Ethan's eyes flickered open to nothing but void. His body felt weightless, suspended in an ocean of outright darkness. His heart dashed, looking for something, anything, to anchor himself to reality. But there was nothing, no light, no sound, just the perpetual abyss.“Clara!” he called out, his voice scarcely more than a whisper within the choking silence. No reaction. Fear surged through him as he walked into the darkness, trusting to find her hand or probably following her presence.A cold shudder ran down his spine as the memory of the shadowy figure lingered in his intellect. Was this the end? Had they been consumed by the abyss entirely?But then, faintly, he heard it, a voice. Soft, like a distant echo. It was Clara.“Ethan... Ethan, are you there?”“I’m here!” he shouted, pushing against the invisible weight that pressed down on him. He stumbled forward, the ground or what passed for it, shifting beneath his feet. Each step felt like walking through thick mud, slow and labored
The chamber around them crumbled into chaos, with pieces of the ceiling smashing down and the ground part open, uncovering a bottomless abyss underneath. The air was thick with the energy of the abyss, a harsh constraint that made it difficult to breathe. Ethan held Clara near as the room around them kept on dropping separately, their grasp on reality slipping away with each passing moment.“We need to move!” Ethan yelled over the stunning thunder of the collapsing chamber. But as they attempted to take a step further, the ground underneath them crumbled apart, sending them tumbling into the void.For a brief minute, they were weightless, suspended within the obscurity with nothing to hold on to. The abyss surged around them, a pernicious drive that intended to drag them more profound into its profundity. But just as it appeared they would be lost until the end of time, they landed hard on a strong surface.Ethan moaned in torment as he pushed himself up, the world around him still tu
Clara lurched as she fell through the portal, her heart beating in her chest. The warmth of the familiar realm wrapped her, but it brought no consolation. She spun around, searching desperately for Ethan. But the portal was gone. "Ethan!" she shouted, her voice resounding through the trees. Her fears intensify, the reality sinking in, Ethan was caught within the abyss, alone.Clara's knees fell to the ground and her eyes filled with tears. It was unbearable to think of Ethan, a man so firm and fearless that he had been locked in the darkness. She had to get him back. But how? The abyss was not a place one may basically walk into and out of. It was a living, breathing entity that feeds on fear and lose hope.The ground trembled underneath her as a sudden wind cleared through the forest, carrying with it a faint, inauspicious whisper. It wasn't just the wind. The abyss was trying to speak to her, to taunt her. Clara's blood ran cold as she caught fragments of the eerie message: "You ca
The air was thick with tension as Clara and Ethan went in opposition to the abyssal creatures that beset them. Their shapes moved and twirled, showing up both strong and transient, as though they were made from the shadows of the abyss. The cavern had a life force with the beating of the enormous heart at its center, each beat reverberating profoundly inside of Clara's chest.Ethan's eyes met Clara's, a glint of tenacity in his look. “That heart needs to be destroyed,” he whispered, his voice scarcely capable of being heard over the reverberating pulse.Clara gestured, grasping her blade more tightly. “But we have to get through them first.”The creatures started to advance, their movements liquid and unsettling. Each step they took appeared to deplete the light from the air, leaving a choking darkness. Clara felt their noxiousness, their hunger, like a physical constraint squeezing down on her.With a furious cry, Clara charged at the closest creature, her blade cutting through the a
Clara's shout reverberated through the obscurity as she and Ethan plunged into the abyss underneath. The ground disintegrated underneath them, and the cold, shadowy abyss gulped them entirely. Her hold fixed around Ethan's limp body, denying to let go, as the world around them broke up into chaos.The plunge appeared perpetual. They were falling through a tunnel of darkness, with the dividers surging past them quickly to see. Clara felt the air developing colder, the weight expanding as they sank more profoundly into the abyss. It was as though they were being pulled into the very heart of the abyss itself, where no light could ever reach.At long last, after what felt like forever, they hit strong ground. The effect was jostling, thumping the wind out of Clara and sending her rolling over the unpleasant, uneven surface. She wheezed for breath, her chest hurling as she battled to get her bearings.Ethan lay close to her, still oblivious. His face was pale, and the faint shine that had
The void lingered before them, an unending, dark field that appeared to eat up the light exuding from Ethan. Clara's heart beats in her chest as the pull of the abyss escalates, dragging them closer to its dull grasp. She held Ethan's hand firmly, denying to let go no matter what happened, as the drive undermined to tear apart.“Ethan!” she yelled over the stunning thunder of the collapsing abyss. “We have to fight it! We can’t let it take us!”Ethan's eyes were shining with a furious, golden light, but Clara could see the strain in his expression. The power coursing through him was monstrous, but it appeared to falter within the face of the abyss's persistent drag. He turned to Clara, his voice filled with boldness.“We're not going down without a fight,” he answered, his grasp fixing on her hand. “But we've got to go more profound. This is the only viable way to end it.”Clara's breath caught in her throat as she realized what he implied. They couldn't escape the abyss, not yet. The
The ground underneath Clara and Ethan part wide open, but rather than being gulped by the abyss, they were tossed over the collapsing chamber. The darkness around them turned and surged, but Ethan's light burned brightly, pushing back against the infringing shadows. Clara landed hard, her vision obscuring for a minute as she battled to recapture her balance. When she looked up, her blood ran cold.The entity that had developed from the smashed monolith stood at the center of the destruction, its shape towering and ill defined, a moving mass of darkness with gleaming eyes that punctured through the despair. It exuded a pernicious power, the air around it vibrating with the drive of its nearness. This was the source of the abyss, the ultimate adversary they had to destroy.Ethan staggered to his feet, his golden light flickering as he faced the entity. "We end this now," he said, his voice filled with grim determination. He glanced at Clara, and despite the terror of the moment, there w
The aftermath of the fight left the air thick with an unsettling quietness. Clara and Ethan, still debilitated from their encounter with the abyss, found themselves in a landscape scarred by the remainders of their battle. The ground was littered with the flotsam and jetsam of the crushed chamber, and the air was overwhelming with the harsh fragrance of seared earth. The abyss was gone or at least, it showed up to be. But the faint tremor that had shaken the ground minutes earlier waited in Clara's intuition like a tingle she couldn't scratch.Clara looked at Ethan, who was inclining on her for support. His strength was returning slowly, but his eyes betrayed the same unease she felt. The entity’s destruction should have been the end, yet something was wrong, something they could both sense but not yet define.“We need to regroup,” Ethan said, his voice still hoarse. “We need to find Marcus and the others. There might be more going on than we realized.”Clara nodded, helping him to hi