Dread materialized in his physical form—a black body suspended in mid-air—staring down at the man below. He raised one skeletal finger, pointing at the corpse he had just vacated. The body now lay on the ground, lifeless as it should be.
The man stood frozen in the middle of the street. Around him, bystanders gathered, watching in horrified silence, each praying desperately that they wouldn't become Dread's next target. Their hearts hammered against their ribs as they witnessed something beyond comprehension.
Dread balled his fist and threw it forward with supernatural force. His spectral hand passed through the man's head, killing him instantly. The man's eyes went blank, his body crumpling to the pavement like a discarded puppet.
"There you go," Dread said, his voice dripping with dark satisfaction. "You wanted to be with your family so badly? Well, there it is. You're dead." He paused, a cruel smile crossing his shadowy features. "Try to laugh now, kid. Things aren't always as nice as they seem in the afterlife. Just letting you know that."
Dread left the area, his form dissolving into mist. He needed to find either his original body or another suitable host. This incorporeal form wasn't sustainable much longer. If he disappeared now, he wouldn't return. The thought filled him with something close to panic—an emotion he rarely experienced.
He needed another body, preferably one already dead. Dead bodies were so much easier to control than living ones. The living always fought back, their consciousness struggling against his invasion. He hated when they resisted, despised the effort it required to suppress their will. It was simpler to wait for them to die, then slip into the vacant shell without resistance.
The only reason he'd taken Noah while the boy still lived was desperation. Time had been running out—he'd had mere seconds before vanishing entirely. Noah had simply been the closest option, the most convenient choice in a moment of crisis.
Back in the cabin's attic, Aaron had been on the couch. Lucas and Noah had been there too, all three within reach. Dread had simply chosen whichever one was nearest. Noah hadn't fought back much, which had been fortunate. But there had been one terrible moment when the boy had seized control, managing to weasel out a desperate "Help me" to his friends. The plea had gone unanswered.
Then came another moment—when Ray, the leader of the Black Star faction, stood beside Noah. The boy had taken control again, ending his own life rather than remain Dread's puppet. Now this host was dead, not because the host had rebelled, but because Dread himself had wanted to kill that man, that foolish kid who'd begged so pathetically to see his parents.
"Well, he got his wish. Now, on to find a new host. Or, if I'm lucky, my original body," Dread muttered to himself.
Dread transformed completely into mist and flew away, leaving the scene behind.
Around ten bystanders remained near the site, having witnessed everything—the fight, the conversation between Dread and his victim, the attempted murder. They'd seen the fireballs, the blade forged from shadow and blood, the transformation into mist, the shadowy figure that had appeared and vanished. Every impossible detail was seared into their minds, images they could never unsee.
"What in the world..." one man said, stepping forward cautiously. His voice trembled despite his attempt at composure.
"Good thing I got that on camera," another man said, a smile spreading across his face. His hands shook slightly as he checked his phone's recording. "This is going to be perfect. I can't wait to post it online. People might call it CGI, but it's real. They might call me a fake, might not even believe me, but I know what I saw. This is going to get so much attention. I'm going to make a fortune from this, aren't I?"
"You're just going to look like an idiot. They'll think it's CGI, man. You're not going to fool anyone with that 'real' mess or whatever. I mean, it might get some views considering the quality, but still—you're not going to get that much attention. So calm down," a third man interjected, his tone dismissive.
The first man clutched his phone tighter, uncertainty flickering across his features. But greed won out over doubt.
---
Meanwhile, within his mindscape, Sin stood among the others trapped in that strange realm. Knox remained at the far end of the mindscape, motionless as a statue. The receiver sat in his designated place, equally still. Knox was doing absolutely nothing—his consciousness completely suppressed.
Dice was similarly inactive, but unlike Knox, Dice retained a sliver of humanity. He could think, could process what was happening around him, but he couldn't act on those thoughts. His mind was a prisoner in his own body.
