Page 38 of Hellfire to Come
“No,” I whispered. “No, no, no…”
“You can fight it,” the other me said. “You’ve always been good at pretending. Pretend this isn’t your mind. Pretend it’s a lock. And break it.”
I clenched my fists.
Somewhere beyond this mental prison, I knew my body still lay trembling. Fevered. On the brink.
But here?
I was still here.
And that meant I could fight.
Even if I didn’t win. Even if I tore apart what was left of my mind doing it, I wouldn’t hand over my body, my thoughts, my soul. Not to Frederic. Not to the curse. Not to anything.
I screamed.
Not out of fear.
But defiance.
And the darkness rippled.
Cracked.
Sharp pain speared through me, and I burst into a million pieces.
It was dark.
But not the kind of darkness that meant nothing.
This was a darkness that breathed. That pulsed. That listened.
I stood barefoot in a corridor that defied reality, endless and surreal, like a strip of forgotten film playing on a loop, its colors desaturated and its frames juddering. The walls swelled with each breath I took, as though the space itself was mimicking the fragile rhythm of my lungs. Beneath my feet, the ground beat like a heart…uneven, persistent, aching. Somewhere ahead, hidden in the shadows, something ancient loomed. Cold. Watching. Waiting.
The most disturbing part wasn’t the impossible architecture or the way the air hummed like the breath of a sleeping beast. No, it was the sense that I’d been here before. Not in a dream. Not in memory. But in the marrow of my bones, in the hidden corners of my psyche.
This place wasn’t unfamiliar.
It was intimate.
It was me.
Or what was left of me.
Magic throbbed beneath my skin, wild and foreign, running too hot and too cold in alternating waves. It didn’t belong to me. It had a pulse all its own, slithering through my veins like a parasite with purpose, curling possessively around my bones like ivy made of knives. I could feel it whispering things I couldn’t quite hear, a cacophony just below consciousness.
I wanted to scream.
To tear it out.
To demand it leave.
But my throat betrayed me, tight and silent, sealed under layers of fog and weightless pressure. My voice was buried too deep, sealed away like some forgotten secret. I opened my mouth, and nothing came out but the soundless press of desperation.
Still, I walked forward.
Because standing still meant surrendering.
