This chapter took me dayssss and a ton of creepy music to write ༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ

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Not just a sound but a feeling as well. 

All Noah could see, could feel.

The darkness stretched on and on and on, Noah felt himself going insane. The charred herb scent he had clung to had long faded with the light.

He felt truely alone.

The sound of his heartbeat was the only sign he's still alive but as time went on he began to doubt if it is even real.

He had let the darkness take him. But a gut wrenching cry broke through the silence and his ears perked up, desperate, following the sound.

He found himself on the group, bleeding. His body felt battered, his voice broke as he screamed, his throat felt dry and sore but he cried out anyways.

The dust of the earth flew erratically due to the biting wind, flying into his eyes and down his throat the sky looked red as if it might rain blood.

All he could do was watch Kael get dragged in to the mouth of a portal by a man he couldn't see.

Each time he tried to reach out to stop the man, he felt a hot sensation in his throat. He felt something gush out of his his mouth, what exactly he did not know.

In Mama's house, Noah lay on the table surrounded by burning herbs, the smoke rising into the air, mixing with one another above him, entering him.

Yet he bled from all his orifices. Mama stopped chanting and faced the tense two behind her "Be ready to loose him." 

Meanwhile, Noah was still trapped in a loop, watching Kael be dragged away from him. This time a voices spoke on top each other, saying the same thing over and over again.

"Teth Nyras"

His head hurt, it felt like his ear drums would start to bleed but he couldn't stop the voices.

Little by little a lone voice, a voice just like his spoke clearly through the noise,

"Find the book"

Noah shot off the table with a start, startling Mama who was right beside him.

He was screaming, crying. Blood mixed with saliva flying everywhere, tears and gore rolled down his face in a sickening mask. 

"Find the book. He told me to find the book." Noah shrieked 

Mama tried to call his name, her voice desperate, while Kael struggled to hold Kathleen back from rushing toward the table.

To no avail did Noah call down and in a last-ditch attempt to stop the seizure-like thrashing, Mama brought a handful of grey powder up to his nose to force him into a deep sleep.

But before the darkness could take him again, Noah lunged. He shoved Mama back with unnatural strength and grabbed onto Kathleen, who had managed to slip past Kael’s grip.

He didn't hug her. He didn't reach for help. Instead, he slammed his bloody fingers against her eyes, pressing hard enough to make her gasp.

"See"

As his head rolled back and the powder finally took effect, Noah went limp. But for Kathleen, the world didn't go dark. It exploded.

She tumbled to the floor screaming; her eyes felt as if a white-hot iron was being pressed against her pupils.

Mama scrambled toward her, muttering, "No, no, no... this is all wrong," under her breath. A black film began to coat Kathleen’s irises, and thin, dark tendons spread across the whites of her eyes, burrowing toward the back of her sockets. It was a sight Mama had never seen in all her years. She was paralyzed, watching the young woman writhe in agony on the wooden floor.

Kael, meanwhile, sank to the ground. The mental bottle where he stored his emotions finally shattered with a deafening crack in his mind. His body trembled like a lone leaf on a dry branch in the middle of winter. He pulled his knees to his chest and squeezed tight, as if trying to wring the panic out of his own skin.

Gradually, Kathleen’s screams faded into ragged breaths, much to Mama’s relief. The black film retreated. Kathleen blinked her dry eyes rapidly, trying to clear her blurred vision. But when her gaze panned to where Noah lay, she let out a fresh cry of terror.

"What... what is that?" she gasped, pointing with a shaking hand.

A heavy, dark energy loomed over Noah, cracked into three distinct, jagged pieces. A long, pulsing chain extended from him, tethering him to Kael. Kael was shrouded in the same dark energy, and even Mama had a faint, swirling mist clinging to her.

Mama pushed herself off the floor, her voice a hushed whisper. "You can see Zhil-Vae?"

"What?" Kathleen’s voice cracked.

"Dark energy," Mama breathed, her eyes darting to Noah in pure exasperation. "The raw force that gives beings life. He didn't just touch you, Kathleen... he forced you to see."

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Detective Mitch took one final, shaky breath and stepped through the door. Yet again, he ended up right back in the center of the room.

He couldn't leave. The bright fluorescent lights began to sear his retinas, and the overwhelming smell of antiseptic left a bitter, chemical taste in his mouth.

"Are morgues usually this cold?" he whispered to the empty air. In just five minutes, his skin had turned from a healthy flush to a beet red, and now to a sickly, greyish blue. It was a terrifying transformation, far too fast for a normal room.

It can't be this fast Mitch thought, panic rising in his chest. He lunged through the door again. And again. Each time, he simply reappeared in front of the autopsy table.

He began to hyperventilate, running through the door in a frantic, endless cycle. His heart hammered against his ribs faster, faster and faster. 

Finally, his legs gave out. 

He slammed his fists against the cold white tiles before hoisting himself back up.

He turned to the corpse, the source of this nightmare. As he walked closer, the stench hit him like a physical barrier, thick and rotting. 

Maggots wiggled across the skin, emerging from a multitude of tiny, festering holes. Pale pus leaked from the wounds in varying degrees of decay.

Then, he saw it. On the backs of the slimy maggots... was that black ink?

Mitch leaned in. The maggots weren't moving randomly; they were crawling in a precise order. The ink on their backs joined together like puzzle pieces, forming the very same symbols that had once been etched into the corpse’s skin.

He recoiled in fright. As if sensing his terror, the fluorescent lights began to flicker violently. The number of maggots seemed to double instantly, a white, writhing wave surging off the table toward him.

He bolted for the door, over and over, but the loop was tightening. He was trapped. The symbols were clawing their way toward him. 

He screamed, his voice cracking with a plea for help, but the room only responded with a violent shudder. The metal table shook until the body slid off with a loud, wet splat.

Maggots flew through the air, landing on his clothes and skin. Mitch fell to the floor, shrieking as they began to burrow. 

He could feel them, the cold, slimy stretch of their bodies and the sharp, icy sting of their bites as they entered his flesh.

He begged. He cursed. He screamed until his lungs burned, but no one came.

Just as the darkness of the room began to swallow him whole, a sudden warmth flooded his senses. He sat bolt upright, gasping for air.

Standing in front of him was his partner, Duke

The maggots were gone. The body was gone. The soul-crushing cold had vanished.

He was back, but the question remained: Where exactly was he?

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A big shout out to Wild Moon, I see you and your continuous support. Thank you~~~ (⁠人⁠ ⁠•͈⁠ᴗ⁠•͈⁠)