(A/N):
Drop a meme here that you find funny. Or reflects your mood.
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Danny watched with a face that split between drunk stupor and dawning terror.
His long lost family were being torned apart by the women turned wolf and the flaming monster which don't even have flesh in his body.
For the first time in hours something in his eyes focused—
Guilt, fear, the memory of old loyalties.
He tried to step between the wolf and Sally,
But the chain coiled around his calf and pinned him.
He looked at Toni—
At Rod—and then at the wolf mauling his "family."
The shock made him sag to his knees.
Rod, bleeding and furious, found purchase with the spear and lunged at a cannibal who'd staggered toward Jillian.
He skewered him cleanly.
Vic—
Their earlier realization about his absence now burned as a new horror in the room.
Jillian screamed as the scene unfolded.
She fought the hands that held her and wriggled free enough to slide away toward the stairs with Toni.
While Nick helping Rod followed them in panic, fear and confusion.
Hope—
were wolf—
Didn't stop.
She tore, she punished,
She spared when Jojo flicked a finger in a tiny, near-invisible command.
She targeted the ones who'd forgotten mercy:
The ones who laughed at blood as if it were seasoning.
Where she bit, they fell.
Where she grabbed, they were undone.
When she finally backed away, panting, her fur ruffled and stained, five corpses lay scattered—
Some already ashen, some still steaming.
The room stank of iron and fur and burned hair.
The wolf shook herself and, for a blink,
Hope's human face broke through the snarl her eyes shone wet with rage.
Ghost Rider stepped between the survivors and the ruin.
"____"
He was no longer laughing.
Toni, Rod, Jillian, and Nick had just begun to stumble toward the stairwell—
Inadu and Freya ushering them forward—
When the Ghost Rider's voice cracked through the night like thunder on stone.
"STOP."
The word hit them like a shockwave.
"____"
"____"
"____"
Every muscle locked.
Even the air seemed to hold its breath.
Flames pulsed brighter around Jojo's skeletal frame,
Licking the walls,
Casting monstrous shadows that danced and twisted across the blood-slick floor.
Rod froze mid-step, his hand tightening around Toni's wrist.
Jillian whimpered.
Nick swallowed hard.
None of them dared to turn back.
And then—
Danny moved.
"____"
His chest heaved, the sound between sob and snarl.
Sob~
His fingers brushed against the handle of the axe lying in the gore beside a corpse.
He hesitated only a second—
Just long enough for something like shame to flicker behind his eyes—
Before clutching it tight.
With a ragged scream, Danny charged.
Ahhhhh~
"LEAVE HER ALONE!"
He roared, leaping forward with everything in him,
Swinging the axe down toward the Rider's back like a man throwing his soul into the blow.
The steel never landed.
The air itself seemed to catch him.
Danny's body halted mid-strike,
"____"
Frozen inches from the flaming skull.
His feet kicked uselessly,
The axe trembling in his hands as some invisible force bound him there—
Like time itself refused to let him touch the demon before him.
The Ghost Rider didn't even turn.
He exhaled a slow, rasping hiss through the fire in his ribs.
SIGH~
It sounded like wind blowing through the gates of hell.
His head tilted, just enough that the hollow sockets glanced sideways at the floating man.
"YOU THINK YOU CAN TOUCH ME? LIKE THAT?"
Danny thrashed, veins standing out on his neck, voice breaking.
"LET ME GO! LET ME GO, YOU MONSTER!"
Jojo's flames flared—
Then dimmed to a smoldering, suffocating heat.
He turned away from Danny as if the boy's rage were beneath notice,
Focusing instead on Sally,
Who had been tied down by his chain.
The Rider's boots scraped against the scorched floor as he walked toward her,
Each step leaving molten prints in the tiles.
Behind him,
Danny still hung mid-air, screaming and kicking, his body trembling as the heat grew unbearable.
"YOU CALL ME MONSTER,"
The Rider growled, voice low and cavernous,
"BUT YOU FED ON INNOCENTS. YOU BETRAYED YOUR FRIENDS. YOU MADE YOUR CHOICE."
Sally hissed, clutching her side where the chain had burned her earlier.
"He's one of us! You've got no right—"
Jojo's skull snapped toward her.
"I'M NOT HERE FOR YOUR RIGHTS."
He raised one hand, and the chain flared alive again—
Burning orange, coiling like a serpent hungry for sin.
It cast its glow across the trembling faces of everyone in the hall.
