Page 74 of The Flesh Remembers
The world was ending, and James would take her with it.
The fever broke.
And then
The sky tore apart, black and endless, a wound in the fabric of reality.
The abyss howled. A scream not of agony, but of hunger, shook the very bones of the earth.
The fire was extinguished, smothered as though it had never been.
Shadows surged, shifting, writhing, corpse-like figures flickering in and out of existence, not quite real yet not entirely imagined.
James did not flinch. He did not fear. He only understood.
He leaned in, breath ghosting across Eleanor’s skin, grazing her pulse, steady, frantic, doomed.
“This isn’t an omen,” he murmured. “It’s a claim.”
Eleanor swallowed, her throat tight, her heartbeat loud. "A claim?"
James smiled, slow, dark, final.
“The abyss doesn’t take without giving.”
His fingers found her throat, curling with eerie gentleness.
“And this time,” He pulled her closer, his voice a whisper, a promise, a verdict. “it’s giving you to me.”
The world convulsed. The ground caved, reality distorting as the abyss stretched its fingers further.
Eleanor, still fighting, but losing.
James, no longer feigning humanity, no longer pretending at all.
And above them
The abyss watched.
It had been patient. But it would not wait much longer.
And Eleanor
This time, she would not escape.
Excerpt from the diary of Dr. Eleanor Ashcroft
James.
James, James, James, James, James.
His name is the only thing left of me. The only thing that matters.
The sky fractured, splitting wide, eternity screaming into the void, yet all I hear is his whisper, curling against my ear like a binding spell.
“You are mine.”
And I fall.