Elias stood directly in front of Sin, his presence commanding attention. Shadow and blood began seeping from his armor as its power intensified.
"Soon. Maybe if I add more power into the armor, you'll bleed more blood. You never know—it could work," Elias said, his red armor beginning to glow with increasing intensity. His red eyes blazed with supernatural light.
Sin considered this, his expression thoughtful despite the bizarre nature of the experiment. "I mean, I guess you're right. The more blood in the area, the more blood I'll probably bleed from my eyes. Would be the same for shadow, I suppose. But I don't have the shadow power you do." He paused, frustration creeping into his voice. "In fact, I don't really have any power in this place. Remember? Your system thinks I'm an anomaly. Therefore, your system blocks my power within the mindscape."
As Elias poured more energy into his armor, the glow intensified. A blinding red light emanated from the metal, forcing Sin to shield his eyes and back away several steps.
"Calm down the energy a little bit. You're blinding me!" Sin called out, squinting against the glare.
Elias glanced at him, noting Sin's raised hands. "Just cover your eyes. Oh wait, you're already doing that. My bad. But still, keep them covered because I still have a lot more energy to go."
Sin's eyes widened behind his protective hands. Though the gesture couldn't be seen with his face obscured, his body language conveyed his shock. *He has more energy? Isn't this already enough?* The thought raced through his mind with growing alarm.
Elias continued pouring energy into his armor until nearly the entire mindscape was illuminated. By "nearly entire," that meant as far as all of them could see—and no one knew how far the mindscape truly extended. For all they knew, it could be infinite in size.
The shadow demon, with its creepy smile, began bleeding more blood than shadow. The balance shifted dramatically—it bled even less shadow from its eyes now. Those eyes were the only things still bleeding, along with its armor. The armor, already dented and partially healing, now developed cracks that spider-webbed across its shadowy metal surface.
The shadow demon's eyes slowly turned red, glowing with an ominous light. Then they shut completely.
When the demon's eyes reopened, it looked disturbingly similar to Elias. If Elias resembled Sin, then this creature now mirrored both of them. It possessed the same red armor as Elias, the same red eyes as both Sin and Elias, and the same pulsing aura that radiated power.
Elias stared, transfixed. Sin stared as well, his mind racing to comprehend what he was witnessing.
"It has the same aura as you. The same armor as you. I can tell that much," Sin said slowly, his voice tight with tension.
"This is very abnormal. Even for a very abnormal, monstrous being like the shadow demon. It's too abnormal," Elias replied, his usual confidence wavering.
Sin thought about something, then voiced his theory. "Do you think this might be why the shadow demon was just standing there, not attacking me? Like I said many times before, when I first entered the mindscape, the shadow demon attacked me outright. We battled immediately." He paused, studying the transformed creature. "But in recent times, whenever I've entered the mindscape, it just stood there. It didn't attack me, you, Knox, or Dice. It just stood there, bleeding shadow. Could this be the reason why?"
"No. It only recently started bleeding blood. The times you were in the mindscape before, when it didn't bleed blood from its eyes, it was still standing there motionless, bleeding only shadow. Only when I pushed out my aura, only when I decided to do that, did it bleed more blood. Before I did that, it had only recently started bleeding small droplets of blood from its eyes. So that might not be the case," Elias said firmly, shaking his head.
The shadow demon's armor began to pulse, sending out shock waves just like Elias's used to do—before Elias had learned to keep his energy contained inward. Even now, Elias kept his energy within himself, yet Sin still couldn't move close to him. Only Elias could approach Sin, which remained one of the mindscape's strangest mysteries.
The shadow demon laughed, its smile growing impossibly wider. The staticky sound echoed throughout the void of the mindscape, bouncing off invisible walls and reverberating endlessly.
Sin felt a shiver run down his spine. Elias felt it too—a primal warning that something was terribly wrong.
