The atmosphere inside the Respiration didn’t just change; it flattened. As the entity calling itself Eric Parsley stepped fully into the light of the bridge, the vibrant, pulsing bioluminescence of the ship’s living wood began to lose its depth. To Kael’s watering eyes, the world was losing its three-dimensional weight, turning into a series of jagged, charcoal sketches. The smell of cedar and ozone was replaced by the overwhelming, suffocating scent of wet ink and ancient, drying parchment.The creature didn't breathe. Instead, it rustled. Every movement of its ten-foot frame sounded like a thousand pages turning at once in a gale. Its skin was a shifting, translucent collage of scrawled sentences, crossed-out dialogue, and the very first, tentative outlines of the Shallows. Its eyes were not eyes at all—they were two bottomless pits of obsidian ink that seemed to be actively drinking the light from the room."You’re not him," Kael whispered, his voice sounding thin, like a record
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