Page 105 of The Madness Within

I didn’t flinch.

I stepped into him like a shadow into flame, shoved my hand past his ribs, past the hollow lungs and slick meat. What I gripped wasn’t a heart.

It washis tether, a writhing knot of ancient corruption anchoring the creature wearing Cassian’s stolen face to this plane.

And Iripped.

He screamed.

Not in pain.

Infear.

Because he knew what came next.

Black ichor exploded from his chest, splattering in thick, bubbling arcs. His limbs convulsed as I lifted him with one hand, body suspended like a crucified puppet.

The Gate pulsed behind me, shrieking with hunger. It remembered Kreed. And it wanted more.

“You’re not Cassian,” I growled, my voice warped, layered with the howls of the dead. “You killed my friend.”

His eyes flickered, flashing void white, his mouth spitting curses in languages long extinct. I summoned the shadows.

They obeyed.

They came down like a storm, antlers of pure night, dripping with blood light. They impaled his shoulders, his thighs, his hands, holding him spread and suspended in the air like a grotesque offering.

He howled as the antlers twisted, corkscrewing into him, splitting him openfrom the inside. Not just flesh.Memory. Identity. The false human mask burned away in strips, revealing who he truly was.

What was left underneath wasn’t Cassian, it was a demon named Saze, ancient rot wearing stolen skin.

“Beg,” I whispered, stepping closer.

He spat blood and bile, trying to form words. But the shadows were inside his mouth now. Peeling back his jaw. Tearing his tongue down the middle like a scroll.

“You took his face,” I said, fangs exposed. “Now I take yours.”

The antlersshatteredhim.

No explosion. No fire.

Just the unbearable crunch of bones being rearranged into art. The Gate opened wide and drank what was left of him, soul first.

Itscreamedas it fed, the ground cracking beneath us, the shadows laughing as they licked the last of his essence clean.

As the last of the shadows devoured the creature's twisted form, a flicker of true Cassian, bloody, spectral, and half-smiling, whispered through the void,“Thank you for setting me free, brother... until we meet again.”

I slammed him against the Gate.

And let itseehim.

It peeled him slowly, layer by layer, starting with the stolen skin. Every lie unraveled, every shred of illusion torn away until the demon stood exposed and raw.

The Gate’s vines didn’t drag him in.

Theyburrowedthrough him.

Ripped him apartfrom the inside.

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