Chapter 5: An Audience with the Collector

Chapter 5: An Audience with the Collector

The silence in the wake of her parents’ death throes was a physical entity. It pressed in, smothering the air, a chilling, absolute void. Dahlia’s ragged breaths were the only sound in the universe, and she was terrified they would betray her. The impossible hallway was now plunged into a darkness so complete it felt like being submerged in ink.

Then, the shadow in the corner moved.

It wasn’t a trick of her bruised and battered mind. It was a patch of darkness peeling itself away from the wall, gathering mass and form. It rose, a hulking, vaguely humanoid silhouette that didn't reflect light but actively consumed it, creating a hole in reality. There were no features—no face, no limbs, just a towering shape of pure absence. Yet, Dahlia felt the crushing weight of a thousand unseen eyes fixing upon her, an ancient and unblinking gaze that saw not just her physical form, but the frayed edges of her very soul.

The rhythmic, painful ticking in her sternum, the terrifying metronome that had driven her here, suddenly stopped. In its place was a cold, resonant hum that seemed to emanate from the creature before her. It was the clock. It was the source of the dread she had lived with her entire life.

A voice slid directly into her consciousness, bypassing her ears entirely. It was a chilling symphony of discord, the sound of grinding stones, whispers from a million different throats, and the crackle of cosmic static.

A default, the voice rasped, each syllable a shard of ice in her mind. How very… irregular.

Dahlia was paralyzed, pinned to the floor by a terror more profound than anything she had ever imagined. The violence of the past few minutes, the raw, physical horror of the fight with Mary, was nothing compared to this. This was a confrontation with a fundamental law of the universe, a being so far beyond her comprehension that her mind threatened to shatter. Her desire was no longer to win, or even to survive the next minute, but simply to remain sane in the face of its presence.

The shadowy entity seemed to tilt its non-existent head. The pressure of its gaze intensified.

The signatories have been… terminated, the Collector stated. It was not a question. It was a flat observation, spoken with the detached curiosity of a scientist noting an unexpected chemical reaction. The collateral is released. The contract is void.

A single, hysterical sob of relief threatened to break from her, but it died in her throat. Void. She had done it. Shelby’s monstrous, insane plan had worked. She was free.

But the entity did not fade. It did not depart. The crushing weight of its attention remained fixed on her. The obstacle, she realized with a fresh wave of dread, was that its business was not concluded.

A sliver of borrowed Knowledge, the voice mused, the whispers in its chorus seeming to sift through her recent memories. An echo of a prior bargain, used to shatter a new one. Clever. The scholar, Shelby Vance, was clever. She understood the letter of the law.

The mention of Shelby’s name from this impossible being sent a tremor through Dahlia. It knew. It remembered the deal Shelby had made decades ago, the one that had cost her everything. The teeth in her mouth, Shelby’s teeth, suddenly felt ice-cold, a beacon in the dark that had drawn this creature’s full attention.

But breaking the board does not mean you have won the game, the Collector continued, a note of something akin to amusement creeping into the static. It simply means you have invented a new one. Contracts are clean. They have beginnings and ends. Potential is a known, quantifiable asset. Predictable.

The silhouette took a step forward, a movement that made the very air in the corridor warp and bend.

But you… the voice was softer now, more focused, a predator leaning in to examine a strange new prey. You are now an anomaly. An unwritten debt. A life that should have been forfeit, yet persists. Such things are far more… valuable to my collection.

That was the turning point. The ice-cold relief of her "freedom" was flash-frozen and shattered into a million pieces. She hadn't escaped the contract. She had just promoted herself from collateral to a collectible. She was no longer a name on a ledger, a soul waiting to be claimed. She was something new. Something interesting. And in the eyes of a being like the Collector, "interesting" was a death sentence.

The primal, desperate need to live roared back, eclipsing her paralysis. She had to get out.

Her bruised muscles screamed as she scrambled backward, crab-walking away from the advancing void. Her hand brushed against something small and cool on the floor. The broken silver locket. A tiny, tangible piece of Shelby's love and sacrifice. Clutching it in her fist, she found her feet.

She turned and ran.

She fled down the warping hallway, half-expecting a shadowy hand to close around her ankle. But nothing touched her. Instead, the reality of the corridor began to unravel around her as she moved. The diseased floral wallpaper shimmered and dissolved. The walls, which had seemed to stretch into infinity, rushed toward her. The sickly yellow light of the living room bloomed ahead.

With a final, gasping step, she burst out of the hallway.

She stumbled and fell to her knees on the pristine beige carpet. The air was clean again, the pressure gone. She looked back over her shoulder.

The hallway was gone.

In its place was a solid, cream-colored wall, the bland landscape painting of a placid lake hanging perfectly straight, as if it had never moved. The nightmare had folded in on itself and vanished.

Her gaze fell upon the two figures still lying on the floor. John and Mary Thorne. The vibrant, ageless monsters they had been were gone. In their place were two withered, shrunken husks. Their skin was like old parchment, stretched tight over their bones. Their hair was thin and white. They looked ancient, as though the twenty years of stolen time had been repaid in a single, brutal moment. They were not her parents. They were just empty things left behind when the magic was foreclosed on.

Dahlia didn't waste another second. Pushing herself up, she sprinted for the front door, the broken locket digging into her palm. The cheerful blue paint seemed like a mockery. She fumbled with the deadbolt, her fingers clumsy and slick with sweat. The lock clicked open.

She threw the door wide and plunged into the cool night air of the suburbs. The street was quiet, bathed in the gentle orange glow of the streetlights. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. The scent of cut grass filled her lungs. It was all so painfully, beautifully normal. She ran, her bare feet slapping against the cold pavement, not looking back, not daring to.

But she could not outrun the voice.

It came one last time, not as a layered chorus in her skull, but as a single, clear, cold whisper that seemed to ride on the night breeze, meant only for her.

The collection is not complete. I will see you again, Dahlia Thorne.

Her nightmare was not over. It had just been given a name.