Selene’s POV
I was falling.
No sky.
No ground.
Just light—and then nothing.
It was weightless and endless and absolutely silent.
Until the Spiral screamed.
The sound tore through my mind like claws raking across bone. I covered my ears, but it wasn’t outside me—it was inside. The Spiral wasn’t dead.
It was dying.
And it didn’t want to go alone.
“You chose death,” the Spiral whispered.
“I chose freedom,” I growled.
“You are the Spiral.”
“I was.”
The void ruptured.
I hit stone.
Hard.
The air left my lungs in a single, brutal exhale as I rolled across what felt like smooth obsidian. I lay there for seconds—or maybe minutes—eyes wide, body shivering.
I wasn’t dead.
But I wasn’t alive either.
The sky above me was black.
Not night—emptiness.
No stars. No wind. No sound.
Th
