The rift-world had no concept of day or night—only fractured shards of false reality, flickering overhead like broken TV screens. Ethan stumbled among these counterfeit ruins, the "key-mark" in his palm burning hot, each step landing as if on someone else's dying words.
He thought he would be alone forever—until a throat-shredding shout broke the static.
"Eee—than!"
The voice was ragged, but familiar enough to stop his heart for a beat. Ethan looked up and saw three figures emerging from the rift's mist: Mason, Irene, and Kai, still chewing his eternal wad of gum.
They were alive.
Ethan almost couldn't believe it. After nightmare storms, labyrinth devourings, phantom trials—these people should have long since been reduced to ground-dust motes. Yet here they came, smiling in a way that was all wrong.
"You… how's that possible?" Ethan's throat was dry, the words edged with a suppressed joy.
Mason spoke first, voice low:"We crawled out from the other side of the rift, Ethan. Seeing you—it's almost like a miracle."
Irene's face was chalk-white, her sockets dry of tears but gleaming with some greasy sheen, as though her pupils had been lacquered with kerosene. Her voice was soft:"We didn't die. We just… found another way to live."
Kai kept chewing gum, but his grin split too far, stretching to his ears. The sticky chew-sound was no longer playful—it was cartilage, not candy.
Ethan's heart sank.
—Contamination.
His old teammates had reunited, but they weren't the same. Their bodies were just costumes now, stuffed with whatever should never have existed.
Mason extended his hand. A crack opened in his palm—not blood, but writhing black threads seeping out."You've changed too, Ethan. You reek of the Key. We can feel it."
"Feel this," Ethan muttered coldly, fingers brushing his half-ruined weapon. "You're not my teammates. At least, not anything whole."
The air went still.
Then Irene giggled—except it was two voices layered: hers and another, low, guttural, reeking of void."Whole? We haven't been whole for a long time. Ethan, you think you're still human? The nightmare energy inside you—it's filthier than ours."
Kai spat out his gum, now chewed to pulp. It landed wriggling like a little snake."Drop the act, bro. We just accepted reality before you did. The void's the boss here. Resist, and it only hurts more."
Ethan smirked, bitter as rust:"So what are you now, sales reps for Oblivion? You here to make me sign the membership form, or just split me open to check how much the Key's worth?"
Mason's eyes flickered—hit too close to home. He muttered:"No, we don't want your life. We want reunion. Half the Key's in your hand, the other half in your chest. Let us in, and together we'll… finish the final puzzle."
At that moment, Ethan's mind betrayed him with an absurd image: standing before the gate of nothingness, while his corrupted friends slotted themselves like gears into his body, turning him into some cosmic lock-pick.
—Disgusting. Ridiculous. Terrifyingly plausible.
"Get lost," Ethan growled, his voice a stone dropping into ice water.
Irene's smile froze, then her whole face melted like wax, revealing the hollow underneath, crawling with black filaments."Still the same Ethan. Always the lone wolf, always denying you're just another gear. But you'll understand—"
She didn't finish. Kai lunged, mouth yawned wide—too wide—splitting down to his chest, darkness writhing inside.
Ethan's body moved faster than thought. A slash of nightmare energy erupted—black fire engulfed Kai. He shrieked, yet laughed, laughter full of mockery:"You think you can kill me? We're already part of the void!"
Mason and Irene spread their arms as if to embrace Ethan. Their bodies twisted, bones cracking into alien rhythms, skin peeling like a snake's molt to reveal the threads beneath.
Ethan clenched his teeth. The key-mark seared in his flesh again. He knew now: this "reunion" was nothing but contamination's closing net.
"Fine then." He grinned, a lunatic's grimace. "Let's see if you can turn me into a gear before I burn you to ash."
The rift-winds rose, violent, howling like a funeral march—an absurd dirge for this grotesque reunion.