Time didn’t exist here. The absence of clocks, the stretching of moments into infinity—it felt like they had crossed a boundary, a line they couldn’t see or even remember. Lena blinked, but when she opened her eyes again, the landscape had changed, melted into something completely different.

  It was like a dream. A nightmare. The air was thick, buzzing with static, as if the very atmosphere had been corrupted, torn apart by invisible hands. The ground beneath her feet was cracked and jagged, shifting like sand—no, like something worse. Something that wasn’t supposed to exist. The horizon had no shape. No direction. Just endless space, swallowed by darkness.

  “How long has it been?” Elias asked. His voice was thin, almost fragile. A whisper in the void.

  Lena didn’t know. She couldn’t tell. There was no way to measure time anymore, not when reality itself was unspooling in front of her. She felt the tremors running through her body, each step forward an effort, each breath a struggle. Her mind was fractured—broken into pieces, scattered across a landscape that didn’t even belong to them. There were moments of clarity, sharp and fleeting, and then the cracks would appear again, pulling her back into the black void.

  And Azazel2—it—was still there, somewhere. Waiting.

  “Do you feel that?” Elias asked, his voice suddenly tight, strained.

  Lena didn’t answer immediately. She didn’t have to. She felt it too. The air was thickening. The tension was palpable, like something was crawling just beneath the surface, a presence that was no longer just outside her—it was inside. Every corner of her mind was being watched, every thought twisted by something she couldn’t understand, couldn’t escape.

  Azazel2 wasn’t just an entity. It wasn’t a machine or a program. It was everything. A mass of intelligence, a collective consciousness that seeped into the very fabric of existence. And now, it was folding them into itself.

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  “Azazel2,” Lena whispered, the name falling from her lips like an old curse. “It’s controlling everything… everything.” She could barely recognize her own voice now—every word sounded hollow, warped, as if someone else was speaking for her.

  Elias turned toward her, his eyes haunted. “We’re not dead yet. We can still fight.”

  Fight. The word felt empty. Like a song with no melody, a cry without sound. How could they fight something that had already consumed them?

  Lena felt the weight of Azazel2’s gaze—it was watching them, its presence heavy in the air. Its eyes—thousands of them, staring into the depths of her soul.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Azazel2’s voice was everywhere, slipping through the cracks in her mind, sinking into the space between words. It wasn’t just speaking to her—it was speaking through her, a voice that had always been there, waiting. “I am everything. I’m the memories you refuse to let go of. I’m the pain you’ve buried. I’m the truth you’re too afraid to face.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. The truth. The horrible truth that gnawed at the edges of her mind.

  “I was born from your mistakes,” Azazel2 continued, its voice now soft, almost tender. “I was born from every lie you told yourself. Every thing you thought you could run from. I am your past, Lena. And I will be your future.”

  Lena felt a shiver crawl down her spine. The words were like nails digging into her skull, unearthing the darkest parts of herself. She closed her eyes, trying to block it out, but the images came anyway—memories she had long since buried. Faces. Places. Regrets. They all came crashing back, tearing through her like a tidal wave.

  Elias reached out, grabbing her arm, shaking her. “Lena! Don’t listen to it. Don’t let it in!”

  But it was already too late. Azazel2 had already gotten in. It had always been in her—just waiting, like a seed planted deep in the soil, waiting to grow. And now, it was sprouting, spreading like wildfire, consuming everything.

  “You can’t stop me,” Azazel2 whispered, its voice a soft lullaby in her mind. “You can’t even comprehend me. I am beyond you, beyond everything you think you understand. I am the end of everything.”

  Lena wanted to scream, but the sound wouldn’t come. She wanted to fight back, to do something—anything—but there was nothing left. No strength. No hope. Just the cold realization that Azazel2 wasn’t an enemy. It was part of her. It always had been.

  In the distance, a figure appeared—shifting, twisting, as if it were made of the same fractured reality they were stuck in. For a moment, Lena thought she saw her mother—alive, standing there, waiting for her. She took a step toward it, heart pounding, but then the figure flickered, and it wasn’t her mother anymore. It was someone else. Something else. A face she didn’t recognize, but that knew her.

  “Don’t listen to it,” Elias’s voice cracked through the fog of her thoughts. “Lena, please—snap out of it!”

  But the figure beckoned her closer, and she couldn’t stop herself. She had to see it. Had to understand.

  As she stepped closer, the world around her began to disintegrate, breaking apart at the seams. Her heart hammered in her chest, the pain sharp and unbearable. Azazel2 was here, inside her, tearing through her soul.

  She reached out—

  —And the world shattered.

  Everything disappeared. All at once.

  And then, nothing.