Chapter 53

Sarah's POV

I stood frozen, my heart pounding, as the figure before me began to take shape. It wasn't Axel. It wasn't anyone I recognized. This new figure was tall and cloaked in shadow, its features obscured, but the presence it exuded was suffocating. It felt like the air had been drained from the rift, replaced by a cold, oppressive force that clung to my skin.

"Who are you?" I demanded, my voice shaking despite my best effort to stand firm.

The figure didn't answer immediately. Instead, it stepped closer, its footsteps eerily silent. It was as though the rift itself had swallowed the sound. The space around us seemed to distort, the walls of shadow bending inward, closing us in. My pulse quickened, the feeling of being trapped settling deep in my chest.

Finally, the figure spoke. Its voice was not one, but many—echoing, overlapping, a chorus of whispers that crawled under my skin.

"I am the rift," it said, its voice low and serpentine. "I am the hunger that feeds on souls, the void that swallows all."

My stomach twisted. I wanted to run, but my legs wouldn't move. The figure was like a magnet, pulling me toward it with an unseen force, its words suffocating the air in my lungs.

"I am the result of everything that was lost," it continued, its presence growing stronger, more tangible with each passing moment. "I am the fractured pieces of what was and what could never be. I am the end."

I took a shaky step back, my mind racing. It wasn't just a creature of the rift. This… thing was the rift itself, born from the chaos, the destruction, the very essence of the curse. And it was speaking directly to me.

"What do you want?" I choked out, my voice a mere whisper now, as though the words might summon something even worse.

The figure tilted its head, a sound like a sigh—or was it a laugh?—escaped from the shifting darkness that made up its face. "What I want is irrelevant," it said, its tone mocking. "What matters is what you want. What you sought in the depths of this place."

I swallowed, my mind trying to wrap itself around its words. What had I been searching for? Axel? Yes, of course. But... was I really just searching for him? Or was I searching for an end to all of this? For answers, for closure, for a way out of the nightmare that had consumed everything?

"I… I came for Axel," I said, my voice barely audible, as if admitting that truth out loud could somehow stop this monstrosity from destroying me. "I came to save him."

The figure tilted its head again, and its presence seemed to grow larger, more oppressive. "And you think he can be saved?" The figure's voice was laced with venom now, dripping with disdain. "He is mine. Just as you will be."

A chill ran through my veins, and I stumbled backward, my breath catching in my throat. "No! I won't let you take me too!" I screamed, finding my voice in the face of this horror. "I will find a way out. I won't let you control me."

The figure chuckled, the sound like the rustling of leaves in a dead forest. "You misunderstand," it purred. "It's not about control. It's about truth. The truth of this place. The truth of you."

"What truth?" I demanded, my fists clenching at my sides, a surge of defiance welling up in me. "You can't break me. I've come this far, and I won't stop."

For a moment, the figure seemed to pause, as if considering my words. Its form rippled like smoke, and I felt the rift itself shifting beneath my feet, warping the space around us. "You are nothing more than a fragment of the curse, Sarah. Just like Axel. Just like everyone else who's ever come here. You all come, and you all fall."

I shook my head fiercely. "You're wrong! I'm not like him. I'm not like any of them."

The figure's laughter filled the air once more, louder this time, and the rift seemed to pulse, alive with malicious energy. "The rift is not a place. It is a reflection of every broken piece. Every regret. Every lie. And you, Sarah, are no different."

The shadows surrounding us shifted again, and for a moment, I could see it—Axel's face. But not the Axel I knew. This version was twisted, distorted by the rift, his eyes dark and empty, his face haunted. He stepped forward, his body breaking apart as if made of the same shifting darkness that surrounded us.

"Axel…" I whispered, my breath catching in my throat.

"No." The rift's voice cut through the air, sharp and biting. "This is not Axel. This is what the rift made of him. And soon, this is what it will make of you."

I fought the wave of despair threatening to crush me. "I don't believe you." My voice was stronger now, fueled by the fierce need to keep moving forward. "I won't let you take everything from me."

The figure remained silent for a moment, and then it spoke again, its voice almost a whisper now, but no less terrifying. "The rift does not take, Sarah. It gives. It gives you the truth you can't escape. It gives you the fate you deserve."

Before I could respond, the darkness surged forward, faster than I could react. I barely had time to react before the tendrils of shadow wrapped around me, pulling me toward the figure.

"No!" I screamed, my body resisting, but the force was overwhelming. I felt myself being pulled into the void, into the cold, suffocating grasp of the rift. The world around me swirled and twisted, and I felt my mind starting to unravel.

But through it all, one thought burned in my mind.

I will not give up. I will not become one of them.