Narrator (Piper’s thoughts): The tower is closer now. But everything else feels further away.

  Scene 1 – [ENTERING DREADFUL HILLS]

  The sign creaked on rusted chains:

  WELCOME TO DREADFUL HILLS

  Please stay… forever.

  The moment they crossed the threshold, the sky turned gray. Not cloudy—fogged. Dense, shifting, suffocating. Buildings flickered in and out of view like dreams mid-erasure. Roads split in looping spirals. Signs changed when looked at too long.

  No people. No voices.

  Just an eerie bell ringing every few minutes, though no one ever saw the source.

  Thirteen (whispering): “This place is wrong.”

  Blinks: “This place sucks.”

  Piper (quietly): “…We keep moving. No matter what we see.”

  Scene 2 – [THE SHADOW VERSIONS]

  They passed a school that bled from its windows.

  A child’s laughter echoed. But there were no children.

  Shadows flickered across mirrors—twisted versions of Piper, Thirteen, and Blinks:

  Piper with hollow eyes and a stitched smile

  Thirteen wrapped in barbed wire

  Blinks—completely still, surrounded by silence

  As they walked, Piper began hearing voices.

  Piper (in her head):

  “You’re not real. None of this is.”

  “You’re a shadow of someone else.”

  “You’ll forget them all eventually.”

  Scene 3 – [EVOLUTION – Awakens]

  Inside an abandoned theater, the group was ambushed by creatures with TV screens for heads, broadcasting distorted memories. Piper struck one down with PK Starflare—but it didn’t die.

  It played her voice, twisted. Her worst thoughts. Her guilt.

  She screamed—and then heard herself scream again. Louder. Wrong.

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  Piper (furious): “No more!”

  She channeled a new form of PSI—one that mirrored emotion back at the source.

  [PK Echo – Reflection Pulse!]

  The creature’s own projected fear bounced back into it, short-circuiting it from within.

  It writhed. Then disintegrated.

  Piper stood tall, blinking tears from her eyes.

  Piper (to herself): “You don’t get to rewrite me.”

  Scene 4 – [NEW TECHNIQUES]

  Deeper in the town, they reached a twisted chapel, where fog grew thicker and sirens wailed. Ghosts surrounded them—angry, wailing figures trapped in their own final moments.

  Blinks was frozen with fear. Thirteen was sent through a portal.

  Piper focused—her PSI flared not with fire, but calm.

  She whispered a word:

  [PSI Technique: Hypnosis]

  A gentle wave of blue and yellow light spread. The ghosts paused, stilled. Some wept. Others vanished, finally allowed to rest.

  snores were heard.

  Then came the sirens again—deafening. The fog surged forward like a wave.

  Piper (yelling): “Everyone hold on!”

  She didn’t know how—she just knew.

  Thirteen escaped the portal, covered in some blue liquid.

  She felt space bend around her. Time skip like a broken record.

  With a blink, Piper vanished—her afterimage still standing in place as she reappeared light-years away in the same breath, outrunning beams that had already bent through time itself.

  The Ghosts were stunned—

  [PSI Technique: Teleport!]

  With a blinding snap, the group vanished.

  Scene 5 – [AFTER THE TELEPORT – EDGE OF TOWN]

  They reappeared at the edge of Dreadful Hills—disoriented, but alive.

  Behind them, the town breathed. Buildings sank into the fog like dying memories. And that bell?

  It stopped.

  The town had let them go—but just barely.

  Thirteen (stunned): “You… you teleported.”

  Piper (wobbly): “I didn’t think. I just… needed to.”

  Blinks: “That was awesome! Horrible, but awesome.”

  Piper (Confused): “Uhh.. why are you covered in… blue..?”

  Thirteen: “Remember that one time where I thought of something and it came true?”

  Scene 6 – [ON THE OTHER SIDE]

  They sat down by a broken train track, resting.

  Piper looked at her hands. The echo of fear, of madness, still lingered—but so did her resolve.

  She had changed.

  Not just learned powers—but evolved as a person. Someone stronger. Someone more real than she ever thought she could be.

  Piper (softly): “I think I’m starting to remember who I was supposed to be.”

  And in the distance?

  The Tower.

  Closer now.

  Creaking.

  Waiting.

  Hours later the trio are walking down a hill were spikes are scattered around.

  Thirteen: “You burned through that thing like a newborn star tearing its way out of a dying sun… Piper, do you even realize your PK Starflare feels like it could blow up the sun if you let it?”

  Piper chuckles

  Piper: “I didn’t mean to go that far… I just didn’t want anyone to get hurt. If that’s really what I’m capable of…”

  she looks at her hands, trembling

  ”…then what happens if I lose control again?”

  Thirteen looked to Blinks, then back to her.

  Blinks: “Well, that won’t happen! Cuz’ you’re awesome!”

  Piper: “Heh.. thanks? I guess I don’t have much to worry about. I’ll learn to control it. If I’ve got the power to burn like a star… then I’ll make sure I use it to protect people, not destroy them.”

  END OF CHAPTER 7

  Blinks might seem like comic relief—a hyper kid with a scarf too long for his own good, always charging into danger with jokes and snacks—but there’s something off about him. That’s on purpose.

  He doesn’t sleep much. He never seems scared for long. And sometimes… he reacts to things that haven’t even happened yet.

  That’s because Blinks isn’t from the Lucidfall you’re seeing.

  He was born in another layer of the realm—a glitch city, a space between timelines where memories go to flicker and die. He escaped by laughing through the pain, stitching his identity together with stubbornness and instinct. His real name might not even be “Blinks.”

  But here’s the important part:

  He chose to follow Piper.

  Not because he needed to.

  But because he recognized her light.

  And in Dreadful Hills—a place built to erase people like him—he proved that even the forgotten can matter.