Richard's hotel room was as still as a sealed tomb, The curtains remained drawn. The lights were off. The only glow came from the blinking red of the smoke alarm and the muted gleam of the bedside clock.

Richard sat in the armchair by the window, clad in a black shirt and slacks, suit jacket tossed carelessly on the back of a nearby chair. His elbows rested on his knees, fingers steepled in front of his mouth.

He hadn't moved in hours.

The weight in his chest had grown unbearable. Not pain. Not emotion. Something more ancient. A pull he could no longer ignore.

He stood at last.

In the far corner of the room, where the shadows had collected like dried ink, he raised a hand and carved a silent mark into the air. The symbol glowed faintly, like moonlight on a blade.

The shadows peeled apart, folding inward.

The Abyss opened before him.

He stepped through.

There was no wind. No sound. No gravity. The world fell away behind him like smoke, and the cold bled into his bones instantly—not the temperature of ice, but the cold of distance, of absence, of the void between stars.

Here, space didn't follow rules. There was no up or down. No end or beginning. Just a vast emptiness that shimmered like water reflecting lost time.

He drifted forward. Not walking. Just moving. Existing in motion.

The Abyss stretched around him, vast and ancient, a graveyard of forgotten memory and slumbering things. Whispers floated past, not words but impressions—fear, loss, longing. The air, if it could be called that, seemed to breathe on its own.

Richard moved without hesitation.

This wasn't his first visit to the Abyss, and unfortunately, it wouldn't be the last. His destination was the Ruins of Shudder's Hollow, the meeting point between the decaying end of the Abyss and the jagged entrance to the Underworld proper. There, within a fortress with thorned vines, lived the one being in all the realms that might give him an answer.

The underworld unfolded like an old wound. Not fire and brimstone—but gray spires in the mist. Shattered bridges. Towers leaning at impossible angles. The ground was solid and dead, without warmth, without sound. Wind moved, but it carried no air.

At the edge of a crumbled archway sat the Boogeyman.

He wore a long brown coat patched at the elbows and boots scuffed with old travel. A cigarette glowed in his fingers, smoke curling up and then sideways, caught in the dead air.

"Well, well," he muttered, without looking up. "Was wondering when you'd show."

Richard stopped several paces away. He said nothing.

"You know," the Boogeyman continued, "I usually get some kind of notice. Omen, maybe. Crow feathers in my tea. A whisper in my sleep. But this time? Nothing. You're getting good at moving quiet."

Richard's expression didn't change; he just watched him.

He looked unchanged. Tired eyes beneath a messy mop of dark curls, boots crusted with dust that never washed off. He smoked something thin and black, the smoke curling sideways into the air before dissipating into the mist.

The Boogeyman chuckled. "But then again, you were never one for chatter. I suppose you came for something."

Richard stood still, his face unreadable. He said nothing, but the air around him felt heavier now.

The Boogeyman leaned back, letting one boot rest against a broken pillar. "You've always kept your distance from mortals, but now you smell like the surface."

Richard tilted his head slightly. His eyes flickered in the dim, unnatural light of the Abyss.

A pause. Then finally, his voice.

"Do you think," he said slowly, "it's possible for someone to be close... to what I am... and not fall apart, I mean now that my mortal soul is dying?"

The Boogeyman blinked, caught off guard. He let out a low whistle.

"That's not the kind of question you usually ask."

Richard waited.

The Boogeyman rubbed a hand down his jaw, thinking. "No," he said eventually. "Usually, people wither. Fade. They don't even realize it's happening until their souls start cracking like glass. You don't get close to death and come away untouched."

He eyed Richard carefully.

"But you already know that. So why ask?"

Richard didn't answer. He stared off into the mist, eyes shadowed.

The Boogeyman went on casually, "keep your distance. You're dangerous. And you're not getting safer."

Richard's mouth twitched.

"I'm more dangerous now than before," he said, almost to himself.

The Boogeyman let out a scoff. "Yeah," he said softly. "I figured."

He tossed the last of his cigarette onto the ground and crushed it with his heel.

"Be careful, old friend."

Without another word, Richard turned and stepped back into the darkness.

The Abyss folded around him once more.

_______

Back in the mortal world, the light in Richard's suite flickered as the shadows peeled away and he stepped once more into the realm of the living. The air was clearer, sharper—too clean compared to the suffocating weight of the Abyss.

And yet, his thoughts were more clouded than ever.

He poured himself a glass of scotch and stared at the far wall.

If everything the boogeyman said was true—if his presence was more corrosive now than ever—why wasn't Maya affected? Not even slightly.

The ache in his chest had lessened since that night. Her touch had done something. He didn't want to admit it, but something was happening, and he needed to find out what before it became something he couldn't control.

Meanwhile, down the hotel hallway, Maya was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her hotel room, papers strewn around her like petals.

From the outside, she looked like a whirlwind of messy, nervous energy.

From the inside, she was trying—desperately—to get it right.

She thought of Richard.

Of his cold eyes. His unreadable expressions. The way the air changed around him.

She thought about the way she had acted which came out as nothing more than a nuisance, that's how she always was.

It had to stop; he was her boss. A distant, and unknowable man.

And she was just maya on a test. One with rules. One with a deadline and a big consequence for failing.

From now on, she would keep her head down. Do her job. Be polite. Be professional. Be safe.

No mistakes. No distractions.

She just had to survive this without slipping. Failure meant banishment and she couldn't let that happen.

Clutching the resolve like armor, Maya rose from her bed with quiet purpose. She smoothed the front of her clothes, exhaled slowly, and stepped into the hallway. Closing the door behind her with care, she padded down the short corridor and settled on the couch just outside Richard's room.

If he needed her, she would be there. Close. Available. Reliable.

She couldn't afford to let her guard down. Not for a moment. Not when everything—her purpose, her place, her future—was at stake.