Then—
RRAAAGGHHHHHH!
The guttural roar resurfaced.
It wasn't distant. It wasn't far. It was right before his eyes.
He saw the source of the roar—the creature. The beast. Eye to eye.
He felt the same pressure he had endured before when he first locked eyes with the giant creature… but this was more. Far more. It was as if the entire galaxy had opened its eyes and turned them on him. He wasn't just being looked at—he was being searched, peeled, and understood in a way no human should ever be.
WHO. ARE. YOU.
A deep, commanding voice tore free from the shadows. It sounded human, but no human could possess such a voice. It rumbled like distant thunder tearing through steel. The walls around him quaked with every syllable, as though crumbling beneath the beast's tone.
Yes, the beast—that's what he thought it was.
Before Oliver could respond, several of the remaining dragons broke off and fled, leaving only seven behind: three on his right, three on his left, and the one layered with three shimmering colors still hovering close—closer than ever.
Just before the fleeing dragons vanished from sight, he saw some of them slammed into the cavern wall—no, crushed—by something.
Something that defied naming.
It had the shape of a tail, a hand, a wing, a tree branch... all at once. A thing both fluid and firm, monstrous and elegant. He knew—whatever it was, it wasn't meant to be here. Or perhaps, in truth, he wasn't supposed to be here.
Then—
Another commanding voice erupted, this time louder, denser—realer. The sound rebounded through the seven remaining dragons like a wave of thunder. Two among the six dropped instantly. The moment they touched the ground—
BOOM.
They blasted.
From the smoke and fire, Oliver saw the first giant creature—the one that had frightened him before—begin to flee. Was it escaping for its life? Or simply moving aside, making room for a greater horror to emerge?
Oliver didn't know. All he knew was that his wish—whatever it had been—had already been granted.
And there was no way to revoke it.
No rewording. No reversal.
No turning back.
Pam! Pam! Pam!
He heard footsteps—or what resembled footsteps—but this time, it felt like the entire cave was moving, not something within it.
Or was it a cage?
It was hard to tell.
Before he could speak, the remaining four dragons aligned themselves with the tri-colored one. They shifted in unison, forming a strange shape before him.
A cross.
One positioned itself near his right shoulder.
Another at his left.
One floated before his stomach.
And the last—at the center of the diamond-shaped space—hovered in place.
The remaining dragons also started mimicking his actions, his movements, and his turns. It was as if they were positioning themselves well in that shape.
He felt it before he saw it.
Not the explosion—no, not yet.
Something else.
Something inside him loosening.
Like a string snapping behind his ribs. Like a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding... for years.
His fingers twitched. Not from fear. From emptiness.
As though a part of him had already begun to drift away.
The dragons aligned themselves with eerie precision, but Oliver barely registered the pattern. The world around him blurred, thinned. He was still standing—wasn't he?—but his body no longer felt like a home. It felt like a suit of borrowed skin.
The cavern tilted slightly. Or maybe it was him, leaning, floating. Not falling—but lifting. Detaching.
A voice rose in him, not his own:
This is what it feels like to be unmade.
The dragons glowed.
He swayed, eyes open but seeing from somewhere else, from a place that felt neither above nor inside him. His heartbeat slowed into something quiet. Ritualistic. Almost reverent.
He didn't know if he was dying.
Or being prepared.
Or... offered.
And then—
Then, without warning—
They all exploded.
The blast hurled Oliver backward, slamming him into the wall.
His skin burned—not with pain, but with absence, as if part of him had already left.
He didn't scream.
He didn't move.
He didn't rise.
He remained there—pinned, breathless—in a silent standing position. His eyes were wide open, seeing nothing. His lips parted, yet no sound escaped. His skin—half-burnt, half-fine—crackled with quiet.
Then—
Silence.
Time stopped, or perhaps it never existed here.
Oliver didn't move.
He couldn't move.
How long had he been like this? Minutes? Hours? Days? There was no sun. No light. No motion. Only the memory of fire, and the silence that followed its rage.
Then—something shifted.
His breath.
His skin.
His... skin?
The surface beneath him didn't feel like flesh. It felt weightless, as though he was suspended in mist held together by the sheer force of thought.
He opened his eyes—but not his physical ones.
Something deeper awakened.
And what he saw—
Was himself.
No. It looked like him.
He stared into the eyes of his own body. A dreadful, ghostly gaze. He couldn't tell if the journey had just begun… or if it had ended long ago.
"How will Leo know where I am…?" he wondered, even as he drifted like smoke across an unseen sky.
"If I ended like this, then maybe it's true—I had no purpose in this world… nothing. Not even a proper death…"
Then, from nowhere—
Something latched onto his body.
Not the one drifting like smoke...
—but the one still pinned to the pillar, locked in that silent standing ovation.
Whatever it was, it didn't come in peace.
It wasn't loyal.
It didn't hesitate.
It came for destruction.
As Oliver watched, it moved with terrifying precision. His eyes—his spiritual eyes—snapped shut, as if trying to unsee. But it was too late. He had already seen it tear into his skin—his own skin—as if it were plucking bark from a tree that could neither move nor scream.
The sound alone was unbearable.
Sinew snapping.
Tissue ripping.
Even without sight, he could still see it. The image burned behind his eyelids, seared into his mind and soul. His body was being torn—bit by bit, piece by piece, part by part.
His once-living flesh—now reduced to a meal.
Claws scraped. Teeth sank in. There would be no remains.
No skin left behind.
No memory of softness.
It was all going to be devoured.
Yes—that thing.
That beast.
What else could it be?
"Stop…! Stop…! Stop…!"
Oliver screamed—but his voice had no weight here.
No echo. No power.
Even as he stretched his hands toward his own body, they passed through the air like wind through fog.
He was only a witness now.
A helpless observer to the desecration of his own flesh.
Mmmmh… Mmmmh… Mmmmh…
A sound—half growl, half murmur—rumbled from the beast as it finished chewing through both hands, leaving only shoulders behind, slick and dripping red.
Then—it spat.
A thick, glistening glob of saliva struck the head.
It splashed across the face—the lips, the nose, even the open, unblinking eyes.
It looked like some grotesque ritual. Like seasoning meat before a feast.
The spit shimmered—almost glowing—like oil catching fire under moonlight.
"No…!" Oliver cried again, his voice cracking.
But the thing didn't stop.
And the worst part wasn't the pain.
It was the silence.
The knowing.
The sense that he wasn't just watching the destruction of his body—
He was watching the erasure of his existence.