The only beings who didn't feel any fear were Knox and Dice. Their bodies didn't respond to danger signals anymore. They were spawns, people corrupted by shadow, twisted beyond recognition. Sin didn't feel fear, didn't care about death, didn't register danger—so naturally, his body didn't warn him about threats. Why would it, when he obviously didn't care?
But Dice was different from Knox. Dice was dead inside, yes, but unlike Knox, Dice still had a functioning mind. He could use it, could think and reason and remember what it meant to be human. He just couldn't do anything with his body. He was trapped, imprisoned in his own skin, a consciousness locked away in a cage of flesh and bone.
His body answered only to Sin's will. Dice's own will existed, but it was powerless. His body was essentially a slave to Sin's commands.
Even though Dice's body wouldn't physically react to danger, Dice himself knew—he sensed it the moment the shadow demon transformed into whatever it had become. Every instinct screamed that he was in trouble, that they were all in danger. But he couldn't act. He couldn't act on his thoughts, couldn't even move his fingers without Sin's explicit command.
If Sin didn't give the body any orders, it would stand there motionless. Even if death stood inches away, even if annihilation was imminent, Dice would just stand like a statue, unable to save himself. He couldn't run, couldn't fight, couldn't even flinch.
The worst thing about this imprisonment was that Dice still feared dying. He desperately wanted thoughts of his own, wanted life, wanted something—anything. He craved feelings, thoughts, emotions. But he wouldn't have those if he was dead.
Or maybe he would? He didn't know about the afterlife. That uncertainty terrified him. It would be great if there was something after death, but it would be hell if there wasn't. He wasn't willing to gamble on a fifty-fifty chance.
What if he died thinking he would go to an afterlife, only to discover it was just a black void in the end? It could also be the opposite—eternal paradise instead of nothingness—but Dice wasn't willing to gamble. Not with his existence. Not with the possibility of eternal oblivion.
Even if he wanted to gamble, he couldn't do anything about it anyway. The choice wasn't his to make.
While Dice wrestled with these desperate thoughts, the shadow demon's armor began to fracture. Pieces fell away like shattered glass. The shadow armor regenerated immediately, and the blood in its eyes quickly changed back to shadow. It began bleeding shadow again, no longer bleeding blood as it had been doing moments before.
It was as if the transformation had never occurred. The demon had reverted completely.
Sin decided to exit the mindscape. When he finally opened his eyes in the physical world, he saw a red portal hovering in front of him, its edges crackling with unstable energy.
"Elias, are you looking at this?" Sin asked urgently.
Elias began seeing through Sin's vision, their connection allowing him to perceive the physical world. Within the mindscape, Elias's eyes widened in shock.
"A portal? Are you seeing that? The shadow demon's energy was so high it created a portal. How is this possible? How—" Elias's voice carried genuine alarm—a rare emotion from him.
Before Sin could respond, the portal pulsed violently. A deafening roar erupted from its depths—not the shadow demon's staticky laugh, but something else entirely. Something ancient. Something hungry.
The air around Sin began to distort, reality itself bending toward the swirling vortex. His feet lifted off the ground.
"Elias, what's happening?!" Sin shouted, clawing at the air for purchase.
"Resist! Don't let it—"
The portal's pull intensified exponentially. Sin's body jerked forward, his arms flailing as the gravitational force became irresistible. Through their shared vision, Elias could only watch helplessly as Sin hurtled toward the crimson gateway.
In the mindscape, the shadow demon's smile widened impossibly further. Its eyes—now bleeding shadow once more—fixed on Elias with an intelligence that hadn't been there before.
It spoke for the first time, its voice a chorus of whispers: "Finally."
Sin crossed the threshold.
The portal collapsed behind him with a thunderclap that shook the foundations of reality itself, severing the connection between Sin and Elias in an instant.
Elias stood alone in the mindscape, staring at the empty space where his window to the physical world had been.
Sin was gone.
And wherever he had gone, Elias couldn't follow.