻
Inside, the others were just as confused.
Pate had spent twenty minutes testing the TV remote. KJ stared at his phone like it might explode. Elizabeth stood in the kitchen, holding a glass of water and watching it like she expected it to turn into blood.
"This is real," she whispered. "It feels real."
"But it doesn't make sense," Brandon said, pacing. "The last thing we did was fall asleep. In that church."
Gage leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "So what—Valoria was a dream? All of it?"
Riley shook her head. "No. You don't dream scars like this."
She lifted her sleeve, showing a faint red line from a fight weeks ago.
Still there.
⸻
They spent the rest of the day searching.
The whole town.
Shoto led them back to the lake — the place where it all started. Nothing had changed. Still, clear water. No red sky. No flickering shadows.
They checked the school, the streets, the storefronts, the park, the woods.
Everything was exactly as it should be.
No journal.
No spire.
No mark.
⸻
That night, they all gathered in Shoto's living room, sitting in silence as the sun disappeared behind the horizon.
The weight of it hung on everyone.
"What if it's over?" Gage said quietly.
"What if it's not?" Brandon countered.
KJ rubbed his temples. "What if this is just another part of it?"
⸻
No one had answers.
Just exhaustion.
And eventually… sleep.
⸻
⸻
Shoto blinked.
The scent hit him first.
Moss. Candle smoke. Rain-soaked stone.
He sat up with a gasp — the wood beneath him was rough and old.
Pews.
Stained glass.
Candles flickering.
They were back.
Inside the forest church.
⸻
Elizabeth shot upright beside him, eyes wide. "What the hell—?"
The journal lay open on the altar.
New words scrawled in red ink.
"You can't get away that easy."