"I'M HERE FOR YOUR SOULS."
Danny screamed louder, the axe slipping from his grip as tears burned down his cheeks, evaporating before they could fall.
Freya's voice whispered low beside Hope in her were wolf form, Lizzie and Joshi.
"He's judging them."
Lizzie nodded.
Nod~
"____"
While Hope, eyes wide, the beast in her still uneasy from her own transformation.
The Ghost Rider lifted his head fully now,
Hollow sockets blazing brighter than the full moon outside.
The Ghost Rider's flaming hand shot out,
Clamping around Sally's throat.
"____"
She kicked and thrashed wildly,
Her boots scraping the tiles,
But the grip only tightened.
Smoke curled from her skin as the infernal fire licked upward,
Her hair withering into drifting ashes.
"LOOK INTO MY EYES."
His voice was an infernal decree—
An ancient sentence that no human tongue should have spoken.
Sally's eyes met the hollow pits of the Rider's skull.
For a moment, she saw only darkness and then fire.
Then the world around her collapsed.
She was back inside the resort's kitchen—
Cold, metallic, and stinking of blood.
Shadows loomed all around her, not people but echoes of the sins she had buried.
The laughter of her kin twisted into screams.
Every cruel word, every moment of savagery,
Every victim's final look of terror came flooding back,
Wrapping around her like chains.
She tried to scream,
But the sound was swallowed by the flames.
Her own voice became the wails of those she had hurt.
The vision tore through her mind like a storm, forcing her to feel everything she had inflicted—
Every ounce of suffering, fear, and despair—
Until there was nothing left but the truth of what she was.
When the light faded,
Her body went limp in the Rider's grasp.
Her eyes, once defiant, were empty and turned into molten and burned black and cracks on it—
Consumed by the reflection of her own evil.
Jojo let her fall.
Thud.
The corpse hit the ground with a dull thud, smoke curling from her lifeless skin.
"JUDGEMENT IS DONE."
"____"
"Nooooooooo!!!"
Danny's scream tore through the burning battlefield as Sally's lifeless body hit the ground.
For a moment, the world seemed to freeze around him—
The flames, the screams,
The scent of scorched wood and blood all blending into one maddening blur.
His mind cracked.
He had finally found his family,
The ones he had searched for all his life.
He had chosen them over his friends—
Over Toni, the girl who once swore she'd never give up on him.
And now… they were gone the one his family who he betrayed Toni and others.
Rage, raw and blinding, rose like bile in his throat.
"YOU MONSTER!"
He howled, turning his hate toward the flaming skull before him.
"I'LL KILL YOU! YOUR DEATH WILL BE BY MY HAND!"
He tried to lurched forward, the fallen axe, ready to throw himself into the inferno.
But couldn't move an inch since being lifted into the air.
But before he could take in what ever he just said in rage,
The air around him shifted—
"____"
Thick, suffocating, alive.
Something invisible seized him.
His body twisted and was hurled sideways like a rag doll.
He crashed into the shattered floorboards, coughing, and when he looked up—
He froze.
"____"
Two women stood over him.
Freya's eyes radiating killing intent, a storm of ancient magic swirling behind them.
Her voice was calm, almost pitying.
Beside her stood Inadu, her expression carved from stone.
The darkness around her eyes deepened as faint black veins crept along her skin like cracks in marble.
From the shadows beside them came a low, guttural growl.
Growl~
Golden eyes—
Feral, sharp, and merciless—
Gleamed in the smoke.
Hope, her wolf stirring beneath the moonlight,
Her breath coming out in shuddering growls.
Inadu stepped forward, gaze fixed on Danny.
"____"
Her voice, cold and final, sliced through the crackle of the flames.
"Leave this insect to me."
The firelight bent around her as her power flared—
A darkness so dense it seemed to devour the glow itself.
As Danny's trembling hands pressed against the dirt,
Trying to drag himself backward,
His breath came in sharp, broken gasps.
Every movement sent a stabbing pain through his spine, like fire crawling up his nerves.
Then—
"Stop!"
The sharp cry cut through the tension like a blade.
"____"
"____"
"____"
Everyone turned.
Out from behind the wrecked fence and smoldering debris stepped Toni—
Her face pale, streaked with tears and soot.
Her eyes flicked between Danny and the two women standing over him—
Freya with her calm, icy poise, and Inadu whose black eyes glowed with a haunting, deathly void.
Danny's eyes widened in desperate hope.
