The lights flickered on and off in the subway. Shadows danced along the graffitied walls, swallowing the corners in darkness.
“I guess I’m here again,” Neila muttered under his breath, clenching his fists as his voice echoed faintly in the empty station. “I can’t believe that I died.”
The subway car ahead of him was abandoned except for one figure, a spitting image of himself. His double sat on a plastic bench with legs crossed, hands resting casually on his knees, staring directly at him. The man’s hair was entirely black, and his eyes were darker still, voids that seemed to devour every flicker of light in the station.
“Time is like a train, don’t you think?” the double said, his voice smooth yet weighted with an otherworldly resonance. “It keeps moving, rushing forward endlessly, until someone with the power to stop it does so. And the train conductor, my dear Neila, is you. You, who houses my power inside you.”
The double rose to his feet, his movements fluid and deliberate, as if he existed on a different plane. A green light flickered, illuminating his face, his black eyes shifting into a piercing, shining blue. They were crystalline, like shards of the sky stolen from above.
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“Your body,” the double continued, tilting his head, his tone dripping with mockery. “It’s so fragile, like a vase teetering on the edge of a table. You’re weak, barely hanging on. Tell me, boy, how do you think you’re going to defeat Erebus?”
Neila gritted his teeth, his crimson eyes narrowing as he shot back, “Shut up. I’ll manage somehow.”
The double’s smile widened, revealing teeth far too sharp. “Sure you will. The Hero is going to do everything, right? And what about you, Neila? What can you do? Crawl? Pick up the pieces she leaves behind?”
The words stung, but Neila refused to give him the satisfaction of a reaction. He turned on his heel and began walking down the platform, the flickering lights dimming further with every step. He felt the oppressive weight of his double’s presence behind him, but he refused to look back.
In a blink, the double was upon him. Cold hands clamped down on Neila’s shoulders, yanking him backward. Neila stumbled, his breath hitching as he was forced to meet those unnervingly blue eyes. The man loomed over him, his pearl-white hair gleaming in the faint light.
“Erebus brings darkness wherever he goes,” the double whispered, his voice like velvet laced with menace. “As long as light exists, so will darkness. He is everywhere and nowhere at once, a force you cannot defeat, an entity you will never rid yourself of.”
Neila’s chest tightened, but he forced himself to steady his voice. “Are you bringing me back or not?”
The double’s laughter echoed in the empty station. “Hell no. Let me show you what I just learned.”
Before Neila could react, the world twisted. A cascade of visions flooded his mind, his own deaths, each more grotesque than the last. Every timeline, every choice, every failure played out vividly in his head. Thousands of lifetimes, thousands of ends. And Neila was forced to endure them all.