Chapter One Hundred Four

B RITTANY WAS FROZEN with fear , to a level she'd never experienced before. She felt sick and in pain and overwhelmed, and nothing made sense. She couldn't see through the tears that flowed from her eyes uncontrollably. Blood ran from her ears and her nose. Her head pounded.

SaVimb Luthopgo had come. His mere presence was warping reality. Power emanated from the entity in waves.

Jack was worse off than Brittany. While she had dropped to her knees and accepted her fate, Jack stood for a moment, then started running. Not in a straight line though; he kept turning randomly, making strange patterns in the slick sand. Various bodily fluids ran from him, and he screamed until his vocal chords gave out. Even then, he didn't stop so much as went quiet.

The last sane bit of Brittany's mind held strong, detached. Watching. Absorbing the situation around her, enjoying to a very minor extent, the uniqueness of it all. Only one other person was going to have experienced this moment, and that person was insane. Or very quickly would be.

SaVimb Luthopgo towered over them, but seemed to move almost silently, as if the sands parted to let the entity move through them. She leaned back, looking through teary eyes at this thing that reached far into the skies. So big that there were other creatures, seemingly sentient, moving around him. Living on him. There were entire civilizations built by the parasites of this being. And he was here, right in front of them, paying attention to Brittany and Jack.

That attention, focused as it was, was nearly unbearable. Brittany's shell of protection faltered. She was about to crack.

SaVimb lifted one of uncountable appendages into the air, ready to smash it down and destroy the irritants in front of him.

Brittany took a deep breath of acceptance, ready to meet her fate.

Just then something grabbed her shirt, making her collar bite in to her neck. That something yanked hard, pulling with enough force to lift her backwards off her feet.

And then she felt cold.

The pain was, for the most part gone. That feeling of focus, the waves of power, it all disappeared in an instant. She was back in the basement, looking at Bo.

"Welcome back," he said with a smile. He chucked a book through the vortex, and then hit someone in the face with the butt of the shotgun.

Brittany wheezed, trying to get out a thank you. But every last bit of fortitude she possessed rushed out of her now that she was safe. She drifted into a peaceful darkness.