"Toni… Toni, please,"
He stammered, voice cracking.
"It—it was my fault, I know. I shouldn't have… I shouldn't have done it, I just—please, help me. You know I didn't mean it. You know I just wanted to protect them—my family."
He dragged himself an inch forward, fingers clawing at the dirt, his expression twisting between pain and pleading.
"Please, Toni. Don't let them kill me. I can make it right. I swear, I can fix everything…"
But Freya didn't move.
"____"
Inadu's lips curled into a cold smirk, her voice a low hiss.
Smirk~
"How convenient… now he remembers guilt."
Toni's throat tightened.
Her eyes shimmered—
Not just with tears, but with the raw ache of betrayal.
Danny blinked in disbelief as Toni's expression hardened.
For a moment,
Her trembling lips looked like they might form his name—
But instead, she stepped closer, yanked off her sandals,
And smacked him square across the face.
THWACK~
The sharp thwack echoed through the clearing.
Before he could react,
She hit him again.
Then she spat at him—
Her tears finally spilling free as her voice cracked with fury.
"HOW COULD YOU?!"
She screamed, her whole body shaking.
"You betrayed us, Danny! You betrayed me!"
Danny flinched at every word.
"____"
"You stabbed your own brother—your only family left—and you expect me to what? To welcome you with open arms?"
She shouted, her voice rising with each word.
"You think you deserve sympathy? You think you deserve forgiveness?"
Toni's breath came out ragged,
Her grief and rage twisting together into a bitter laugh.
"What's next, huh? You want a Ballon d'Or for betrayal? For switching sides right when it mattered most?"
Danny's lips trembled, guilt written all over his face.
"Toni, I—"
"Don't,"
She cut him off, voice trembling but sharp as glass.
"Don't you dare say my name. You don't deserve it."
Her hand lowered, the sandal slipping from her grip as she turned slightly away—
Tears dripping down her chin.
The air hung thick with silence, broken only by Danny's shallow breathing and the low,
Rumbling growl from the beastly presence beside him.
Danny's pale face twitched at every word Toni hurled at him —
"____"
Guilt, anger, disbelief, all crashing through him like waves.
But when her voice finally broke into silence, another one slipped in —
Cold, venomous, and laced with dark amusement.
"How pathetic,"
Inadu sneered, her voice echoing like a hiss from a tomb.
"Begging for forgiveness after you've already dug your own grave. You're not even worth the dirt that'll cover you."
Danny turned toward her, his lips parting in protest —
But Freya's voice cut through, sharp and detached.
"Why waste time?"
She said, stepping closer, her eyes gleaming with frost.
"Let's dissect him. Let him taste his own flesh — maybe then he'll understand the pain he's caused."
Inadu gave a lazy shrug, almost smirking.
Smirk~
"Fair enough."
Before Danny could move, Inadu's hand shot out —
Her fingers curling into his hair, gripping a fistful so tight it tore strands from his scalp.
She yanked him up, forcing him to meet her unfeeling gaze.
"P-please—"
Danny gasped, but his plea cut short when his body convulsed violently.
A surge of energy —
Dark, crackling, electric —
Coursed through him.
His eyes widened.
He could feel it —
His strength draining, his skin tightening, drying,
His breath wheezing as his youth bled away.
His veins bulged dark under the skin, wrinkles spreading like wildfire across his face.
"____"
His hands trembled, shrinking and shriveling before his very eyes.
Freya watched, expression unreadable,
Her icy gaze reflecting the horror of his rapid decay.
Danny's scream turned hoarse, then weak —
Until it broke into a frail rasp.
In seconds, the man who had betrayed his friends, his lover,
His family, was nothing more than a hunched, withered shell, eyes wide with disbelief as his life ebbed away.
Inadu tilted her head slightly, her grip still holding his thinning hair, and muttered coldly —
"Your punishment fits your sin."
Danny's voice cracked as he pleaded,
"Please… please, I'm sorry… I didn't mean— I didn't—"
But his words fell flat,
Choked by the tremors running through his frail, aged body.
His skin hung loose, his voice barely a whisper.
The sight was pitiful —
Even monstrous in its own right.
Toni, Nick, Rod, His girlfriend and Jillian stood frozen.
"____"
"____"
"____"
They'd hated him moments ago,
Cursed his betrayal, but this—
Seeing him decay alive, screaming for help—
Was unbearable.
Their faces tightened with conflicting emotions.
Pity warred with rage.
