The bright lights of Yonah's beachside premier shopping district were doing absolute wonders for Amelia's mood. She held up two dresses in front of the trial room's full-length mirror, twisting left and right to catch how the fabric moved, how the colors played against her dark blue hair.

  The lavender one had that thigh slit she'd been eyeing all season. Mature, sophisticated. The emerald green matched her eyes perfectly, but maybe it was too safe?

  Decisions, decisions.

  Her phone buzzed against the bench where she'd tossed it among the growing pile of "maybe" options. Amelia glanced at the screen, saw Jin's name, and her face split into an automatic grin.

  Finally! About time his damn phone was working again.

  She'd been texting him all morning about the trip, about the ridiculous hotel room service menu, about Mom and Dad arguing over which restaurant to try tonight. Radio silence. Which was weird, because Jin always responded. Always.

  Amelia snatched up the phone and dialed the video call, propping it against the mirror so she could keep evaluating dresses while they talked.

  "Jini!" Her voice came out bright and cheerful, exactly the energy she'd been riding since they'd left Vienna three days ago.

  "Okay, verdict," she announced. "Heroine chic or tragic attempt at being heroine chic?"

  The screen loaded, and Jin's face appeared.

  Amelia's hands stilled mid-dress-swap.

  Something was wrong.

  Jin looked off. His light blue hair was disheveled; his pale blue eyes, normally casual and a little sarcastic, now held something that made her stomach clench, though she didn't understand why.

  "I'm leaning more towards the lavender dress," she continued, forcing her mind to focus. Jin just had a bad awakening. That's all. "It has a decent thigh slit design that I really like. Very mature, don't you think?"

  Jin didn't answer immediately. Just stared at her through the screen like he was memorizing her face.

  Okay. This is officially weird.

  "Jini?" Amelia lowered the dresses, stepping closer to her phone. "You okay? Did something happen?"

  Her mind immediately jumped to the obvious conclusion. Drugs? No, Jin would never. He barely drank, treating his health like a sacred thing. Trouble with the law? Also unlikely. Jin was too smart to get caught doing anything actually illegal, not to mention his close friendship with Rudy, the deputy commander's son.

  But that expression...

  She cycled through more dresses, talking faster to fill the silence that felt increasingly wrong, watching Jin's face in her peripheral vision.

  "The blue one has better shoulder work, but this green one matches my eyes. Oh, and look at this red one! It's got these cute little—Jini? Are you even listening?"

  "Yeah..." His voice came out distant, distracted. "The lavender one's good."

  Amelia paused, dress halfway to her body. Jin's eyes had that look. The one she'd seen exactly twice before. Once when Aunt Elena died, and once when he awakened his Mantle.

  "Hey?" She moved closer to the phone, studying his face properly now, zero pretense about looking at dresses. "Earth to Jin? What happened to you? You're being weird. Like, weirder than usual weird."

  She took in more details through the video call. He was wearing armor—not training gear, but actual combat armor. And behind him, barely visible in the frame, was that Dad's sword?

  "Jini, why are you wearing armor?" Her voice climbed an octave. "And is that... is that Dad's sword behind you? Are you okay? Did something happen? Talk to me, brother."

  "I'm okay, Ame..." Jin's smile was wrong. All wrong. "A few things came up. Nothing I can't handle. Don't worry about me. Tell me about your vacation instead."

  Liar.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Her bubbly enthusiasm drained away like water down a sink. The cheerful mask she wore for family and friends dissolved, leaving something else underneath.

  "Jini..." Her voice dropped to a flat, dangerous tone that made her sound nothing like the giggly teenager she'd been thirty seconds ago. "What is happening there?"

  She saw Jin blink, saw him recognize the shift in her demeanor. Good. Now he knew she wasn't to be messed with.

  "You're not on drugs, are you?" The question came out sharp. Her mind was already racing through possibilities, cataloging every detail visible through the screen. "Because I swear to all the gods, I'll gut you like a fish if I find out you're doing something stupid with your life!"

  Jin laughed, and for a heartbeat, he looked like himself again. "I'm fine, sis. Truly."

  But then his smile faded, and that look came back.

  Amelia's hands clenched around the lavender dress.

  "Let's not worry about me." Jin's voice carried forced lightness. "I think that lavender dress is indeed good. It'll look great on you."

  "Jini, stop deflecting!" Amelia said. "And stop trying to change the subject! What's with the armor? What's with that look in your eyes?"

  "What look?"

  "You look like—" She paused, searching for words that would capture what her instincts were screaming. "Like you're going to war or something."

  The video quality flickered.

  Amelia frowned, pulling her phone closer. "Jini, the connection's getting weird. Can you hear me properly?"

