Sarah's POV
The mansion felt more oppressive with every step we took, as if it was drawing us closer to something—someone—waiting for us in the shadows. Axel's presence beside me was the only thing keeping me grounded. His grip on my hand was a reminder that I wasn't alone, no matter how twisted and wrong everything around us seemed.
We stopped in front of a grand set of double doors, their dark wood gleaming in the low light. The house seemed to hum with an energy I couldn't quite place, vibrating through the floor beneath us, the walls surrounding us. It was as though the very foundation of this place was alive, pulling us in.
"Sarah," Axel whispered, his voice low, filled with both fear and resolve, "We need to be careful. We don't know what's waiting behind those doors."
I nodded, though I wasn't sure I could be any more careful than I already was. The voice—Axel's distorted voice—had been growing louder, more insistent, leading us deeper into the mansion. And now we were at the very threshold of whatever nightmare lay ahead.
"Stay close," Axel added, stepping toward the doors.
Before we could open them, a sudden chill filled the air, colder than it had been before. I felt it immediately, a presence, something so dark and suffocating it made the air feel thick and impossible to breathe. I stopped, my heart racing. Axel sensed it too—his body stiffened beside me, and I saw his hand twitch at his side, as though he were reaching for something he couldn't quite find.
From the darkness beyond the door, I heard it—the soft scraping of something dragging across the floor, slow, deliberate, like claws against stone.
And then, I heard a voice. A voice that turned my blood to ice.
"Sarah..." it whispered, a low hiss filled with malice and yearning. "My Sarah."
I turned sharply, my gaze locked on Axel's. But it wasn't his voice. It wasn't his words. The sound echoed from the other side of the door, a voice so chillingly familiar it sent a shock of terror straight through me.
Axel's eyes widened as the whisper continued, low and haunting. "No. It can't be…"
I swallowed hard, trying to steady myself, but the words barely came. "Eren."
The door in front of us slammed open, a force so violent that it shook the mansion to its core. I stumbled back, but Axel caught me, pulling me against him as we both faced the figure standing in the doorway.
There, bathed in a dark, unnatural light, stood Eren. But this was not the man I had known—the man I had once loved. This figure before me was something entirely different. His eyes, once warm and full of love, now burned with an unnatural glow, flickering between red and gold. His face was gaunt, twisted by an energy so dark I could feel it pressing in from all sides, like it was seeping into my skin.
His skin was pale—too pale—and his body was no longer entirely human. There were patches of deep, cracked black veins that coursed across his arms and neck, pulsing like an infection, as though his body was fighting something inside him. But the most disturbing part of all—his eyes, those eyes that had once held love for me, now gleamed with a madness that made my stomach turn.
He wasn't fully human anymore.
He was something darker.
"You've come back to me, Sarah," he crooned, taking a slow step forward. His voice was laced with a kind of twisted affection, an obsession that sent a chill down my spine. "I knew you would. After everything, you can't stay away. You never could."
Axel stepped in front of me, his body tense, his fists clenched at his sides. "Get away from her, Eren," he growled, his voice filled with both anger and disbelief. "You're not him anymore. This... this thing you've become... it's not who you were."
Eren's lips twisted into a sadistic grin. "Who I was?" he echoed, his voice mocking. "Oh, Axel. You still don't get it, do you?" His gaze flicked to me, the madness behind his eyes intensifying. "She was mine first, you know. I was her husband. I loved her, and I still do. But now... now, I am something greater. Something you can't even begin to comprehend."
I stepped back, feeling a rush of panic rise within me. Eren wasn't just twisted by the rift; he had become something far more dangerous. Half-demon. Half-human. His body, no longer bound by the constraints of mere flesh, seemed to shimmer with an otherworldly power.
"You're not Eren," I whispered, my voice shaking. "You're a monster. What happened to you? What did the rift do to you?"
Eren's smile widened, and he tilted his head, as if amused by my words. "What happened to me? Oh, Sarah... the rift gave me everything. It broke me, yes, but it made me more than I ever was. And now I have all the power. The power to make you mine."
My heart skipped a beat as a low growl rumbled from his throat. The shadows behind him seemed to ripple and shift, forming into something else, something darker. His hands crackled with a dark energy that shot sparks of malevolent energy into the air. He wasn't just a man anymore. He was something unholy—something that had crossed into realms beyond human comprehension.
"Eren, no..." I breathed, stepping back, pulling Axel with me. "Please. This isn't you. This... this obsession you have with me—it isn't love. It's madness."
Eren's laughter echoed through the mansion, filling every corner with its bitter sound. "Madness?" he scoffed. "You think this is madness? This is clarity, Sarah. The rift showed me what I truly am. And what I truly am... is the one who will make you see that you belong to me. You always have."
My heart ached, torn between the love I had once felt for this man and the horror of what he had become. I wanted to reach out, to find the man I had married, the man I had promised my heart to, but the monster standing before me wasn't him anymore. Eren was gone. And what stood in his place was something unrecognizable.
Axel stepped forward, positioning himself between me and the half-demon. His eyes blazed with fury, a force of will so intense that I could feel it radiating from him. "Sarah belongs to no one," Axel spat, his voice like ice. "Not you. Not anyone."
Eren's eyes narrowed, his lips curling into a twisted sneer. "How cute," he sneered, eyes flicking to me. "You really think you can save her? You think you can take her from me?"
He raised his hands, and the energy around him crackled, thick and suffocating. A bolt of dark power shot out, aiming straight for Axel, but Axel was already moving, fast as a blur. He dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the blast of energy. The air shimmered where the blast had been, and I felt the intense pull of the dark magic that Eren now controlled.
"I will never let you have her, Eren," Axel snarled. "Not while I still have breath."
But Eren wasn't listening. His focus remained on me, as if the battle between him and Axel didn't matter. He stepped closer, his eyes flicking over me with a dark possessiveness. "You're afraid of me, aren't you, Sarah?" he purred. "You know that I've been changed. You can feel it. I can make you see things. I can make you remember."
I recoiled as the power in his voice gripped my chest. The air seemed to swirl with his dark energy, pressing in around me, suffocating. "Stop," I gasped. "Stop it. This isn't you. It can't be."
Eren's smile only grew wider, more malevolent. "You'll see, Sarah. You'll see what I've become. And then you'll know that we are meant to be together."
The darkness had already begun to close in, and the mansion, the very heart of this twisted world, seemed to pulse with anticipation.
And then, from the shadows behind us, a figure appeared.
Celeste.
Her gaze was steady. And thats when i realised: She had led us here, led us straight into the heart of the nightmare, and now, we would have to face what I had always feared.