The creature spoke at last, its voice low and flat.
"Watching you suffer has become tiring."
Gordon could only stare, his mind slipping into numb disbelief. The world around him began to crack, then peel away, like rotten paint flaking from a wall. His transformed family was still tearing into him, teeth and claws buried in his flesh, when they suddenly dissolved into nothing. One by one they vanished.
Valeria lingered for a heartbeat longer, her calm green eyes meeting the creature's, then she too faded from existence.
Silence followed.
Gordon found himself standing on a vast white expanse, endless and empty, surrounded on all sides by a dark, bottomless void. It was just him and the creature now. His body was still broken, mangled, bleeding. Nothing healed. The pain remained sharp and deliberate, as if the power that ruled this place wanted him to feel every second of it.
His heart began to race.
