Chapter 143: 143 Between Frequencies

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143: Between Frequencies 143: Between Frequencies Mishka was out of bed before her mind fully registered what was happening.

The cold recording pulsed against her hip as she grabbed her jacket, eyes fixed on the mirror where Isabella’s reflection had already faded, leaving only the faintest impression of those impossible shadows.

Her phone buzzed continuously:

Graham: “All systems at venue going haywire.

Don’t come here.”

Bruce: “Prototype pieces activating on their own.

Containment failing.”

Unknown Number: “The threshold is thinning.

Choose quickly.”

The hotel hallway was eerily quiet as she rushed toward the elevator, the contrast between normal reality and what was unfolding making everything feel dreamlike.

The wolf’s howl echoed again, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere.

The elevator doors opened to reveal Myrtle, sword drawn and gleaming.

“I told you to stay put,” her grandmother said, though there was no real reproach in her voice.

“Something’s coming through,” Mishka replied, stepping into the elevator.

“Something that was waiting for us to rebuild the network.”

Myrtle nodded grimly.

“Your father’s already on his way to the venue.

Elena’s containment team is trying to stabilize the frequencies, but—”

“But it’s not just about frequencies anymore,” Mishka finished.

The recording in her pocket had gone from cold to a strange, vibrating neutrality, as if suspended between states.

The lobby was deserted save for a single figure standing by the revolving doors—Nathaniel, no longer in wolf form, but as a man with ancient eyes that held both warning and recognition.

“The one who bridges worlds,” he said as they approached, his voice carrying the same timbre as his howl.

“You’ve opened a door that works both ways.”

“What’s coming through?” Myrtle demanded, her sword humming with tension.

“Not what,” Nathaniel replied, his gaze fixed on Mishka.

“Who.”

Outside, Tokyo’s skyline continued its unnatural flickering.

The air felt charged, like the moment before lightning strikes.

“Your mother wasn’t the only one researching the network,” Nathaniel continued as they hurried toward the waiting car.

“There were others—those who saw the old frequencies as a way to reach…

elsewhere.”

“The shadows behind Isabella,” Mishka said, understanding blooming cold in her chest.

“They’ve been waiting for the convergence.”

“For someone who could sing both songs,” Nathaniel confirmed.

“For you.”

The car sped through Tokyo’s strangely empty streets.

Through the windows, Mishka could see impossible patterns forming in the lights, like an enormous circuit activating across the city.

Her phone lit up with a final message from the unknown number:

“The song goes both ways, little oracle.

What will you choose to let through?”

As they approached the venue, the air itself seemed to ripple with potential.

The prototype pieces were visible through the windows, floating in formation, creating a pattern that hurt their eyes to look at directly.

“They’re building a doorway,” Myrtle whispered, her sword now blazing with blue fire.

And at the center of it all, where the runway had been, a figure was taking shape—familiar yet wrong, like Catherine’s reflection in a warped mirror.

The recording in Mishka’s pocket began to sing on its own—her mother’s voice, but with something else harmonizing beneath it.

Something hungry.

“Time to choose,” Nathaniel said quietly.

The car stopped.

The doors opened to chaos.

And Mishka stepped forward to meet what was coming through.

Mishka stepped out of the car into a scene of beautiful chaos.

The venue’s glass façade rippled like liquid, reflecting impossible geometries.

Security personnel stood frozen in place, their eyes tracking something invisible.

The ground beneath her feet hummed with subcutaneous energy.

Graham appeared from behind an overturned equipment case, his usually immaculate appearance disheveled.

“The pieces started resonating an hour ago,” he shouted over the rising whine of machinery.

“Then everything—” he gestured wildly at the floating prototypes, “—went vertiacal.”

The clothing pieces hung suspended, each emitting a soft blue glow that intensified with every passing second.

They formed a spiral that culminated at the center of what had been the runway, where something that wasn’t quite Catherine stood waiting.

“Mother?” Mishka called out, but the figure didn’t respond.

Instead, it tilted its head at an unnatural angle, as if listening to something beyond human hearing.

Its features rippled between Catherine’s face and something else—something with too many angles, too sharp to exist in three-dimensional space.

“It’s not her,” Myrtle said, stepping up beside Mishka.

“It’s using her shape as a template, like a hand fitting into a glove.”

Nathaniel circled to their left, his movements liquid and precise.

“The gateway needs an anchor on both sides.

Something familiar to hold onto.”

Elena burst through a side door, followed by three technicians carrying equipment Mishka didn’t recognize.

“We can’t shut it down,” she called out, panic evident in her voice.

“The frequencies are self-sustaining now.”

The not-Catherine entity turned its gaze toward Mishka, and the air between them seemed to fold.

When it spoke, its voice layered Catherine’s familiar tones with something ancient and hungry.

Mishka was shaking like a leaf as she listened.

“Little singer, little bridge,” it said, the words seeming to come from everywhere at once.

“We’ve waited so long for one like you.”

The recording in Mishka’s pocket began to vibrate violently, matching the pulse of the floating prototypes.

From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of her father pushing through the back entrance, his face pale with recognition and fear.

“Mishka, get back!” he shouted, but his voice seemed distant, muffled by the thickening air.

The not-Catherine entity extended a hand that elongated unnaturally.

“Come home,” it whispered.

“Your true home, between the frequencies where we’ve always been waiting.”

Behind it, the spiral of clothing pieces began to rotate faster, creating a vortex of light.

Through it, Mishka glimpsed a landscape of impossible architecture—towers that defied gravity, skies that folded in on themselves, and countless shadowy figures moving in unison, all turning their attention toward the opening between worlds.

The recording in her pocket suddenly went warm, then hot—almost burning through the fabric.

Instinctively, Mishka pulled it out.

The small device glowed with the same blue light as the prototypes, but with a softer quality, as if holding something back rather than letting something through.

“Your mother knew,” Myrtle said quietly beside her.

“She found a way to shield the frequencies, not just transmit them.”

As if in response, the not-Catherine entity’s expression shifted from invitation to calculation.

“The guardian tried to keep us out,” it said, and now there was an edge to its voice, sharp and dangerous.

“But she could only delay, never prevent.

The convergence was always coming.”

The spiral vortex expanded, and the air pressure in the venue dropped suddenly.

Papers flew, equipment crashed to the ground, and the frozen security personnel finally broke from their stupor, fleeing toward the exits.

Nathaniel moved closer to Mishka, his voice low.

“You have to choose now.

The doorway responds to your frequency—your unique ability to bridge both worlds.”

“What do I do?” Mishka whispered, eyes fixed on the entity wearing her mother’s face.

“Sing,” Nathaniel replied simply.

“But choose carefully what song you offer.”

The entity extended its hand further, fingers stretching impossibly across the space between them.

“Time runs differently in our world,” it said, its voice becoming a chorus of many.

“Your mother isn’t gone there.

No one ever truly is.

Come home, little singer.”

The recording in Mishka’s hand pulsed in time with her heartbeat, and for a moment, she heard her mother’s true voice cutting through the chaos:

“Remember, my love—bridges can be crossed in both directions, but you control who receives the invitation.”

The choice crystallized in Mishka’s mind as the world around her balanced on the knife edge of possibility.