Chapter 10: The Shelf That Waited for Her
They found the market by accident.
It was tucked behind a row of hollow buildings, its painted sign cracked and faded. Half the windows were shattered, jagged glass teeth still clinging to their frames. The other half were perfectly untouched, as though time had paused in places—but only halfway through a scream.
The silence inside was heavier than it should've been.
Aria stepped through the broken glass door. The chime above her head hung limp, twisted, its bell long since silenced. She held her breath as her boots crunched softly over sugar packets and old receipts.
Selene followed behind her, silent as a shadow. A knife glinted in her hand—small, precise, well-loved.
"I don't think anyone's been here," Aria whispered.
Selene scanned the room. "Someone has," she murmured. "But not recently."
"How do you know?"
Selene crouched beside a burst juice box, its sticky contents dried in an amber smear across the tile.
"The blood is dry."
⸻
They moved slowly through the aisles, careful not to disturb the stillness that felt borrowed. A false peace. Like the air was listening.
Canned goods lined the shelves in uneven clusters. Rows of dehydrated noodles. Mismatched cereals. A package of chocolate biscuits still sealed, resting sideways on a half-empty shelf.
Aria's stomach rumbled loud enough to make her wince.
"I'll try it here," she said, lifting the canvas tote bag she'd been carrying for two days—half-full with essentials, most of them already running low.
Selene raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"
"No," Aria muttered. "But I'm tired of guessing."
⸻
She closed her eyes.
Let her thoughts curl inward, like petals folding at dusk.
She reached past her ribs into that strange place—a silent, boundless space with no walls, no edges, no time. Just hers. Always waiting.
The air around her pulsed.
The world blinked. One breath, two—
—and the bag vanished from her hands.
Selene didn't flinch.
She simply nodded once. "Again. With more."
⸻
They moved aisle to aisle like ghosts walking backward through memory.
Aria summoned the space again and again—sheltering bottles of water, stacked cans, vacuum-sealed rice, dried fruit, hand warmers, knives, matches. Anything useful. Anything untouched.
With each new item, her breathing quickened—but not from exhaustion.
"It's expanding," she whispered, her fingers trembling slightly. "I can feel it shifting. Stretching."
Selene watched her, always watching. "And your energy?"
Aria blinked. "Stable. Maybe even stronger."
She paused, hand resting on a tin of black beans.
"It's like… it's waiting for more. Like it's not full."
Selene tilted her head, something unreadable in her eyes. "Or it's hungry."
⸻
They reached the freezer aisle.
It buzzed faintly, lights flickering above. The air was cold—too cold. Unnaturally preserved. As if time itself had taken root and refused to rot.
Frost glazed over plastic packaging. Expired dates blurred beneath white haze. Nothing here should still be edible.
Aria stopped in front of a glass door, staring at her own reflection.
Selene stepped closer. "What is it?"
"I'm wondering…" Aria opened the freezer door, the hinges shrieking softly. She reached in and touched a frozen bag of raw fish, the plastic slick beneath her fingers.
"If I store it now," she murmured, "will it still be frozen when I take it out?"
Selene didn't blink. "Test it."
⸻
Aria exhaled.
She drew the space forward again—folding the frozen package into that void like a memory tucked inside a dream.
Five seconds passed.
She called it back.
The fish returned to her palm, still ice-cold. Perfectly preserved.
Selene let out a low breath. "Time doesn't move in there."
Aria turned the package in her hands, something tightening in her chest.
"It's not just storage," she said softly. "It's… preservation. A world inside a world."
She didn't say the rest aloud.
It's a place only I can enter. Only I can leave. It listens when I ask. And it never says no. "once evolve things might change"
A universe that answers only to her.
And that terrified her more than anything else.
⸻
They left the store without another word.
Outside, the sky had turned a bruised purple. Clouds churned with slow violence above the horizon. The wind carried ash. Or maybe petals. It was hard to tell anymore.
In the distance, a siren wailed.
But it wasn't the kind meant for rain or wind or storms.
It was lower. Heavier. Like it came from the bones of the city itself.
Aria looked up. "That's new."
Selene didn't glance skyward.
"No," she said, her voice sharpened.
"It's starting."