The Bleeding Door
They got Cuco out of the forest just before dawn.
By the time his feet touched the street outside the woods, the sky had shifted from midnight black to soft gray. Birds began to chirp like nothing had happened—like the world wasn't cracking open inside a sixteen-year-old kid.
Cuco hadn't spoken a word.
His eyes were distant. His body moved like it belonged to someone else.
Nox and Tariq walked on either side of him in silence, afraid to speak, afraid he might vanish if they did.
At school, everything looked normal.
Students laughed. Lockers slammed. The scent of burned coffee floated from the teachers' lounge.
But Cuco could see it now.
Veins of shadow running through the hallways like mold beneath wallpaper. Invisible to everyone else. Feeding off memory. Off fear.
He sat in class. The teacher spoke.
He didn't hear a word.
Instead, he heard them—the Hollow Ones—whispering from the cracks in the chalkboard. Behind the door. Inside the ticking of the clock.
> The gate bleeds, Cuco.
And so do you.
His mark itched.
He looked down.
Golden light pulsed faintly from one half.
But the other half… the black one… it was spreading.
Webbing up his wrist like frostbite made of smoke.
He rushed to the bathroom, heart pounding.
Locked the stall. Rolled up his sleeve.
The black mark twitched.
Then—
Knock knock.
Cuco jolted.
A voice, muffled through the stall door.
"Cuco…?"
It was Linux. The basketball captain.
Cuco didn't answer.
"You okay, man?" Linux said. "Coach says you've missed two practices. Said you're acting… different."
Cuco kept silent.
He could hear something strange in Linux's voice.
It wavered.
Like an echo inside a cave.
Then—
The light above flickered.
And Cuco saw it.
Just for a second.
In the mirror's reflection, Linux's face blurred. His eyes were hollow pits. His shadow twitched the wrong way.
A Hollow One.
Here.
Inside the school.
Cuco exploded out of the stall and ran.
Down the hallway. Past the lockers. Past the students who didn't see anything wrong.
The shadows stretched after him, hands reaching.
He burst through the exit and kept running.
And behind him…
He heard Linux laugh.
But it wasn't his laugh.
It was the First Dreamer's.
---
That night
Cuco stood in front of his bedroom mirror. Alone.
He traced the black part of the mark with a shaky finger.
"Am I still me?" he whispered.
Then the mirror rippled.
And his reflection spoke back.
"Not for long."