The Fall Into Madness

Chapter 38: The Fall Into Madness

Darkness swallowed them whole. Tara felt her stomach lurch as she plummeted into an abyss where there was no sky, no ground—only the sensation of falling through endless nothingness. The others screamed around her, their voices ripped away by the void.

Then, without warning, they stopped falling.

Tara gasped, her body jerking as she landed on something solid. But when she looked down, there was nothing beneath her feet. No floor. No surface. Just an empty expanse of swirling void, stretching into eternity.

The others were nearby, each struggling to find their footing on an invisible platform.

Kael looked around, his breath ragged. "Where the hell are we?"

A voice—his voice—answered.

"Welcome to the Last Joke."

Tara's blood ran cold. She turned and found Kael standing behind Kael. The second Kael grinned, an exaggerated, stretched smile that did not belong to him.

And then, more of them appeared.

Another Emrick. Another Tara. Copies of themselves, each subtly wrong—their eyes too wide, their expressions twisted into something unnatural.

Ludicar's laughter boomed from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"Oh, my dearest mortals! Did you think falling into the end of everything would be simple? No, no, no. You are now in the space between punchlines. The moment before the joke is delivered."

Tara clenched her fists. "What do you want, Ludicar?"

The air shimmered, and Ludicar materialized before them, his mask shifting—one moment, a grotesque grin; the next, a blank void where a face should be. He multiplied, his copies flickering and twisting around them like reflections in a shattered mirror.

He spread his arms. "I want to see how the joke ends."

Tara's gut twisted. She knew now—Ludicar wasn't playing the game. He was the game. Every step they had taken, every trial they had faced, had been leading here—to this moment, where he held all the cards.

Emrick drew his sword. "If you think we're just going to let you win—"

"Oh, my dear boy." Ludicar chuckled. "You've already lost."

And then the copies moved.

They lunged at them—Tara against Tara, Kael against Kael, Emrick against Emrick. They were shadows of themselves, mimicking their every move, anticipating every strike before it even landed.

Tara barely dodged as her own reflection slashed at her with a dagger. "We can't fight them like this!"

"Then what do we do?" Kael gritted his teeth as he blocked an attack from his double, their blades clashing in perfect unison.

Tara's mind raced. This was a joke. A trick. Ludicar never played fair—his games always had a cruel punchline.

And then she realized.

The joke was them.

She looked at her shadow-self and whispered, "I surrender."

The reflection froze.

Ludicar's voice sharpened. "What are you doing?"

Tara took a deep breath. "I surrender. You win, Ludicar."

Kael's and Emrick's doppelgängers hesitated.

Ludicar's form flickered, his laughter faltering. "No, no, no. That's not how the joke goes."

Tara stared directly at him. "Isn't it? The best jokes end with something unexpected, don't they?"

The space around them shuddered. The shadows twitched, glitching as if reality itself was rejecting them.

Ludicar's mask cracked.

The void trembled. The laughter stopped.

And then—

Everything collapsed.