Elliot's POV

"Even in nonsense, a fool can find meaning."

—Elliot Starfall

My sweat cools the fever, but my head still burns. My veins feel clogged, my pulse relentless, like my body is waging war against itself. I think like this every night, every blistering afternoon. Now, the golden moon spills its glow through the cracks, and I press my palm to my forehead.

My breath is shallow, and I turn to my right—too quickly—and the lack of balance betrays me. I collapse straight into the puddle of vomit I brought up minutes earlier.

It steams faintly under the cold of the night. Maggots crawl through it, dancing like it's some celebration. A feast. And why not? My stomach is giving them all it has. What I cough up now is mostly black.

Between the muck, there's blood, and even more maggots. I don't know if they came from me; maybe they did. Maybe they live in me. I remember some documentary about parasites—ones that burrow in the gut and eat their way through. That thought alone sends a shiver racing down my spine.

But maybe it's the blood that disturbs me more. Why did these zombies—back then—have maggots pouring from their mouths?

My chest collapses against the floor, my body twitching, breath barely slipping into my bloodstream. My vision blurs, but I can still see the crawling things inching toward my cheek. I don't move. I can't, I'm too weak for that, and I hate it.

I fucking hate being this weak; my goddamn arm, everything—the pain, the sickness, the helplessness—because of this missing arm, because of those monsters.

Seconds pass like dragged-out minutes, but eventually, I force myself to stand. My legs tremble, each movement like walking on a planet with triple Earth's gravity. Maybe this damned world works like that, but maybe gravity here punishes the weak harder, or it's all because of my current condition. Nothing makes sense to me anymore.

I manage to lean my back against the wall while pressing my heavy body with all my might with one arm. The room is dark, locked away from civilization. Curtains shut, door bolted, and I—once again—trapped in a room of the dead.

"Cham and Gene are really taking their time with the meds..." I mutter, breath rancid, and eyes flicking toward the boy we saved from the bar—the one with the terrified eyes and quiet mouth. Paul. That's what his name was.

He shouldn't have to see this. No one should. For character sheets and glossaries, visit *.

Not the corpses, not the blood. Not the blue-blooded twins beside me, their fused heads leaning like rotting fruits. The rest of their body is normal, but their blood isn't. They're not like Paul. They're not like me, or like any of my kind.

To my right lie the bodies of the parents and an older woman—probably the grandmother—dressed neatly; Victorian elegance like the rest of this godforsaken city. I stay quiet, and continue not to speak much to Paul. I don't want to talk, and he barely understands my English anyway. I keep my eyes away from the faces—smashed, misshapen, and lifeless. I don't want to see them. I just want light, I just want Ren.

My legs begin to move again, shaky, disjointed, and the world tilts. It spins like some broken carousel from childhood nightmares. Then, I drop forward. My chin—or maybe teeth—smash the ground. I'm not even sure what hits first. All I know is, Paul's voice sounds like it's underwater—distant, echoing through the blackness that comes rushing in again.

…

My eyes snap open, and as expected, I'm somewhere else. Not the room, not with Paul. Not with the rotting dead or Cham and Gene, who promised medicine.

No antibiotics. No corpses. Just me. Again, alone in the Void.

That's what I've named it. There are no walls, no floor, no sky. Just the vast and dark territory of an abyss. Nothingness—but not true nothing, because after all, even nothing is still something. I float, suspended in this quiet hell. No up, no down. No time. The first time I was here, it felt like hours had passed, but when I returned, barely a minute had gone by.

Time isn't real here.

I've accepted that. Maybe I've accepted too much, maybe I've gone insane. No. I'm far past insane. I've already lost the light, I'm something else now. Something that lives in the in-between.

And just when I start to think—Take me somewhere, just somewhere—the light hits. Red, bright, searing crimson. It burns my eyes, but I see through it. A gateway of scarlet fire, a holy inferno, like the mouth of a god. But beyond that brightness—again—nothingness. Only this time, the black is gone. Now it's the color of rotten blood.