Then time fractured.
The Memory Catacombs
Adrian fell through layers of crystallized trauma:
First Stratum: The Boarding School Bloodbath
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Headmaster Voss' mitre-mask lay shattered on the chapel floor, revealing the VII-ALPHA brand weeping maggots
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The chessboard was now a mass grave, each square containing a child-sized coffin with Adrian's name
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One tiny hand thrust up through fresh dirt, clutching a rook piece that whispered: "They made us play until our fingers bled"
Second Stratum: The Omega's Last Stand
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The original Omega (his face a blurred copy of Kaelis') stood before the inverted drill
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His chest yawned open to reveal seven spinning gears made of human teeth
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With each turn, they ground down another memory of sunlight
Third Stratum: The Crash Site Revelation
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Not an accident—a synchronized event
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Dozens of identical car wrecks stacked in a spiral, each containing:
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A dead version of Adrian
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A living Demon King embryo
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Vaulk's mask watching from the roadside
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The Overseer's voice followed him through the layers:
"You were never supposed to remember the other attempts."
The Overseer Unmasked
The collapsing rig flung Adrian against the control room's observation window. Through the blood-smeared glass, he finally saw clearly:
The Overseer wasn't some alien monster.
It was Adrian at sixty years old.
His future self's body had been grotesquely modified—seven mechanical arms grafted where the Demon Lords' powers should be, eyes replaced with swirling black vortices, mouth stitched shut with silver wire. The VIII brand on his chest had been carved into a door-shaped wound leaking black fluid.
"Every time we resist," the future Adrian spoke directly into his mind, "they take more. By the end, you'll beg to become what I am."
He pressed a rusted button on the control panel. Somewhere deep below, the drill bit shrieked as it hit paydirt.
The Primordial Wound
What rose from the broken wellhead wasn't oil.
It was the first memory.
The original trauma that started everything:
A child's bedroom. A seven-sided mirror. And the thing that came through when young Adrian spoke the words "I'm not afraid of the dark" three times.
The Demon King wasn't summoned.
It was invited.
And now it clung to the drill pipe, a shapeless mass of childhood terror given form, whispering in the exact cadence Adrian's mother used when reading bedtime stories:
"Let me in. Just until morning. I'll be good this time."
The Eighth Choice
The VIII brand unfolded its final layer—revealing not instructions, but a question burned into Adrian's sternum:
WILL YOU REMEMBER OR FORGET?
As the primordial horror surged upward, as his future self's mechanical arms reached to embrace/throttle him, as the rig collapsed into the hungry sea—Adrian made his choice.
He reached into the Overseer's chest.
And tore out the still-beating heart of the original Omega.
It whispered a single word that made both the past and future scream:
"Octave."