"Starting with hope." Elena's words echoed in the sudden, ringing silence that followed the crash of the debris. Alex stared at her, the glowing eyes, the calm smile – a mask of pleasant indifference stretched thin over unfathomable power and cruelty. There was nothing left inside him now but a hollow ache that resonated deeper than the shattered bone in his arm. Even defiance felt like a distant memory, crushed under the weight of her demonstration. He couldn't fight her. He couldn't protect Clara. He couldn't even protect his own mind from the slow, inevitable dismantling she promised.

  He instinctively pulled Clara closer with his good arm, a futile gesture of comfort in the face of annihilation. Clara pressed against him, shaking uncontrollably, her gaze fixed on Elena with wide, unblinking terror.

  Elena watched them for a long moment, her head tilted slightly, as if observing a particularly interesting chemical reaction. A flicker of what might have been satisfaction crossed her features. She had delivered her message.

  "Consider this," she said, her voice soft again, almost gentle, making the words even more horrifying, "lesson one."

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  With no further explanation, no final threat, she simply rose. Effortlessly, silently, she ascended through the jagged hole where the roof had been. For a second, her form blotted out the cold sprinkle of stars in the patch of midnight sky. Then, she was gone, vanished into the darkness as completely and suddenly as she had appeared.

  An unnatural stillness settled over the ruined bedroom, broken only by Clara's ragged, quiet sobs and the faint whistling of the cold night wind through the exposed rafters. Alex remained frozen, cradling his broken arm, staring up at the empty square of night sky. The immediate, terrifying presence was gone, but the violation lingered in the freezing air, in the dust coating his tongue, in the impossible destruction surrounding them.

  Elena was gone... for now. The torment wasn't over; it had merely paused. As the adrenaline faded, leaving behind only shock and the deep, throbbing agony in his arm, Alex knew with chilling certainty that his life, and Clara's, had just become a nightmare with no visible end. Elena would be back, and next time, she might not be satisfied with just breaking bones. She wanted his spirit, and she had all the time, and all the power, in the world to take it.