Images of those screaming faces, people reaching for her—a great and unknowable nothing that sent terror crawling up her spine.
From the void beyond comprehension,a chorus of disembodied wails pierced the silence, their timbre neither wholly human nor entirely of this earth. They reverberated through unseen dimensions, spiraling upward in an infernal crescendo that defied mortal sanity.
The souls were not content to merely howl into the abyss; they reached outward, their forms half-materializing as grasping, skeletal appendages. Each clawed finger was insubstantial yet pulsating with a sickly, phosphorescent glow, as though lit from within by a light born of pure torment. The tendrils of their agony curled and writhed, seeking flesh to ensnare, their movements imbued with a malevolent sentience.
Sasha froze,locked solid, staring at Vile with wide eyes as he held her by the upper arms.
“That is what I can do to you, pretty little Sasha Lancaster.” He pressed her back against the butcher block countertop. “I can rip your mind to shreds and pull you to pieces over, and over, and over again. I am every unknowable horror—every violent, unspeakable death. Every torture that man has devised for each other and penned into writing liveswithin me.”His hands tightened on her arms. “So, do appreciate my restraint, when you see it.”
“I—I’m so sorry—please—” She was shivering. Terror was flooding her. And it wasn’t the fun kind of fear that she felt in a haunted house. This was the primal, instinctual kind that made her want to be sick. “I’m so sorry about the epilogue?—”
“No. You aren’t sorry. You are only saying that because you’re facing repercussions. A woman after my own heart.” He laughed, a low and vicious sounding thing.
Something took hold of her that wasn’t him. Or it was,it just wasn’tat the same time. Tendrils of darkness, shadowy things that looked drawn onto the world, pulled her backward and up onto the countertop, flat onto her back.
When she went to scream, one of them wrapped around hermouth, silencing her. She struggled. But the tendrils had her by the wrists and ankles, quickly pulling her taut.
She was trapped.
Vile went to the counter by the wall and picked up a large and heavy meat cleaver.
No.
No, no, no, no!
“You have a choice ahead of you, sweetheart. And I don’t mean this one. You made this one already.” Picking up a whetstone, he began to sharpen the blade with a slowsrrriiiitch, srrriiiitchsound. “But I want you to keep this in mind as we go forward—you can either be my ally or my victim. I don’t care which it is. Because you have to realize one thing…this isphenomenalfun for me, either way.”
Screaming into the gag, she thrashed her head.No, please, Vile—don’t do this, please, please!
“Oh, buck up. Sidney didn’t whinenearlyas much.” He stood over her, pressing a hand down on her forearm and lining up the blade just at the joint of her wrist. “You’ll go into shock quickly. This won’t last long.”
Please—
He lifted the blade.
Thud.
The first blow hurt more than she could process. Stars danced across her eyes as she screamed uselessly against the tendril.
Please—
Thud.
The second blow she felt less than the first. The nerves were already too damaged.
Thud.
The third, she only felt as an impact that made her body lurch on the table.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.The repetitive noise of it became the only thing she could process. The white, flaking plaster ceiling had little tiny dots of red on it, now. Huh.
When Vile came into her field of view, tilting her head to look at him, he had blood smeared across his face. “You…arebeautiful,Sasha.” Lifting his hand to his lips, she watched, numb and empty, as he licked the blood from them.
When he kissed her, she could taste the coppery substance.
The world was already fading back to nothingness.
The last thing she remembered was the sound of his voice close to her ear. “Now? Now, I forgive you…”
