Skye is dead.
How she perished is a mystery. All she knows is that she is trapped in After, a makeshift city of souls surrounded by infinite darkness and terrifying monsters that tear ghosts apart.
But while all other ghosts accept the eternity of...
Rất tiếc! Hình ảnh này không tuân theo hướng dẫn nội dung. Để tiếp tục đăng tải, vui lòng xóa hoặc tải lên một hình ảnh khác.
The top of the staircase was finally within sight.
But the shadows were almost on top of us.
I bared my teeth and looked straight ahead at the crest of the ziggurat as I climbed, not daring to even think about stopping. A monster hooked its claws in the back of my tunic, about to pull me backward into the hissing, salivating mass of shadows behind us.
There was a screech from the sky as a little black shape dive-bombed my attacker. Nannāru gave another battle cry as she pecked at the shadow's eyes, driving it away from me. Even more feathery forms followed her. Thousands, in fact.
Crow's flock descended from the heavens like a sweeping wave of dark valkyries to keep the monsters at bay. "He left his birds with us!" I called to my equally dumbstruck friends.
"Let's not waste this gift," our leather-clad leader said, looking fierce, with a leg propped up on the next step up as the wind whipped at her coat. She shook shadow blood from her machete. "Keep going!"
Crows cried out and burst into dust as shadows ripped them apart, but the flock kept fighting. "Thank you," I whispered to them. Then I followed my friends to the peak.
At last, I crested the very last step and rose, gasping, alongside my friends.
We all stared in stunned silence at what we discovered.
There was no temple atop the ziggurat. There was nothing at all, save for an enormous hole blown through the ground, like an empty eye socket. I tip-toed across stone toward the edge of the abyss and peered inside. All I saw was blackness. "I don't understand..."
We'd come all this way...for nothing?
"You said ziggu-whats were solid all the way through, right Vale?" Webb said as he, too, stared down into the pit.
"I did," she answered. "I also said there was supposed to be a temple up here."
Webb pointed his glowing sword into the never-ending hole. "That's not solid."
I ran my fingers through my windblown hair. It was windy up here, almost too windy to hear the battle of the shadows down the steps. I pulled out my flashlight and pointed into the hole. Still nothing. But something on the stone roof I knelt on caught my eye. I pointed my light at a final pair of silhouettes, entwined in an embrace—holding each other in their last moments. They had stood only feet away from the blown out ceiling at the center of the plateau. "Something was here," I said to my friends. I couldn't look away from the two shadows seared forever into stone. "Something exploded here. Right here." I pointed the beam of my flashlight into the chasm. "This is what killed all the ghosts of Aḫ-ḫur."
"Somebody pissed off god," Webb said.
I could see him shivering. Vale, too, was hugging herself. We all gazed into the unknown together, side by side. Wind rose from the pit, making the ziggurat moan as if something deep, deep inside it exhaled.
"Did Blackburne and Crow go down there?" I wondered aloud.
"Skye, I can see you."
I jolted at the sound of Dominic's voice and clapped a hand to my forehead. Now, of all times, my stupid, anchored brain was hearing things again.
But both Webb and Vale stiffened. Vale spun around, her braids slapping me in the face. "What was that?" she asked.
"Wait," I said. "You guys can hear that, too?" Dominic's voice wasn't just in my head? Was he really here?
I felt it, then—that tugging in my chest. I twisted my head around in either direction. Then I let out a strangled gasp.
Because I couldn't be seeing what I saw, right?
On the other end of the plateau, past the hole carved into it, was Light. It rose from behind the ancient structure in a winding, snake-like manner. White and stark, it danced behind the ziggurat like a halo, reminiscent of an aurora borealis. And amidst the Light stood a single man. My heart raced at the sight of him—at the sight of Dominic standing on the other side of the gap. Not a hollow. A living, breathing human being had entered the barren land of the dead. My two companions stood at either side of me lowered their weapons as we all stared.
"Skye," Vale breathed, stunned. "What the hell is happening?"
I didn't answer her because I couldn't tear my eyes away from the man surrounded by Light.
"Dominic?"
Rất tiếc! Hình ảnh này không tuân theo hướng dẫn nội dung. Để tiếp tục đăng tải, vui lòng xóa hoặc tải lên một hình ảnh khác.
Tell me how It's better when the sun goes down We'll never escape this town I wasn't scared when he caught me Look what it taught me Tell me howIt's better if I make no sound I will never escape these doubts I wasn't dead when they found me Watch as they pull me down
Rất tiếc! Hình ảnh này không tuân theo hướng dẫn nội dung. Để tiếp tục đăng tải, vui lòng xóa hoặc tải lên một hình ảnh khác.