Anger battled sorrow.
Even Toni, who moments earlier had spat at him, now looked uncertain.
Her fists clenched, her chest heaving with uneven breaths.
Then a deep, echoing sound filled the air —
THUD… THUD…
THUD…
Ghost Rider's flaming boots burned into the ground as he stepped forward.
His flaming skull cast wild shadows across their faces.
The air grew hotter.
The scent of scorched earth and brimstone filled the resort yard.
The group instinctively stepped back, the heat almost suffocating.
Even though he had saved them before, the sheer aura radiating from him made it impossible to feel unafraid.
He stopped before Danny's trembling, decrepit body.
The firelight reflected in Danny's watering eyes.
Ghost Rider raised a skeletal hand, his chain clinking faintly, and pointed straight at him.
"HE REEKS OF SIN,"
The Rider thundered, voice booming like an ancient judgment echoing through hellfire.
"THERE IS NO REDEMPTION IN HIM."
Danny whimpered as Ghost Rider's bony hand gripped his collar, lifting him effortlessly into the air.
"____"
Flames licked around them but did not burn.
The Rider's hollow sockets glowed brighter as he peered deep into Danny's soul —
Not with the Penance Stare this time, but with something deeper, more into his soul and memory of his committed sins.
For a few moments, silence.
"____"
"____"
"____"
Only the crackling of fire and the faint wheeze of Danny's breath filled the space.
Then Ghost Rider lowered him slowly to the ground.
His burning gaze turned toward Jillian and Nick.
"DANNY WAS A PEDOPHILE."
The words hit like an explosion.
Jillian's face went blank.
"____"
"____"
Nick blinked, confused, disbelieving.
Ghost Rider's skull tilted slightly, his hollow eyes flaring brighter.
"HE DEFILED AND MURDERED A GIRL NAMED ANDY PALLETT."
Jillian's heart stopped.
Her lips trembled.
"W–what… what did you say?"
Ghost Rider took a single step closer, his voice low and resonant like rolling thunder.
"HE RAPED AND KILLED HER. HE HID HER BODY BEHIND THE TREE BURIED IT BEHIND YOUR HOUSE, NICK."
Jillian's scream tore through the silence, raw and agonized.
"Nooooooo!!!"
She stumbled backward, shaking her head violently.
"NO—NO, THAT'S NOT TRUE! ANDY—she—she went missing, she—"
But Nick's face had gone pale.
"____"
The memory slammed into him—
The smell of rot one summer morning,
The old tree at the back of their yard,
The search parties that had found nothing.
He looked at Danny, his eyes wide with fury and horror.
"You… you monster."
Danny's trembling lips moved, trying to speak,
But the only sound that escaped was a choked sob.
Freya and Inadu watched silently, unreadable.
The flames flickered around them like witnesses to a divine punishment.
Ghost Rider's gaze never softened.
His chains rattled as he spoke, final and absolute.
"THE SINS OF THE DAMNED CAN BE HIDDEN FROM MEN— BUT NEVER FROM ME. I AM THE ONE WHO HARVEST THESE SINNER'S WHO DON'T REPENT'S..."
Danny's breath rattled—
Harsh, uneven, desperate.
His hands clawed weakly at the dirt as the last traces of youth drained from his body like water leaking from a broken vessel.
His skin shriveled and split, veins collapsing beneath parchment-like flesh.
Within seconds, he was barely human—
More a withered corpse than a man, his bones jutting sharp against his skin.
A final, rasping cough tore from his throat before silence fell.
Cough~
"____"
His heart fluttered once… twice… and then stopped.
Ghost Rider stood over him, the flames wreathing his skull flickering brighter for a moment,
As though sensing the life leaving the body.
"YOUR SINS ARE WEIGHED… AND YOUR SOUL IS DAMNED,"
He rumbled, his voice echoing like thunder in a cathedral.
He tilted his head slightly, as if in disdain, and then spat.
The molten saliva struck Danny's mummified chest and sizzled violently.
In an instant,
Puff~
Fire erupted—
Hungry, roaring, and alive.
The flames consumed him completely, spreading from his torso to his limbs, turning skin and bone to ash in seconds.
The stench of burning flesh filled the air, thick and nauseating, But none dared to look away.
When the fire died, nothing remained.
Only a dark patch of scorched earth and a few drifting gray motes that the night wind carried away.
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(Author's POV)
(A/N):
Thanks for reading the chapter!
Please give a review and power stone!!!