Page 68 of The Mourning Throne
Never whole. Never clear.
A woman with hair soaked in oil, eyes wide and unblinking.
A man with a belt wrapped twice around his throat, smile too serene.
Someone’s fingers—long, thin, still twitching—reaching from alung, dark with cancer.
He didn’t know any of them. Not by name.
The names had dissolved at this point, filed away in parts of his memory he couldn’t touch.
He knew them by number.
They watched him. There was no hate. No accusation.
Only waiting. Like film left out in the darkroom, unfinished.
Then—Lex.
The version of Lex that Morgan could never begin to understand. Always here. Always wrong. Always decaying.
Naked from the waist up, skin bleached too white. Not an ounce of that tan remained.
A brand carved into the center of his chest—old and peeling. A wound pressed through wax paper.
His eyes were gone. Two glistening voids, dripping tears that steamed before they hit the floor.
“You said you wouldn’t,” Not-Lex whispered.
Morgan didn’t respond. He wasn’t supposed to talk.
Language wasn’t real here. Noise and color. The faint stutter of a heart that wasn’t his. That was how it spoke.
“You told me I was strong.”
His voice garbled, warped the inside of Morgan’s skull.
The teeth were gone this time, too.
Every part ofthisLex was disappearing when he came back.
He never meant to come back. Dreaded the possibility every time he closed his eyes.
Next time, there would be no Lex.
But, for right now, Morgan was here.
Stuck.
Waiting for his brain to fire off the right neurotransmitter to stop the sleep cycle.
Watching this version of Lex inch closer.
Ankle shattered. Bone protruding from rotting, dead flesh.
No smell. No old-meat blood, no iron coating the back of his throat.
There was never smell.
