The climb up the stairs had slowed to a crawl. Every inch of his body screamed, muscles trembling, lungs burning, the wound at his side a constant, pulsing agony. To lie down there and then and recover at least a bit was very tempting. But there was no time left. He had less than two hours to make it up the tower and find Heaven's door.
Blood seeped again through the torn cloth at his side. His vision was turning hazy and even more disoriented. His throat burned with thirst, stomach twisting with hunger.
Xaden hadn't even realized just how much time had passed between now and the other day; his twenty-four hours had slipped between his fingers without him even realizing it.
The human body needed food and water to survive and possibly even thrive. It did not need to live in a state of perpetual fear for hours on end. At least Xaden was used to this to some degree. The hunger and bitter odds. He felt a host of other people would have succumbed to the hopelessness of it all by now.
Why were the stairs taking forever? Would he possibly bleed to death? Even if he managed to find the door, what about the key? Was he meant to go scouring through the ruined city to find it?
Xaden shook the thoughts away. Luckily, he wasn't just anyone, he was... What exactly? Why did he constantly feel he was so... Special, when in truth, he was a complete and utter nobody with nothing but an impossible mission?
A mission he would sooner die than not see through. A mission that guided him to sleep at night and helped him sneak out early in the morning to hunt. A mission, he felt, was the reason he was even still alive up till now in this cruel and unforgiving world.
The higher he went, the colder it became. The light started bending and twisting to form shadows that seemed to reach for him with wicked claws. Somewhere behind him, the faint echo of laughter lingered. Xaden hoped he had only imagined it.
As he approached the first landing, the air began to feel colder and colder. Xaden watched in faint amusement as his breath came out in a white mist.
He took another step, unable to shake away that feeling of being monitored.
He stopped.
Whisper curled around the back of his mind.
By the time he heard it, it was already approaching. He looked downwards, the hollow drifted up the stairs, almost catching up to him.
Xaden's heart slammed so hard it hurt.
He didn't need to think.
He ran.
Every step up the next flight felt like it was tearing something inside his chest apart. His vision blurred. The stairs twisted beneath him. The whispers behind him didn't get louder — it stayed the same distance away, like the thing wasn't chasing him.
The final step came out of nowhere.
Xaden stumbled forward into an open space, almost falling to his knees.
White walls.
The sudden brightness hurt his eyes. The stairwell behind him ended in a wide, empty floor with nothing in it except silence. No rubble. No dust. No broken glass. Just the same smooth white walls stretching in every direction like the place had never been touched by the world outside.
And in the middle of the far wall—
A door.
'Could it be?'
Had he finally reached Heaven's door?
The door was a deep shade of red, completely out of place in the clean, white room. There was no knob, no button, nor lever to pull to unlock it.
Xaden rushed towards it anyway.
Each step felt heavier than the last, like the air was pressing down on his shoulders, trying to force him back toward the stairs. His hand shook as he reached out and pressed it against the door.
It was cold.
He pushed harder.
It didn't even flinch.
He gritted his teeth and tried again, putting all the strength he had left into it. Pain exploded in his side, and his vision darkened at the edges, but the door didn't even shift.
Not even a little.
Xaden could've sworn he had heard his name being whispered.
The Hollow was standing at the edge of the room now.
'Shit!'
It wasn't alone anymore.
Another shape pulled itself out of the wall beside it, darker than the shadow behind it, forming slowly like a shadow clawing its way out of your worst nightmare. Another came. And another. Each one taller than the last, thinner, the hollow space where their faces should have been deeper, darker, like something inside them was swallowing the light.
Xaden backed away from the door without realizing he was moving.
His pulse was racing now, creating a buzz in his ears. Too loud. He couldn't hear anything except the pounding in his chest and the slow, quiet movement of the creatures closing the distance between them.
Xaden was cornered; the room was too small. Even though every instinct screamed at him to bolt, he couldn't
There was nowhere to run.
The first one drifted closer.
The room changed instantly.
The white walls cracked, black lines spreading across them like veins. The air was filled with smoke so thick it burned his throat. The floor beneath him wasn't smooth anymore — it was rough, broken, stained with something dark that he didn't want to look at.
The Hollows were close now. They didn't move fast, didn't need to. They surrounded him. One of them was closer than the rest, its hollow face locked into Xaden's eyes, and he felt his soul leave his body.
Then he saw him.
A man on his knees.
Hands tied behind his back. Head lowered. Someone was shouting something he couldn't hear. The sound of metal dragging across the ground. The feeling of something about to happen that couldn't be stopped.
It was his father. Thirteen-year-old Xaden unable to even move, frozen in horror , didn't know what to feel as soldiers of the Valeguard brought his father to the guillotine for a public execution.
'Dad.' Xaden whispered as tears streamed down his face. His father locked eyes with him, his eyes filled with quiet acceptance, mouthing the word hide.
'Pain,' a voice whispered in his mind.
The world shifted again.
He saw Leo.
He was on his knees, hands clutching his chest as fire raged around him, tearing through the buildings around him and climbing into the sky. He locked desperate eyes, full of torture with Xaden, as a gut-wrenching scream tore through his entire being.
'Carnage.'
Xaden couldn't breathe. Couldn't think, could only watch helplessly as more carnage filled his vision, filling his thoughts, his vision, his ears, driving him deeper towards insanity.
The Hollows didn't attack him. They just stood there, surrounding him, forcing him to watch as the visions tore him apart.