Chapter 64: Lost in the Void

Ellie felt weightless, adrift in an endless abyss. She didn't remember how she got here.

One moment, she had been trapped in that suffocating darkness, hearing whispers that were not her own. The next… she was floating.

But this wasn't freedom.

It was something worse.

The air—if there even was air—was thick with a presence. It wasn't like Victoria's—consumed by rage and vengeance. No, this was ancient, patient… and far, far darker.

Ellie's breaths came in short gasps, but there was no sound. No echo. Not even her heartbeat.

"Where am I?" she whispered, but her voice was swallowed by the void.

Something shifted.

She felt it before she saw it.

A creeping sensation, like icy fingers trailing down her spine. Her body—or whatever form she had here—stiffened.

She wasn't alone.

A shadow slithered in the distance. Then another. And another.

They had no shape. No eyes. Yet she knew they were watching.

Ellie tried to move, but she had no control. She was being pulled, dragged deeper into this endless space.

Her fingers curled into fists. She wanted to scream, to fight back—but what was she even fighting?

Then she heard it.

A whisper.

Low. Hungry.

"You are not supposed to be here."

Her chest tightened. The voice wasn't human. It was layered, like a chorus of unseen mouths speaking in unison.

She tried to speak, but her throat felt sealed shut.

The shadows coiled around her, moving closer, curling like smoke. Something was reaching for her.

"What… do you want?" she forced out, her voice barely a breath.

A slow, dreadful chuckle.

"You."

The shadows lunged.

Ellie screamed as icy tendrils wrapped around her, squeezing, suffocating. Her body jerked and twisted, pulled in every direction.

Pain lanced through her—not physical, but something deeper, something that clawed at her very soul.

She was being devoured.

"No!" she choked, thrashing, trying to escape—but the shadows were everywhere.

They whispered against her skin, voices slipping into her mind, filling it with horrors.

She saw herself drowning.

Not in water, but in darkness. Her reflection stared back at her—except it wasn't her. The eyes were hollow. Her mouth stretched in a silent scream.

And then—

Her reflection smiled.

"You cannot escape."

Ellie's vision blurred. The world tilted, breaking apart.

The last thing she saw before the void swallowed her whole—

Was herself, reaching out… and pulling her under.