My eyes flick toward the shadow, and my brain pieces together the shape of an enormous wolf. But where fur should be, it hisses like smoke and static, its hackles flashing like lightning. When it bares a mouthful of teeth, I don’t bother questioning what it is I’m seeing—I run.

Rocks skid beneath my feet, and I leap from one ledge to the next, hearing the thick bark of the beast close behind. I can’t climb up the mountain fast enough, so I have no choice but to make a quick descent, tripping over tangles of weeds as I do. My foot slips on the wet vegetation, and my body goes tumbling over branches and stones until I crash headfirst into a log.

Crying out in pain, I wipe the blood from my temple and struggle to get to my feet. The world spins around me, and I vaguely see the wild smoke-animal charging toward me, its razor teeth snapping at the air.

I try to run, but I stumble again and fall several yards onto a thin path of flattened grass. I wince as pain radiates through my shoulder and scramble to my feet just as the beast crashes to the ground an arm’s length behind me.

There’s not enough time to get away. I’m trapped.

I grab my knife and point it toward the beast.

“Stay back!” I shout, feeling the grit in my throat.

The beast hisses, static snapping around it like a mess of live wires.

I swipe my knife at the air in warning, fear burning through my core. The fear of pain, the fear of not knowing, the fear of being ripped apart like the people in War… It consumes me.

The scream that rattles out of my throat when the creature leaps on top of me sounds far away, but I feel it tearing through me like fire.

Smoke and static surround me, and I slash my knife over and over again, but the beast doesn’t back down—it grows.

And I hear Mei’s screams, weak and pitiful. I feel her terror all around me. My sister is here, somewhere in the darkness. Somewhere in Infinity.

Mei! my mind cries out.

No. Please—not here. She can’t be here.

She can’t be…

My heart turns inside out. It squeezes and shrivels and dissolves until there’s nothing left.

If Mei is in Infinity, that means she’s…

I can’t breathe. I can’t move.

So I scream and scream and scream.

The distorted reality intensifies. The static pulses all around me. I search for my sister even though hopelessness has shattered every bone in my body. And then another sound breaks through the smoke, but it isn’t the cry of a child.

It’s the cry of a man.