“Talon,” I say quietly.
His mismatched eyes snap to mine, sharp and stormy.
“Let her have it,” I say. “Let her take what's hers.”
A flicker of hesitation. A war raging behind his eyes. Then—
A curse under his breath.
His grip loosens.
The blue orb pulses.
The moment he releases it, the moment the soul is no longer contained, the woman moves.
Not a slow drift. Not a graceful step. She lunges for it.
Her scythe is mid-swing before anyone can react, its glow flaring in one last, oh-hell-no burst of power as she hacks through the air, aiming straight for the soul of Laura Collins.
But she does not make it.
Oh. Oh no.
Something worse happens. Something ripped straight from the dark corners of my pre-afterlife nightmares. Back when death was still an unspeakable mystery.
The sound that follows—
Oh my god.
It is wrong. It is the auditory equivalent of frost, mixed with the sound of reality folding itself into a pretzel. It is fracturing and splintering and tearing, a noise that should not exist in a world that values structural integrity.
And the air? It doesn’t handle it very well, either. The space around usshreds. A force explodes outward, slamming into all of us. Even the men—who have witnessed unspeakable horrors and committed at least 80% of them—recoil. The world itselfseems to inhale, like reality is trying to eat the sound to make it stop.
And then—
Silence.
A silence so thick, so dense, it feels like the end of the world.
And the orb—what’s left of it? It begins to unravel. Thick, black smoke seeps from its core like veins of rot, coiling into the air. The glow is gone.
No blue light.
No soul.
NoLaura.
The Grim Reaper stands there, scythe frozen mid-swing, her expression an open wound of confusion and horror—emotions far too human for a thing that’s supposed to be beyond this kind of loss.
Then, she stumbles.
For a horrifying second, I think she’s about to justcease existing, her entire being wavers this much. But then she catches herself. Her scythe hits the ground with a clatter, and somehow, it sounds alive—like a part of her just hit the floor and doesn’t know what to do with itself.
“Where is the soul?” she gasps.
Yeah. Fantastic question. Because whatever is now rising above the Skystone—this writhing, shifting, ancient-looking…thing—it sure as hell isn’t Laura Collins anymore.
Shadows coil around it like living tendrils, not swirling, not flowing, but twisting in a way that bends the mind, warping shape and space with every flicker of motion. The edges don’t just blur—they bleed, shifting between forms, as if evenitcan't decide what it is.
