The knock on the rock came three times. Dry. Measured. Like someone counting to three before breaking something.

  Rex already had his daggers ready. Ryu half-unfurled his wings; the heat from his scales made the air smell of hot stone and ozone. The blue gem on his staff pulsed once and went still.

  I made myself smaller inside the cage.

  they are coming… smell of rusted metal and fear that has already rotted… they are coming for the thing I am…

  The voice pierced through the curtain of water.

  "Rex. The Market reclaims what Thanatos left half-done. Hand it over."

  Rex let out a short, joyless laugh.

  "Thanatos is cold. What's left is mine. Leave before I give you something to talk about."

  The waterfall parted like torn fabric.

  Four mercenaries. The leader was named Kael Veyne. Short beard, sunken eyes as if he had stared too long at something he shouldn't have. A staff ending in a metal claw holding a crystal eye that spun on its own, slowly, as if searching for something in the dark.

  "We don't want a fight," Kael said, his voice flat, almost bored. "Just the experiment. The buyer pays double for anomalies that still breathe."

  Rex twirled a dagger between his fingers.

  "Then leave."

  The crystal eye turned toward me.

  "No deal."

  The combat erupted without another word.

  Rex lunged first. He rolled under the crossbowman's black arrow, burying a dagger into the man's wrist. The scream came out high-pitched, the weapon fell. Ryu spun his staff and unleashed a narrow cone of blue fire that engulfed the swordsman on the left; the armor sizzled, the smell of charred flesh filling the cave instantly.

  Kael didn't move. He only raised his staff. The crystal eye glowed pale green. A shockwave shot out—not toward Rex, not toward Ryu—straight at me.

  Rex shouted:

  "Ryu, intercept!"

  Ryu unleashed another flare to block it. The shockwave passed right through it as if it didn't exist and struck his left wing. Ryu fell to his knees. The scales where it hit turned gray, dead, cracked. A wisp of gray smoke rose from them.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  no… Ryu…

  Inside me, the door pulled.

  It wanted to open.

  I wanted to protect.

  I decided.

  The pseudopod stretched toward the nicked dagger Rex had left me earlier. I absorbed it. The metal sank into me. White pain.

  I pushed.

  The door fought.

  I pulled outward.

  The world pulled inward.

  For a second I felt… something immense turn its head for an instant and then look away again. A weight that had no shape. Just pressure.

  The cage split as if reality itself had been cut. The bars bent inward and outward at the same time. I landed between Kael and Ryu. Five red eyes locked onto him.

  Kael smiled crookedly, without humor.

  "You… are like my daughter. But she died screaming. You are going to live screaming."

  I pushed harder.

  The door opened a finger's width.

  Kael screamed. And the scream got inside me too.

  "Dad, it hurts! Dad, don't leave me!"

  His right arm stretched out too long, then shrank, then stretched again. The crystal eye exploded into green smoke that formed hands touching themselves. A small black hole appeared in his chest and began to absorb the light from the cave.

  The waterfall flowed upward for a second. The ground beneath my pseudopods turned soft. Ryu's blue fire flickered and turned gray.

  I pulled back.

  close… close… I don't want you to exist…

  The door fought. It wanted to stay open. It wanted to keep growing.

  I closed.

  Not entirely.

  A fine black thread remained in the air, throbbing, swallowing sound.

  Kael fell to his knees, trapped in an eternal loop: "Dad, it hurts!" over and over.

  Ryu stood up, staggering. He looked at the black thread. He looked at Kael. He looked at me.

  "You opened something. And it didn't close entirely."

  Rex finished off the last mercenary with a clean cut. He turned around. Blood was running from his nose. The seal on his chest was bleeding through his shirt.

  "Ryxar," he said hoarsely. "That's enough."

  Ryu extended his claw. Weak blue fire flared. He burned runes into my surface while I still fought to keep the door closed inside me.

  It hurt. Physical.

  But worse: the little girl's voice stayed inside me. Not as a memory. As a piece. As if I had been her for half a second and now she was me forever. Screaming. Wanting to exist.

  Ryu spoke while he burned:

  "Ryxar. Ryu. Rex. 'Ar' of eternal fire. These runes don't honor you. They close you. Every time you open that door, the world is going to push. And one day… if you leave it open too long… the one who looked for a second is going to truly look."

  Rex extended his left arm. He let Ryu carve the same runes. He gritted his teeth when the fire touched skin.

  "You brought him. You saved him. And now my fire burns gray and my wing is dead. Happy, Rex?"

  Rex touched the new rune on his chest. It bled.

  "No. But it's done."

  I compressed myself. Five eyes. Three had burned away. Inside me the door kept pulsing. Wanting to open. The girl's voice kept screaming. Wanting to exist.

  I want to protect…

  the door wants to exist…

  and every time I choose one…

  the other screams inside me…

  Rex looked at the black thread still throbbing in the center of the cave.

  "We have to go. This isn't closing. It grows slowly."

  Ryu picked up his staff.

  "And every time you use that door again… it will be harder to close it."

  We left through the broken waterfall.

  Behind us remained the lair.

  And the scream that would never end.

  And inside me… the door that never entirely closes.

  my name is Ryxar.

  And I am the thing that keeps a door closed that already knows how to open.

  (End of Chapter 5)