  "I can hear you fine."

  More static. The image of Jin pixelated for a moment before snapping back into focus, but worse than before. Audio was cutting in and out, words dropping like someone was randomly deleting syllables.

  What the hell is wrong with the network?

  "Amelia." Jin's voice took on an urgent edge that made every hair on her arms stand up. "I need you to listen to me very carefully, okay?"

  "Jini, the connection—why do you sound like you're saying goodbye?"

  "...No matter what you hear on the news..."

  "Jini! Hey!" Amelia called back, but the screen had already gone black.

  "What the... I swear, Jini, if this is a prank, I'll tie you upside down in front of Seri." She tapped the call button. Nothing. Tapped again. Still nothing. "Come on, you piece of—"

  [NO SIGNAL]

  "That's bullshit. What do you mean, no signal? Jini is in a city, not living in some damn cave." Amelia's finger jabbed the call button. Once. Twice.

  Each attempt met the same result.

  [THE NUMBER YOU ARE TRYING TO REACH IS UNAVAILABLE]

  "What is happening... who can I call?" Amelia thought until another familiar face appeared in her mind. "Rudy!"

  She scrolled through her caller list and found Rudy's number under the name 'Musclebrained Idiot'.

  Amelia's finger tapped the call button. No answer. Just the spinning reconnect symbol, mocking her.

  [THE NUMBER YOU ARE TRYING TO REACH IS UNAVAILABLE]

  "Right. Cool. Great." Amelia pressed the phone to her forehead like she could brain-magic it back on.

  Her reflection watched her, wide-eyed and ridiculous. "Maybe his battery died. Or the router exploded. Again. Or a squirrel chewed through the cable. Again." She paced the tiny fitting room, dresses swaying like confused spectators. "He's fine. Totally fine. Obviously fine."

  A knock at the door snapped her out of her thoughts.

  "Are you buying that dress or not?" The saleswoman hovered nearby, her smile strained in that customer service way that said she'd rather be literally anywhere else.

  Amelia looked down. She was still holding the lavender dress. Or was it the green one? Her brain refused to process which fabric was bunched in her fist.

  "Yeah, whatever. Ring it up."

  The woman's eyebrows climbed toward her hairline, but she took the dress without comment. Smart lady.

  Her Mantle pulsed under her skin.

  The sensation made her stumble mid-step. It felt like someone had hooked jumper cables to her sternum and given them a solid yank.

  Not painful, exactly. More like a warning, she didn't have the vocabulary to understand yet.

  "That'll be two hundred and forty zens."

  Amelia shoved her credit card at the woman without looking, her other hand still death-gripping the phone.

  She found a bench outside a coffee shop and sat, phone clutched in both hands, running through the video call frame by frame in her memory.

  His words. "Stay safe. Stay far away from Vienna. Whatever you hear on the news, don't come back here."

  Whatever you hear on the news.

  Her Mantle pulsed again, harder this time. Heat crawled up her spine like someone had poured hot oil down her shirt. She gasped, nearly dropping the phone.

  "Miss, are you sure you're okay?" A different voice, masculine this time. Some guy in running gear looking at her with that do-I-need-to-call-someone expression.

  "I'm fine." The words came out sharp enough to cut. "Just go away."

  He backed off with his hands raised in surrender.

  Amelia pulled up the news on her phone because clearly her day wasn't terrible enough. The front page loaded, and her stomach dropped straight through the bench and into the pavement below.

  BREAKING: Communication Blackout in Vienna - Authorities Investigating

  Unexplained Phenomenon: Dark Veil Surrounds Vienna, Cause Unknown

  Emergency Services Unable to Reach Vienna - Government Urges Calm

  The articles were minutes old. Most were just speculation and panic. But one caught her attention—a live news feed from a helicopter that had been near Vienna when... whatever happened... happened.

  Amelia clicked it.

  The shaky footage showed Vienna from above. Or rather, showed where Vienna should be.

  Instead, there was darkness. Not normal darkness. Not clouds or smoke or even the night sky.

  A veil of absolute black that rose from the city's borders like walls made of liquid shadow, stretching up into the atmosphere so high the helicopter couldn't get over it. The footage showed the pilot approaching, then suddenly banking away as if pushed by an invisible force.

  The reporter's voice was cracking with barely controlled panic: "—unprecedented phenomenon—no response from inside the city—authorities have established a perimeter—advising all civilians to—"

  Amelia closed the video.

  "Idiot." She said it to the empty air, to the phone that still refused to connect. "You complete moron."

  She dialed her father, and he picked up on the second ring. "Dad! The news..."

  ~~~

  HAPPY NEW YEAR GUYS!!! :D

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