The ancient vampire fell first.

One moment he was standing beside Elara, ready to fight. The next moment, Shadow Kael had grabbed him and thrown him straight into the Void.

"No!" Emma screamed, but it was too late. The vampire who had lived for thousands of years was gone in seconds.

"You see?" Shadow Kael smiled coldly. "Your little army means nothing. We shadows know exactly how each of you fights because we ARE you."

Shadow Ronan punched the real Ronan so hard that he flew backward into three trees.

Shadow Darian whispered something to a group of witches, and they immediately turned their magic against their own friends.

"He’s controlling them!" the purple-haired witch yelled before her own shadow grabbed her wand and pointed it at her throat.

Emma tried to let go of the Void, but she couldn’t. Her hand was stuck to it like glue.

"What’s happening to me?" she cried.

"The Void is merging with you," baby Marcus said, fighting the Devourer inside him. "Every second you touch it, you become more like it!"

Elara ran toward her daughter, but Shadow Emma stepped in her way.

"Hello, Mommy," Shadow Emma said sweetly. "Did you know that real Emma is starting to feel hungry? The same hunger that eats worlds?"

"That’s not true!" Emma said, but even as she spoke, she felt something dark growing in her stomach. A need to consume everything around her.

The human boy who had talked to Emma earlier started crying. "The magic girl is turning scary!"

His mother picked him up and backed away. "We need to leave. Now."

But there was nowhere to run. Shadow creatures were appearing everywhere, and each one was stronger than the real version.

A fairy tried to fly away, but Shadow Fairy caught her and squeezed until her light went out forever.

Two werewolves from their pack were fighting Shadow versions of themselves, but the shadows knew every move before they made it.

"How are they so strong?" Kael shouted as his shadow kicked him in the chest.

"Because we don’t feel guilt," Shadow Kael replied. "We don’t hold back to protect people we care about. We just destroy."

Lily tried to use her power to heal a wounded witch, but Shadow Lily grabbed her hands.

"Healing hurts when I do it," Shadow Lily said with an evil grin. As she touched the witch, the woman started screaming. Instead of getting better, she was getting worse.

"Stop it!" real Lily begged, but her shadow was too strong.

Jake ran to help his sister, but three shadow creatures tackled him at once. They looked like shadow versions of their pack members, but their eyes were completely black.

"Jake!" Lily cried, watching her brother disappear under a pile of dark shapes.

"This is my fault," Emma whispered, feeling the Void’s hunger getting stronger inside her. "I called everyone here, and now they’re all going to die because of me."

The news helicopter overhead was still filming everything. Emma could hear the reporter’s voice getting more and more frightened.

"The situation is getting worse by the minute. These shadow creatures appear to be winning. Military units are on their way, but I don’t know if conventional weapons can stop this."

That’s when Emma realized something terrible.

If the military came with guns and bombs, they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between good supernatural creatures and evil shadow ones.

They would try to kill everyone.

"Mom!" Emma called out. "The humans are going to attack everyone!"

Elara was still fighting to reach her daughter, but Shadow Ronan and Shadow Darian were blocking her path.

"Let me through!" she demanded, her golden power flaring.

"Why?" Shadow Ronan asked. "So you can watch your daughter turn into the thing that destroys everything? She’s already starting to change."

Emma looked down at her hands. The one touching the Void was turning black, and the darkness was spreading up her arm.

"I can feel it wanting to eat," she said, tears streaming down her face. "It wants to eat Jake and Lily and baby Marcus and everyone!"

"Fight it, sweetheart!" Darian yelled, throwing a punch at his own shadow. "You’re stronger than it is!"

But Shadow Darian laughed. "She’s not stronger. She’s a little girl who got too much power too fast. Soon she’ll be just like us - hungry for destruction."

The human woman with the crying boy was trying to run away, but shadow creatures surrounded her family.

"Please don’t hurt my son!" she begged.

Shadow Emma looked at the boy with hungry eyes. "He looks tasty."

"No!" real Emma shouted. "I won’t let you hurt him!"

But as she said it, she felt the same hunger her shadow felt. Part of her actually wanted to see what would happen if she consumed the little boy’s fear.

That thought scared her more than anything.

"I’m becoming a monster," she whispered.

The purple-haired witch, still fighting her own shadow, managed to shout out a warning: "The shadows aren’t just copies! They’re what we would become if we gave in to our worst thoughts!"

"What does that mean?" Ronan asked, bleeding from a cut on his forehead.

"It means," baby Marcus said sadly, "that Emma’s shadow is what she becomes if she lets the hunger win."

Emma felt sick. Was she really capable of wanting to hurt innocent people?

But then she noticed something that made everything worse.

The shadow creatures weren’t just stronger than the good guys.

They were multiplying.

Every time a good supernatural creature fell down or got too tired to fight, a new shadow version of them appeared.

"They’re making more of themselves!" Lily cried out, right before her own shadow finally overpowered her.

Emma watched in horror as Shadow Lily stood up, her healing power now twisted into something that caused pain instead of fixing it.

"Lily!" Emma screamed.

But real Lily didn’t get up.

Emma tried again to pull her hand away from the Void, but the darkness had spread to her shoulder now.

"I have to let go," she said. "But I can’t."

"Because you don’t want to," Shadow Emma said, walking closer. "Deep down, you like the power. You like being strong enough to make everyone do what you want."

"That’s not true!"

"Then why haven’t you saved everyone yet? You could end this fight right now, but you’re choosing not to."

Emma realized with horror that her shadow was right.

She did like feeling powerful. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

She did want to control everything.

And the scariest part was - she was starting to think it would be easier if she just let the hunger take over.

Then she wouldn’t have to worry about making the right choices anymore.

Just as she was about to give in, baby Marcus screamed louder than ever before.

"Emma! Look at the sky!"

She looked up and gasped.

Military jets were flying toward them, carrying weapons she couldn’t even recognize.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

Behind the jets, reality itself was tearing open like paper.

And through the tears, she could see other worlds - worlds where the Void had already won.

Worlds full of nothing but shadows and hunger.

"The military weapons," Darian said, his face going white. "They’re not just planning to attack us. They’re planning to blow up this entire area."

"With all the humans still here," Kael added.

Emma felt the Void’s hunger surge through her as she realized what was about to happen.

In sixty seconds, everyone she loved would be dead.

And the only way to save them was to become the monster she was trying not to be.