Elliot's POV

"The Red Eclipse drowned my world into hell, where I've lost more than I ever could."

—Elliot Starfall

I vomit across the floor, hair sticking to my face. I swing an arm across the desk, sweeping papers, glass, anything—everything—to the ground.

"Eos…" Gene's voice cuts through the noise inside my head, his shape blurring.

I ignore him and drop to my knees, nails tearing into my thigh. I scrape until flesh peels and blood slicks my skin. No trousers. Just me and the raw edge of pain.

"Kill them all." Each breath hits like a heartbeat, too fast to count.

"Eos, you have to drink something."

I slap his hand away; the glass he's holding shatters, water bleeding into the cracks of the floor. My eyes twitch to my ever-healing leg—my skin moves. Crawling. Shifting.

They're coming for me. The maggots. They always come. They'll eat until there's nothing left.

"Eo—"

"Fuck off!"

I don't look at him while saying it, but when I finally turn, his face carries that look—grief mixed with pity. The kind of look that makes me want to tear it off. Like the god he once followed fell to earth and cracked open. He sees me mortal. I am.

My blood seeps out, Blue this time. It drips down in slow, wet lines. Not enough to kill me. Never enough. But warm enough to feel alive. My skin is drenched in violet, some marks Red, some Blue, and my skin closes only to open again. There is too much blood on my hands.

"Is he alright?" It's Paul—the boy who never talks.

"He'll be fine," Gene mutters, forcing calm that even he doesn't believe in.

"Then let me be!" I snap, spitting the words through gritted teeth. Gene shields the boy behind his arm.

Paul never spoke before. Now he does. Of course, now, when all I want is silence.

My fingers move to the other leg. Red and Blue mix like oil and fire.

"Kill them all," The voice isn't mine. Or maybe it is. Perhaps it always was.

My nail hooks into flesh. Something bursts—a maggot, thick and Red as a cherry tomato, writhing in the blood. Red and Blue spill out around it, glistening like two suns colliding. Within seconds, the skin closes again.

Laughing, I look up again, and Gene and Paul are gone. I didn't see them leave. Didn't hear the door.

"Kill them all," I say again, louder this time. The maggot on the floor splits. One becomes two. Then three.

My head jerks, twitching, my tongue shaping the words without thought. "Kill them all. Golden Reaper. Kill them all."

A hand tangles in my hair, pulling tight. I fall backward, weak, trembling. My limbs twitch.—my chest pounds. Everything burns, and my world swims in fever.

The chandelier light fractures across the ceiling, shards of gold cutting through the haze. Silhouettes move—one tall, one small. The world that once held light now glows red and black.

Ren.

No. Not Ren.

Cham.

Ren's gone.

Ren is dead.

Cham's voice drags me back. "Not all of them are your enemies. Why can't you stop killing them?"

His words sound far away, blurred, like someone speaking underwater.

"W—why can't you be normal again, E—Eos—"

"Kill them all," I whisper, cutting through him. The words pour out like blood from an open vein.

My eyes sting. My face is wet, and I don't know whose tears they are—his or mine.

Cham keeps talking, but his words fade before they reach me. They sound like guilt, like sorrow, like something that used to be love. But all I can hear is the echo.

"Kill them all."

And the world turns scarlet. Then black.

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