The wind screamed past William's makeshift wings as he ascended, their luminescent edges flickering like candle flames against the eternal night. Below him, the battlefield shrank into a festering wound thralls still tearing through Magi, blood painting the crater in grotesque brushstrokes.
But the higher he rose, the heavier his body became.
The wings, shapeless and unstable, began to dissolve.
No.
He willed them to hold form, but the [Deception] wavered. These weren't true wings, just a child's desperate scribble given life. The right one split at the seam, unraveling into strands of light. The left spasmed, its amorphous edge flapping uselessly.
William plummeted.
Impact.
He crashed through the canopy of a dead forest, branches snapping like bones. When he finally slammed into the earth, the breath exploded from his lungs. For a moment, he lay there, staring at the sliver of distant sky between the skeletal trees.
Then the visions came.
William stood again in the chapel, but now the pews were filled. Not with people with corpses. Max sat in the front row, his leg whole, his face serene.
"You can't outrun it," Max said, though his lips didn't move. "The hunger, the guilt... it's in your bones now."
The stained-glass saints leaned down, their jagged mouths unhinging:
"KILLER."
"MONSTER."
"APOSTATE."
William clutched his head. "I didn't choose this!"
The Catalyst's voice slithered from the pulpit: [Correction: You did. You consumed. You survived. This is the consequence.]
Max's corpse stood, his skin peeling back to reveal the Wendigo's maw beneath. "Then stop pretending you want forgiveness."
William jolted upright, his throat raw. He wasn't in the forest anymore.
A cave. Low ceiling. The stench of wet stone and old blood.
And across from him, perched on a stalagmite like a vulture, sat Lex.
"Took you long enough," Lex said, spinning his knife. "You were muttering scripture. Cute."
Darius leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "We found you half-dead in the trees. Your wings " He gestured vaguely. "melted off. Like wax."
William touched his back. Torn fabric, but no wounds. His skin hummed where the wings had been, as if the memory of light still burned there.
Lex's grin was all teeth. "Guess flying's off the menu. So" He flipped the knife, catching it by the blade. "wanna tell us why you really ran?"
William met his gaze. The words tasted like ash:
"I saw God."