Jason's breath came in shallow gasps as he knelt in front of the shadow of his mother, the abyss swirling around him, pulling at his very soul. Her hollow eyes stared into his, an expression of sorrow and understanding, as if she knew exactly what he was feeling—knew the weight of the years of grief and guilt that had followed him since her death.
"You never stopped blaming yourself, did you?" Her voice was soft, almost a whisper in the thick, oppressive air. "For not being there. For not being able to save me."
Jason's hands trembled as he reached out to her, but the closer he got, the further she seemed to drift away, fading into the growing darkness. "I didn't—" he began, but his words died in his throat, choked by the overwhelming emotions rising within him.
The darkness shifted around him, the air growing colder, heavier. It was as if the very place itself was feeding off his despair. His hands clenched into fists, his knuckles white with tension.
"Why?" he asked, his voice breaking. "Why are you here? Why now?"
The woman's expression softened, though it was not a comfort. "Because the truth you seek is not in the past, Jason. It's in what you choose to do next."
A sudden, sharp pain coursed through his chest, and Jason gasped, looking down. His heart felt like it was being ripped from his body, each beat echoing like a drum of doom. His vision blurred, and the vortex around him seemed to tighten, pulling him in deeper, the edges of his reality warping and crumbling.
He was no longer on solid ground. The abyss was consuming him.
"What do you mean?" he choked out, struggling to keep himself together, fighting against the overwhelming darkness. "What choice do I have left? I've lost everything already."
The woman's face remained impassive. "The choice is yours, Jason. You can let this place consume you, drown you in your own regret, or you can rise above it. The truth you seek is not something that can be given. It must be earned."
Jason looked down at his hands, the blood draining from his face. He could see the reflection of his own desperation in them—the years of running, the constant fleeing from the very truths that had shaped his life. He could feel the abyss tightening its grip on him, threatening to swallow him whole.
"Is this how it ends?" he whispered. "Trapped forever in the past? In regret? In fear?"
The darkness around him shifted again, this time revealing images—flickering visions of the choices he had made throughout his life. Moments of fear, of weakness, of running away from the very truths he feared. Faces from his past flashed before his eyes—friends, enemies, people he had betrayed, people who had betrayed him, all blurred together in a mosaic of pain and uncertainty.
A voice rang out from the shadows, deeper than the one that had spoken before. "The truth is never simple, Jason. It's a reflection of your choices. What will you choose?"
Jason closed his eyes, trying to focus, to center himself. The chaos around him, the weight of his past, seemed to close in on him, suffocating him. But through the suffocating darkness, something shifted inside him.
A moment of clarity.
The weight on his chest lifted as he began to remember something—the words Finn had said to him earlier, when they had first entered the abyss. "The truth doesn't need to be guided. It comes for you, whether you want it or not."
Jason's breath steadied as he stood, forcing himself to his feet, even as the abyss seemed to fight him, trying to pull him back down.
"I choose to face it," he said, his voice firm, though his body trembled with the effort.
The darkness around him recoiled, as though it had been struck by lightning. The air shifted, and the vortex before him began to shrink, its pull weakening as Jason took another step forward.
"You think you can escape?" the woman's voice called out, fading as he moved. "The truth is never far behind. But if you can face it... you will have your answer."
Jason did not turn back. The air cleared around him, the shadows slowly retreating as he stepped forward, the weight of the abyss lifting with every stride.
His heart hammered in his chest, but this time, it wasn't fear that propelled him. It was determination.
The truth he had been running from was no longer a burden—it was a part of him, woven into the very fabric of who he was. The choices he had made, the regrets he had carried, the mistakes that haunted him—they didn't define him. It was what he did now, in this moment, that would.
With every step he took, the world around him changed. The vortex faded, the darkness lifting, until he was standing once more in the shifting sands. The world seemed clearer, brighter, as though something had been lifted from his soul.
Finn stood a few paces away, watching him silently.
"You chose," Finn said, his voice calm but with an underlying respect. "Most people never do."
Jason nodded slowly, the weight of the abyss still lingering in the back of his mind, but now, it was a part of him that he could control. He had chosen to face the truth—and in doing so, he had found the strength to move beyond it.
But as he looked out at the horizon, he knew that the journey was far from over.
The truth was just the beginning.