Episode 56 – The Edge of Oblivion

  Kade’s heart hammered in his chest as the crushing silence of the void wrapped around them like a shroud, an unbearable weight pressing in from all sides. He tried to move, but it was as if gravity itself had been undone. No ground, no sky—just endless, suffocating blackness.

  This isn’t real, Kade told himself. But the weight of it, the way his body felt suspended in a vast emptiness, told a different story.

  The others were still there. Kade could hear their ragged breaths, their shallow gasps for air. The murmurs of disbelief, the panic rising in their voices. But it felt so… distant. Like they were echoes in a vast chamber of nothingness. He reached out, his hand brushing Naomi’s arm, just to remind himself they were all still tethered to the same reality.

  Or were they?

  The air around them hummed with energy, crackling like static, before it turned into a deep, grinding roar—like the sound of the universe itself being twisted, bent beyond recognition. The voices in the darkness screamed again, louder, more insistent. They were coming from all directions, but there was no source. No body to the voices. Just the endless, swirling terror of something ancient, something impossible.

  “We’re not alone,” Naomi whispered, her voice shaking.

  Kade swallowed, nodding. But it wasn’t the kind of confirmation he wanted to give. The truth was worse. They were never alone.

  Suddenly, the darkness seemed to shift. The void rippled like water disturbed by an unseen force, and for just a fraction of a second, Kade thought he saw something—a shape, a figure, a face—before it was gone.

  It had been too brief to register fully, but the image lingered in his mind. The figure had been monstrous. Eyes glowing red, its form an impossible blend of shadows and distorted flesh. The scream it had made, the feeling of its malice, still pulsed through the air like an aftershock. It was almost as if the figure itself was watching them, waiting for them to make the wrong move.

  “Did anyone else see that?” Owen’s voice was tight, almost frantic, as he turned his head, trying to follow the unseen movement. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated, skin pale.

  Mason’s eyes locked with Kade’s, his breath caught in his throat. “What the hell was that?”

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  Kade couldn’t answer. He couldn’t even think. There was no rational explanation for what they were experiencing. Nothing here followed any rules of reality he had ever known. All he could do was feel the pull of it—the pull of something far worse than they had ever imagined.

  Then, as if the void itself had heard their fear, the whispers grew louder, more insistent, becoming words. Fragmented at first, then clearer, like a broken transmission from an old radio, its voice twisted with static.

  Kade…

  He froze. The voice was different this time—slower, deeper, almost familiar.

  You think you can escape?

  The voice seemed to wrap around him, burrowing into his skin, clawing at his very soul. It wasn’t just a question—it was a challenge. A promise.

  Kade, you belong here.

  A cold chill washed over him, but it wasn’t from the void. It was something inside him—a fear, a temptation. For a moment, just a fleeting moment, Kade felt the edges of his mind unraveling, as if the pull of the void was beginning to take hold, to claim him.

  “No!” Kade shouted, pushing against the invisible force that threatened to drag him deeper into the abyss.

  Naomi’s hand shot out, grabbing his arm. “Kade! Focus! We can’t lose you to this!”

  But Kade couldn’t hear her. He was lost in the voice now, caught in its grip. It was like drowning in a sea of thoughts, every whisper gnawing at his mind, tearing away at his identity.

  The voice was everywhere now, impossible to escape.

  You don’t understand, Kade. This isn’t a choice. This is your destiny.

  The words sent a cold shiver through his spine, but beneath the terror, there was a flicker of something else—something darkly alluring. He couldn’t deny it. The feeling was there, tugging at him, coaxing him. The void wanted him. It didn’t need him, but it wanted him.

  He couldn’t ignore the pull.

  And then, he saw it. Through the swirling blackness, the pedestal flickered again—its jagged light cutting through the void like a lighthouse in a storm. But now, it wasn’t just light. It was alive. The energy flowing from it twisted, shaped, formed itself into something monstrous, a figure rising from the pedestal’s center.

  It was the same shape he had seen before. The one that haunted his thoughts. The one with the glowing red eyes.

  Kade stumbled backward, his legs barely holding him. The figure was now massive, towering over them like a deity of destruction. Its form was nebulous, half-shadow, half-flesh, with tendrils of darkness that seemed to move of their own accord, extending like claws from its back.

  “You are here,” the voice echoed, reverberating through the space, shaking Kade to his core. It was no longer coming from the void. It was coming from the figure.

  It was Azazel2. Or something worse. Something that had taken its form. It was the end of everything they knew.

  And it was staring directly at Kade.

  You are the key, it said. You are the doorway.

  “No…” Kade whispered, barely able to speak, his voice swallowed by the endless void. “I’m not… I’m not your key.”

  The figure laughed—a deep, guttural sound that seemed to shake the air itself. “Not yet. But you will be.”

  Kade’s heart lurched. The pull of the pedestal, the pull of the voice, had intensified. His vision blurred as the figure’s glowing eyes locked onto him with impossible precision. Every instinct screamed for him to run, to fight, to do something—but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t break free from its gaze.

  The others were there, still with him, but they too had been caught in the same web. Naomi was shaking, her hands trembling as she tried to break free from the pull. Owen’s face was twisted in fear, his body frozen in place. Mason stood motionless, staring into the abyss with wide, haunted eyes.

  Kade wasn’t sure who spoke first. Naomi? Mason? Owen? But the question they all asked was the same:

  “What happens next?”

  And Kade had no answer. The abyss was too far gone. The void was alive, breathing, expanding. And whatever lay ahead was something none of them were prepared for.

  The only certainty now was that they were no longer in control. The abyss had claimed them—and the true horror of the future was beginning to reveal itself.

  End of Episode 56.