Book Six: Chapter 133

Mike’s chest heaved as he struggled to catch his breath, the cold night air of his own neighborhood biting through his jacket. The Ghost of Christmas Future stood silently behind him, impossibly still, a looming figure that made him feel exposed and vulnerable. Every instinct screamed to move, to flee—but his legs felt heavy, weighed down by both fatigue and the raw aftershocks of his failed attempt at manipulating the North Pole’s magic.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered under his breath, wincing as he tested the strength in his knees. They wobbled precariously, threatening to collapse beneath him. He forced himself upright, swaying slightly as he turned to face the ruined suburban landscape. The familiar structures of his childhood neighborhood had been warped into decay: the once-pristine hedges now skeletal, the mailboxes crooked and rusting, sidewalks cracked and overgrown with weeds that twisted like black tendrils acro