The figure lunged.
Straight for him.
Darkness folded inward.
He screamed.
For the first time in many many months—
Ian screamed.
And then—
Nothing.
‐‐‐‐
There was no up or down.
No light.
No time.
Ian floated—if floating could be called that—in a place absent of gravity, sound, and sense. It was not dreamlike. Dreams at least had shape.
This was hollow.
"Soulrealm?"
No it was different.
Something burned.
It started in his chest. A small ember.
Faint at first—flickering as if suffocated. Then it swelled, reaching out, clawing through his veins with heat that wasn't fire.
Not exactly. It was old. Primal. Hungering.
He opened his eyes.
But there was nothing to see.
And still—
The voice came.
"You are not the first to reach this place. But you may be the last."
The words weren't spoken. They echoed inside his bones. Like memories he never lived.
"What are you?" Ian asked, though he wasn't sure if he still had a mouth.
Or a body. Or a soul.
